Work on new housing developments to disrupt power in Northwest Fresno

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- For nine hours, hundreds of homes in Northwest Fresno will be pitch black. Starting at 9 p.m. Thursday until 6 a.m. Friday, Pacific Gas and Electric customers in the Herndon and Hayes area won't have power.

"There's one group of about 180 customers that will be affected just when the outage begins and ends, and then there's almost 600 homes that will be affected overnight," said PG&E spokesperson Denny Boyles.

Boyles says the massive outage is so crews can connect electricity to two new housing developments. "It's primarily residential, so the hope is that we can minimize the impact by doing the work overnight," he said.

But even overnight, neighbor Eddie Surrency says it'll be tough to live in complete darkness. "Definitely an inconvenience because of alarm clocks and everything else; you have to kind of plan accordingly," he said.

For several months now, neighbors near Herndon and Hayes have been waking to the melodies of construction. It's part of a recent expansion of homes and businesses in Northwest Fresno.

But it will be worth it for Surrency when this is full of dozens of new homes. "All around it's been an inconvenience, but I know it'll be over shortly hopefully. But you definitely have to adjust your schedules and kind of go with the flow," he said

PG&E sent out letters to all customers who will be cut off this Thursday. Boyles says they'll also be calling everyone just before the outage.