By Maria Verissimo

Thousands of residents and businesses in the Richmond and Sunset districts were left without power for days on the weekend before Christmas.

After the outages greatly disrupted the local economy, many westside politicians and business owners are now criticizing the utility and demanding adequate compensation and solutions.

A massive power outage impacted San Francisco on Dec. 20, 2025, affecting roughly 130,000 PG&E customers, leaving a third of the City without power.

According to media reports, the outage was caused in part by a fire at PG&E’s Mission and Eighth Street substation in the South of Market neighborhood.

Despite the distance from the incident, widespread outages affected the Richmond and Sunset districts throughout the weekend. According to media reports, 13,000 PG&E customers were still without power on Dec. 21, 2025, and many were warned by officials that power would only be restored by Dec. 22, 2025.

PG&E relied on diesel generators stationed at 24th Avenue and Balboa Street to maintain electricity in parts of the Richmond District.

Many residents who live close to the generators reported loud noise and were impacted by the fumes.

It was reported that, at times, the noise was as loud as 70 and 85 decibels inside resident’s homes, which is loud enough to be considered unsafe after eight hours of exposure.

PG&E offered residents hotel accommodation and $200 per day for food, as well as expedited claims processing for those who chose not to relocate.

The generators were removed on Dec. 28, 2025, a PG&E spokesperson confirmed.

Planned outages impacted the region as late as Jan. 20.

In response to the outage, PG&E has offered $200 in credits for residential customers and $2,500 for businesses. Businesses with losses over $2,500 may file additional claims for compensation beyond the bill credit.

However, many business owners claim that this offering does not adequately meet their expenses as a resut of the outages.

“Our losses are much more than $2,500,” said Sean Kim, the co-owner of Joe’s Ice Cream and vice president of the Geary Boulevard Merchants Association.

The outage was only the beginning of the challenge. Kim now faces the complex process of submitting claims and requesting reimbursements for the losses his business suffered.

Businesses seeking compensation for outage-related losses must provide PG&E with documentation of their inventory and financial losses.

“It is an unnecessary amount of details that they’re asking for,” Kim said. “That discourages some merchants from submitting.

“The City Health Department says that if the refrigerator, freezer don’t work, we need to discard the food,” Kim said. “That’s the huge issue. That’s inventory.”

According to the City’s “Food Safety Guidelines for Retail Establishments Before, During and After a Power Outage,” merchants need to discard any inventory that has exceeded the recommended safe storage times: four hours for refrigerated items or 24-48 hours for freezer items, depending on fullness.

“The refrigerator and freezer have hundreds of items. Which means that in order to prove my losses, I have to take pictures or provide the invoices,” Kim said. “But we are only allowed to upload five files.

“PG&E is not offering a special link to the businesses that were affected. They are using their routine template for this emergency,” Kim said. “You should change the template, it doesn’t fit this kind of situation.

“We don’t use all the inventory in one day,” Kim said. “It is supposed to last for another day or even a week.”

Kim also expressed frustration with PG&E’s classification system for credits, which currently separates customers into residential and business categories. He argued that the distinctions should instead be residential, non-food businesses and food-related businesses.

“For food businesses, this is a huge disaster as they don’t separate the issues,” Kim said. “It shows PG&E’s lack of understanding of small businesses.

“They probably thought that $2,500 is enough for most of the non-food businesses, however, is way short for the food division,” Kim said.

For many merchants, the outage was especially disruptive because it occurred during the peak holiday shopping season.

“We need to collect a lot of data for unused inventory,” Kim said. “So, they ask for the potential revenue. We can use the week before, but we get busier during the holiday season.

“They keep giving us more questions, more homework,” he said. “Why don’t you provide instructions and guidelines?”

At meetings on Jan. 9 and 16 at the Community Youth Center, organized by District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, PG&E representatives met directly with local merchants to discuss the outage and its impacts.

In addition to merchants’ accounts, PG&E provided further details on the outage, including its cause and restoration efforts.

Regarding the cause of the outage, PG&E stated that the ultimate root cause of the circuit breaker failure is under investigation. 

“We’ve engaged an independent third party, Exponent, to complete the investigation of the incident. All preventative maintenance was completed at Mission Substation consistent with PG&E’s plans, with the most recent maintenance occurring at the station in October 2025 and a bi-monthly inspection completed on Dec. 5, 2025,” according to the utility.

“PG&E is committed to adhering to compliance standards, taking immediate corrective actions when issues arise and operating in a manner that prioritizes public and coworker safety,” the utility said. “While we are proud of the more than three years without a major wildfire caused by our equipment, we are focused on being safe and reliable every day across all of our operations. We have invested more than $700 million in San Francisco substations over the last 20 years, including rebuilding and upgrading a majority of Mission Substation in 2010.”

As for losses, PG&E states that it has solved most of the filed claims.

“Claims filed with PG&E generally take about 30 days to resolve, and we are actively working to expedite the process,” PG&E said in a statement. “To date, approximately 2,439 claims have been filed, reflecting a significant increase in volume. Despite this, approximately 72% have been resolved within 13 days. Approximately 3% have been denied, most of those determined to be not impacted by the substation outage.

“We recognize the impact of the outage, and we apologize for the disruption and frustration this has caused, especially during the holiday season. We know this outage caused significant hardship, especially for those who were without power for extended periods. Based on feedback from our customers, we have added in-language claims information online for business customers in Chinese, Spanish and English specifically for the Dec. 20 Mission Substation outage.”

In the Sunset, District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong also provided a statement on the outage and its effects on local residents and businesses.

“I pressed PG&E to commit to stronger notice, proactive bilingual communication and on-the-ground support so residents are not left in the dark during outages,” Wong said. “My office has coordinated direct, in-person outreach at senior centers and community sites to ensure residents know what support is available and how to access it.

“Beyond immediate response, I am pushing for stronger coordination between PG&E and city agencies to ensure emergency preparedness plans specifically account for residents who rely on electricity for medical or essential needs,” Wong said. “This includes better identification of vulnerable residents, clearer response protocols during outages and accountability for communication failures.”

Wong also described his efforts to connect PG&E with residents and businesses in the Sunset District.

“I led PG&E to conduct the first in-person merchant walk anywhere in the City in the Sunset District on Jan. 9, bringing bilingual staff directly to affected businesses to provide hands-on claims assistance,” Wong said. “This approach ensured that business owners could speak face to face with PG&E representatives, receive direct help submitting claims, and have their losses taken seriously.”

PG&E returned to the Sunset on Jan. 30 to provide “direct support to both merchants and residents,” Wong said.

“I also raised these concerns directly with PG&E leadership, including in a meeting with the company’s CEO. I made clear that automatic credits are insufficient and that claims support must reflect actual losses. As a result, PG&E committed to improve on-the-ground claims assistance, clearer guidance and greater flexibility in how claims are reviewed,” Wong said.

Chan has introduced two new pieces of legislation that would hold the utility accountable.