A major power outage hit San Francisco, leaving 130,000 PG&E customers or roughly 30% of the city blanketed in darkness on a rainy Saturday amid the busy holiday season.

The outage started in the morning, but a fire that broke out inside a PG&E power substation around 2:15 p.m. in the Mission district played a role in the blackouts, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. The fire was under control by 4:24 p.m. and the cause of the blaze is still unknown.

"I'm comfortable saying it's a contributing factor to the power outages, but I don't know if that's the entire reason as to why," said SFFD Lt. Mariano Elias.

PG&E couldn't immediately be reached. The utility hasn't said publicly what caused the massive outage.

The outage disrupted public transportation including BART trains. BART said on social media site X just after 3 p.m. that the stations at Powell Street and Civic Center were closed because of the outage and that trains in San Francisco were experiencing a 10-minute delay.

The Muni and Central Subway systems were not running.

The large outage comes as more rainy weather is expected to hit San Francisco and then move toward Los Angeles ahead of the holidays.

On social media, people in San Francisco posted about businesses losing power, getting stuck in traffic, and self-driving Waymo vehicles apparently stalled at dark intersections.

PG&E posted on X it's working with city responders and officials on the issue. Power could be restored later tonight, PG&E posted on X.

"We have stabilized the grid and are not expecting additional customer outages at this time," the utility said.

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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a video posted on social media that city officials are working with PG&E to restore power. "What I'm asking everybody to do is to be safe out in the roads. A lot of lights are out. We are going to continue to keep you posted," Lurie said in the video.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management posted a map showing the outage heavily impacted the west side of the city. The affected areas include Richmond, Sunset, Presidio and Golden Gate Park.

The agency said on X people in the city should avoid nonessential travel; only call 911 for life threatening emergencies rather than reporting power outages; turn off major appliances to prevent surges in electricity; keep fridges and freezers closed and treat traffic signals that go dark as four-way stops. The department also cautioned people from using gas stoves, grills and generators indoors because power outages can increase the risks of carbon monoxide exposure.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Multiple San Francisco neighborhoods were affected by a power outage on Saturday afternoon, according to PG&E's website.

A massive outage knocked out power to 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco on Saturday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said.

The power failure left a large swath of the northern part of the city in the dark, beginning with the Richmond and Presidio neighborhoods and areas around Golden Gate Park in the early afternoon and growing in size.

PG&E did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cause of the blackouts. The outage represents roughly one-third of the utility company's customers in the city.

Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations.

The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops.

The city's transportation agencies said they were bypassing some Muni bus and BART train stations because of the power outages.

At least some of the blackouts were caused by a fire that broke out inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets, fire officials posted on X at about 3:15 p.m.

At about 4 p.m., PG&E posted on X that it had stabilized the power grid and was not expecting additional customer outages. The company said it was unable to confirm if power would be restored by later Saturday.

A massive power failure darkened entire neighborhoods of San Francisco Saturday in a series of widespread blackouts that, by mid-afternoon, impacted nearly 130,000 homes and businesses - representing about one-third of all city customers served by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Traffic stalled as street lights went dark or into emergency blinking mode. Restaurant workers put out candles for diners. BART trains bypassed Powell and Civic Center stations where there was no electricity. Holiday decorations went dark from doorsteps to windows.

The outages began in the morning on the West Side of the city, but then, block-by-block, more San Franciscans began losing electricity. At least a portion of the blackouts that began in the afternoon were triggered by a fire inside a PG&E power substation, but the reasons for the other blackouts remained unexplained for most of the day.

PG&E representatives didn't respond to multiple requests for information about the series of blackouts throughout the afternoon. The company's first public response to the outages was posted to social media platform X at 4 p.m.: "We are working with first responders and city officials on an outage in #SanFrancisco affecting 130,000 customers. We will share more information as it becomes available." It remained unclear what prompted the initial blackouts in the Inner Sunset, Richmond and other West Side neighborhoods.

Some San Francisco residents reported receiving automated phone calls from PG&E saying there was no estimated time that power would be restored but the company "will continue to provide updates on the estimated time of restoration as crews assess the damage and make repairs."

"It sucks," said Samantha Lado, who works at Foghorn Taproom in the Inner Richmond. The blackouts left the bar's televisions dark and the beer warm - so they wouldn't draw a crowd of patrons to watch two football games, as they'd expected.

By mid-afternoon, San Francisco had opened its emergency operations center to coordinate the city's response. Mayor Daniel Lurie posted a video from inside the center urging people "to be safe out on the roads."

"A lot of the lights are out," Lurie said. "Stay safe and we will continue to be in touch with PG&E."

San Francisco Fire Lt. Mariano Elias said that a fire broke out inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets at about 2:15 p.m., which caused at least some of the blackouts. PG&E employees called 911 at 2:16 p.m. to report smoke inside the building. Firefighters were using specialized carbon monoxide equipment to extinguish the flames on the first floor of the four-story building, Elias said.

But by then, swaths of the city had already been in the dark.

The first outage, reported around 9:40 a.m., took out power to just over 14,600 residential and commercial customers in the Inner Sunset down to Forest Hill, according to PG&E's website.

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A second outage started around 10:10 a.m., cutting electricity across the Presidio, the Richmond and some sections of Market Street. PG&E's online outage tracker showed more than 24,800 customers were affected. At 1:40 p.m., the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced Muni trains would bypass the Van Ness station due to the outage.

Businesses across the city were forced to close at the height of holiday shopping and socializing -  from Julie's Pizza in the Lower Haight to Miller & Lux at Chase Center.

As soon as the electricity went out at Bazaar Cafe in the Richmond, owner Josh Johnson said he had to close and ask customers to leave. Without power, he couldn't run espresso machines and had to keep refrigerators shut to keep the contents - especially milk - as cold as possible. He lamented workers would lose a day of work.

At Black & Gold, a home goods and vintage shop on Valencia Street, an outage on the Saturday before Christmas was "devastating" for business, said the manager Sam, who asked not to use his last name. A similar outage occurred around the same time last year, but it was earlier in the day and allowed him to prepare with flashlights, batteries and electric candles.

"I literally didn't think it would happen again this year," Sam said. "This is so shocking to me."

By 3 p.m., the outages had spread south into the Outer Sunset and out east across the city. One outage stretched from Hayes Valley to part of the Mission, leaving nearly 2,400 customers without power. Another near Alamo Square took out power to another 6,300 customers. Both Muni and BART trains began bypassing Civic Center and Powell as well due to the outage.

As of 2 p.m., the utility estimated power to the Presidio and the Richmond would be restored between 3:30 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. Other outages were estimated to last well into the night. No information was available about the cause of the outages. The San Francisco Department of Emergency management warned the outages could be impacting street lights and reminded drivers to treat all dark traffic signals as four-way stops.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

This article originally published at PG&E outages in S.F. leave 130,000 without electricity, no timeline for return of power.

Some Rapid City schools closed due to power outage

Outages for the Target app were reported Dec. 19 just ahead of the holidays and with many people still in shopping mode.

Reports of the outages started early in the morning, peaking by 12:30 p.m., according to DownDetector. The number stayed steady throughout the day into the evening.

Target acknowledged the outages in a statement.

"We're aware of intermittent issues with our digital experience and a fix is underway," the statement read. "In the meantime, our stores continue to be open and ready for holiday shopping. At Target, our top priority is offering a great guest experience. We apologize for this disruption and will provide an update as soon as possible."

Check back for updates.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Target app not working? Thousands of outages reported