CUSTOMERS LINED UP TO BUY BATTERIES, CANDLES AND HURRICANE LAMPS AT COAST DO IT BEST HARDWARE ON TUESDAY EVENING. BY 6 P.M., MOST ALL OF THE STORE’S CANDLES WERE GONE, AS MARIPOSA COUNTY WAS IN THE DARK. COAST STAYED OPEN TO HELP PEOPLE GET WHAT THEY NEEDED, AND THE STORE WAS POWERED BY A GENERATOR. GAZETTE PHOTO BY JILL BALLINGER When the lights went out on Tuesday afternoon there wasn’t any flickering or surging, as is often the case with storm-related power outages. The power just went off, and stayed that way for all of Mariposa County throughout the eveing and well into the night for some customers.

The power outage was reported about 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday. PG&E spokesperson Nicole Liebelt said that 9,980 customers in Mariposa County were affected. That is, in effect, everyone. Liebelt said PG&E could not re-route power to Mariposa County. “There is no opportunity to back feed customers,” she said, likening the process to a detour on a road way. She said the problem is Mariposa County’s rural nature.

ITEMS LIKE BATTERIES AND BATTERY-OPERATED LIGHTS WERE IN HIGH DEMAND DURING THE COUNTY’S MORE THAN SEVEN-HOUR POWER OUTAGE ON TUESDAY NIGHT. GAZETTE PHOTO BY JILL BALLINGER Liebelt said the problem was “open jumpers” or breaks in the transmission line. She explained that these occurences are similar to a water main break that disrupts the flow.

A local PG&E employee, however, told customers in the Mariposa office that the problem was coming from Exechequer Dam, where the main line to Mariposa County originates. Liebelt said the outage was in three locations: Bear Valley, Mariposa and Indian Flat. She did say, however, that she was not familiar with the county’s geography. There are substations at each of the abovementioned locations.

“This is not a situation related specifically to Exechequer,” Liebelt said on Wednesday morning. “Everyone has been restored.” Most customers had power just before midnight on Tuesday. About 500 customers in the Bear Valley area didn’t get electricity until about 4 a.m. Wednesday.

There has been information circulating that PG&E is doing major work on the Exchequer site, rendering the “back feed” to Mariposa County unusable. PG&E would not confirm this information.

Nearly every business in Mariposa County was affected by the outage. Only three downtown businesses were lit by 6 p.m. The Charles Street Dinner House had customers seated, and Coast Do It Best hardware was doing brisk business. The generator at Coast kept the registers ringing, and customers were buying up all manner of candles, batteries and oil lamps.

In fact, Pizza Factory employees were busy buying supplies at Coast to keep their doors open, too, even if by candlelight. There were no fewer than eight cars parked near the taco truck in the old Frost Shop location.

Yosemite National Park was also in the dark, but upgrades to the Park’s electrical system in the 1990s make things a little more bearable for guests. Mariposa County Supervisor and former Deputy Superintenent in Yosemite Kevin Cann said the Park spent some $50 million in the 1990s on the electrical grid, including back-up generators. He also said that most Yosemite Valley businesses and lodging establishment have some sort of back-up system in place to minimize effects to guests.