And we have elevated fire danger a red flag warning for high fire danger goes into effect at 10 00 tonight. That will be in effect until 8 00 wednesday morning for all the hills and mountains of the bay area. Wind gusts will bring drier air, warmer air to the bay area, flowing offshore. And as a result of that, that raises the fire danger. And a wind advisory will be in effect from 5 00 a. M. Tomorrow to 11 00 p. M. Tomorrow. That will be mainly for the Higher Elevations of the north bay with wind gusts ranging from 45 to 65 Miles Per Hour. You can see how the wind gusts will pick up overnight tonight and continue through much of the day tomorrow before they start to i taer off a little bit. With all that, we still have really poor air quality. The next two days will be spare the air days, giving us a string of 23 consecutive spare the air days. And we cant even be serve yet that air quality will improve by thursday. Poor air will be with us tomorrow and wednesday. Thank you, spencer. In the trivalley, people tried to stay cool while being stuck inside because of kavanaugcove. At the same time, they tried to save energy to avoid blackouts. Twice theyve said its leaking. Theyve come out to fix it three times. Reporter nick says his air conditioner has been broken for the past week. Theyre trying to get it replaced, but its bad timing with this triple digit heat in livermore. My wife is a teacher, she teaches from home. My kids are homeschooling and its an absolute mess. How do you keep cool in this heat . I noticed the pool behind me was finally open. Reporter brian, who lives in an kparmt complex in livermore, says he was glad to see the pool being used. He said its been closed all summer. Id say they were probably left with no options. With the rolling blackouts coming up, im sure they had to do something. Reporter as temperatures climb close to 110, vanessa got an early start taking her dog to a dog park this morning. Decided to take my dog, bedo, to the dog park as early as possible and spend as much time as possible before it really gets hot and we cant go anywhere. Reporter she knows it will be tough to stay inside due to covid19 and to limit the use of the airconditioning in an effort to do her part to prevent rotating blackouts. Early in the morning to 3 00 p. M. , and then i shut it off at 3 00 p. M. So that we dont have any blackouts. Reporter pg e Officials Say californians conserved enough energy on sunday to help keep the lights on. Pg e is asking customers to do the same again today. Dont run those major appliances, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, the vacuum cleaner, until after 9 00 p. M. Or before 3 00 p. M. Ancer husba anser hassan. A first alert forecast alert is in today asking everyone to conserve energy. Californias independent system operator is tracking the demand on the states power grid. The teal bar shows whats being used. This heat wave is putting the worst strain on the grid in nearly a decade. Conservation is always going to help us get by and protect for any other transmission or generation outages we may experience. The flex alert runs through 9 00 tonight. Happening now, pg e is about to provide a live update on the possibility of a power shutoff which could affect parts of napa and sonoma counties over the next two days. You can see they are about to hold this News Conference. We will take a listen in. Were not live quite yet. Want to thank you again for joining and know this is the first time were doing this in a remote posture, so we appreciate your patience. Sounds like they are just getting started. Okay. Were going to get back to that in just a moment. Hopefully they get things up and running. Pg e says the power might be turned off in the areas highlighted on this map. It could affect about 18,000 customers in Sonoma County and about 5,000 customers in napa county. The possibility much a power shutoff continues over the next two days. While we wait for the pg e press conference, well move on. A lot of people are trying to beat the heat and enjoy this holiday. In smoem counonoma county, they labor day visitors please stay away from the Russian River. As Wayne Freedman found out, they didnt listen. Reporter if youre in threefigure heat and plan to slash in the Russian River, best to bring provisions of them. Youwelcome back to mont rio day three of the weekend that local officials asked people to stay away. Clearly that didnt work. Staying all day today. Reporter and yet were told that what you see here today is nothing compared with the crowds here yesterday. We were so crowded yesterday from this stop sign right here, it was bumper to bumper across the bridge and down the road a mile and a half. Reporter today monte around for the inevitable crowds to materialize. Th them being here doesnt bother him. What they dont do does. I dont see that many masks out here. I dont see social distancing. Just a friendly flotilla. Marco ramirez came here with his entire family. Anyone else, he said, stay away. Were already together with the family as it is, so we know we dont go out with other people. Anything that were within six feet, got to have the mask on. Reporter which we found to not be the case with some people in downtown guerneville. When you already have a reservation before the county tells you to stay away, you come anyway. Weve had this trip planned. Weve been going stir kriz. Reporter for local business owners, this was a predictable mixed blessing a week after being evacuated because of the walbridge fire, david didnt have time to sit down today. Fortunately weve had a great, great weekend, which was much needed after being closed for another ten days again this year. Reporter and visitors got a great getaway after being cooped up even longer. Lets hope thats the last we hear of it. From the Russian River valley, Wayne Freedman, abc7 news. Continuing today, we saw many historic lets get right to that pg e press conference on the possibility of Public Safety power shutoffs. The continued hot and dry weather is going to continue to dry out vegetation across california and make that vegetation susceptible to large fires. There is also a strong weather system now dropping south through idaho, and its expected to pass just east of california tonight through wednesday and set the stage for diablo and santa ana winds to develop across california. The diablo wind event is expected to start near midnight tonight and continue through wednesday morning in some areas. The main focus areas of the winds that were tracking are expected to be in the southern cascades, the northern and central sierra nevada, and then some peaks and ridges in the bay area, primarily focused in the north bay. And other locations around the territory and the elevated terrain will be quite breezy as well. We are also expecting strong winds in the elevated terrain in southern kern county as a santa ana wind sets up and develops across southern california. Unfortunately this wind event is occurring on the heels of the current heat wave and will produce critical fire potential conditions due to that combination of those strong winds, the very low relative humidities expected with the winds, and the dry vegetation i spoke of earlier. In order to prepare for this event, the Meteorology Team within pg e uses the best available Global Weather models, High Resolution models available out there, as well as our inhouse High Resolution weather model. That is capable of two kilometer and sub kilometer model resolution. And one notable trend that id like to mention is that all the weather models that were tracking as we head closer and closer to this event have trended stronger over the past 24 hours. And as we know, psps events are highly dependent on the weather, particularly wind speeds and other forecast information we use for this event. So for the past week, we have been collaborating with other meteorologists across the state of california, notably the National Weather service and other federal forecast agencies on the upcoming period of risk to verify that this is a risk period to be concerned with. And essentially all forecast agencies that we talked to are aligned that this will be a significant event. The National Weather service has issued red flag warnings for most of Northern California that are going to begin to go into effect this evening. They also indicate peak wind gusts with this event could be near 50 Miles Per Hour in many areas in that kind of sierra footprint i mentioned as well as elevated peaks and ridges north bay and elsewhere. But some local areas could see higher gusts than that. Thats quite possible in an event like this. And then other federal forecast agencies that we talked to such as the northern and southern Geographic AreaCoordination Center and the Noaa Storm Prediction Center are also forecasting a highrisk event tonight through wednesday morning. So there is alignment across agencies that this is a highrisk event. You know, i want to touch on a few areas where weve made some improvements this year over last year. The first is that we partnered with some external experts to develop a new High Resolution model that provides more than twice the Spatial Resolution this year compared to last year. So were using that data to better pinpoint where the winds are going to materialize. And then we also use Cloud Computing resources to not only run but then postprocess that weather data because it is quite massive in size, and we process several weather models that i mentioned earlier in that cloud environment. Then the last thing ill leave you with is weve also installed 246 weather stations in highrisk areas so far this year. So that brings our total network up to 846 weather stations that we have. That helps us monitor the wind event in real time and provide that critical intel when its safe to begin that restoration process. Well be tracking that closely 24 7 throughout this event. And so all that information, that weather station information, is publicly available as well, and so you can find it online. So with that, id like to conclude the weather briefing and turn it back over to you, lindsay. Thanks very much. So just to recap, we have a red flag warning. We have extremely dry fuel on the ground, and we have diablo winds coming in. So this is a very highrisk event that you described for us. Thats correct. And as you can see on the slide, red flag warnings posted for most of california with this event. Okay. Thanks, scott. Okay. Lets get an operational briefing now from our incident commander. Hello, everybody. Good evening. My name is mark quinlan and im the incident commander. Im here to provide an operational briefing based on the weather intelligence that scott just covered with the team. Ill begin by stating that we activated our Emergency Operations center before the weekend in anticipation for this weather threat. Scott covered all of the attributes about the weather and just how dangerous the conditions are. Once the eoc, or the Emergency Operations center, activates, we pivot and immediately move into attempting to understand the overall impact to customers. We do that by using the weather data that the Meteorology Team provides to the operational groups, and we attempt, to the best of our ability, to define the scope of the event. The slide that were looking at right now, the highlighted portions of our Service Territory represent what we believe to be the highest areas of fire danger beginning right around midnight tonight into tomorrow morning. You can see theyre grouped into three general clusters. The majority of the risk on the pg e Service Territory is in the northern part of our Service Territory. Theres a very small area noted by the number 3 on the bottom of the slide. Thats kern county. But the majority of the impact is really in the sierra foothills, including all the counties and the tribal areas that you can see listed on the slide. If you look at how these groups are all put together, roughly 172,000 customers are in scope for a Public Safety power shutoff, and we dont take that decision lightly. We understand the impact on our customers and our communities. Weve been working very hard all year, learning from last years psps events and making improvements. Scott mentioned a few on the weather front. Weve made some operational improvements as well. And we believe that these three areas of scope are very high risk for fire conditions, and as such, we intend to execute the Public Safety power shutoffs in this area. With respect to when we believe these events are going to start, they all vary slightly, and theyre really tied to the weather. Weather conditions, as you know, can change. What we do in our current operational posture is constantly monitor the weather, and we changed our operational posture with the weather as it changes. But as of this briefing, we believe that the majority of the shutoffs need to occur just prior to midnight for the majority of the areas. Youll see area 1 thats listed here on the slide actually begins a little earlier than that. And thats all based on when the unsafe weather conditions are anticipated to be in the area. And we need to start our shutoff execution earlier than that to ensure that when the unsafe conditions are present, our system is shuto off and its ina safe posture. Thats the whole intent of the program. You can see area 1 starting at about 9 00 p. M. This evening, and we anticipate restoration of everything after we monitor and determine that the weather conditions are safe. We anticipate having everyone on by end of day on wednesday, september 9th. Area 2, a little bit later start, midnight. Again, estimated restoration time, end of day wednesday. And then for kern county, the event starts a little later as you can see. Its part of that santa ana wind event thats occurring in the Southern Area of the Service Territory. So as such, the customers in kern county, the shutoff time will begin a little later, and we still believe well have everybody back restored by the time stated, end of day on wednesday. So if we transition to the next slide, we talked a little bit about phases that were doing to mitigate the impacts of Public Safety power shutoffs. I want to start in the upper righthand side of the slide, so 200 grid sectionalizing devices are in use right now to make those geographic footprints as small as they can be. We look at the weather risk. We attempt to do everything that we can in our power to reduce that scope to just the area of risk so that were not interrupting and turning people off that exist outside of that danger zone. So those are all in play this evening. Five micro grids and substations have been utilized to provide temporary generation and islands capability. If you look at those microgrids, these are areas that are set up to protect main street, the local city or town may be surrounded by extreme fire danger, but the actual main point of commerce, gas stations, stores, resources, weve configured microgrids to be abl while we shut off the infrastructure that traverses through the dangerous terrain. That equates to roughly 69,000 customers who have avoided an interruption off of the 172,000. An easier way to think about this so thats the word from pg e, and theyre looking at the possibility of shutting off power to as many as 172,000 customers. 18,000 in Sonoma County. About 5,000 in napa county. And then if you look east to the sierra foothills, that would be the balance of the 172,000. And because of the high winds that are anticipated, the pg e meteorologist basically confirmed what spencer told us at the top of this newscast. Extremely high winds starting tonight, lasting until wednesday morning. And were talking about 20 to 30 miles an hour with gusts up to 50 miles an hour. And so the power shutoffs, they dont want trees toppling down, knocking over power lines and starting extreme fires. So look for this possibility starting tonight through wednesday morning. And were streaming the rest of this News Conference with pg e online at abc7news. Com. Because of the pandemic, the workplace is changing. Working from home might mean working from another state. So i came with an open mind but still thinking, this is probably not going to work out. She moved from San Francisco to tulsa, oklahoma. Its a place thats paying bay area tech workers to relocate. Im dan noise. Im dan noise. A south bay church is rush to work, grab a drink, hurry home. [cell phone beeps] stop dont be on your phone. Let someone else take the wheel. Make a little eye contact. Make a plan. Its a busy world out there. Were all in it together. Go safely, california. Everybody felt fine. But now im super sick. Everyone is sick. I just wish we had been more careful. It would have been easier than this. So wear a mask. Do what you can outside. Stay six feet apart. Because some things you just cant take back. Do your part to lower the risk. The 6. 99 super slam is your perfect meal, its buttermilk pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns. Its enough breakfast for dinner and its as good as it sounds. See you at denns. My only job is to take great care of my patients. . And its as good as it sounds. Im empowered to do whats right for you. Our digital records mean your medical history is in one place, so i can give you great care. Your primary care doctor, your specialists. Its great we all Work Together as one team. Our integrated approach to health care helps my patients live longer, he