California storm leaves over 120,000 still without power

[January 09, 2023]  (Reuters) - More than 120,000 homes and businesses were still without power in California early on Monday, according to data from PowerOutage.us, after a massive storm last week that disrupted road travel with flash floods, rock slides and toppled trees.

A tree blocks a roadway after it fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo

At least 12 fatalities have been reported from weather-related incidents in California in the past 10 days, Governor Gavin Newsom told a news conference.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service warned that northern and central California were still in the path of a "relentless parade of cyclones", promising little relief for the region until the middle of the week.

In the last week, severe weather spawned violent wind gusts that toppled trucks, flooded the streets of small towns along northern California's coast and churned up a storm surge that destroyed a pier in Santa Cruz.

According to PowerOutage.us, the utility with the most outages was Pacific Gas and Electric Co (PG&E) with over 73,000 customers without power, followed by Sacramento Municipal Utility District at 50,000.

PG&E is a unit of California energy company PG&E Corp.

"More than 4,100 crews along with resources are staged throughout our service area, including regions most impacted by the storms," PG&E said on its website on Sunday.

(Reporting by Rahul Paswan and Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; editing by David Evans)

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