The traffic lights went dark at one of Mountain View's busiest intersections last week, turning the junction into a four-way stop and snarling traffic during the evening rush hour commute. It turns out that the outage was scheduled ahead of time, but no one told the public until it was well underway.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) had scheduled a power outage on Tuesday, July 18, that shut down the signal lights at the intersection of State Route 237, El Camino Real and Grant Road.

The utility company needed to turn off power in the area while its workers installed electrical equipment at a nearby business, PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian told the Voice.

The outage extended from 11:18 a.m. on Tuesday until 12:52 a.m. early Wednesday morning, Sarkissian said, noting that some customers got their power back sooner. It wasn't clear when the traffic lights themselves went out and were restored.

Despite the lengthy outage being planned in advance, it appears that no one told the public until the Mountain View Police Department tweeted about it at 4:13 p.m. and law enforcement didn't provide traffic management while the lights were out.

The police themselves didn't know what was happening until a community member walked into their headquarters around 12:30 p.m. and reported the outage, police department spokesperson Katie Nelson said.

"We were never notified about the outage by either Caltrans or PG&E," Nelson told the Voice earlier this week. "We are trying to get in contact with someone at PG&E as to why we were not notified."

The intersection is a busy one – and one of the city's most dangerous. It led the city in the number of collisions when the police department released crash data in 2018. Last year, a Graham Middle School student was fatally struck by a car when he fell off his bike at the intersection.

The location is also complex when it comes to oversight, because it's where two state highways and a local road converge.

State Route 237 ends when it hits El Camino Real, which is technically State Route 82. On the other side of El Camino from 237 is Grant Road, a much smaller local street.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) owns and operates the traffic lights, but it's the Mountain View Police Department that has jurisdiction over the intersection.

A breakdown in communication

PG&E's spokesperson said the utility company had contacted the owner of the traffic lights "with advance notice to ensure they had time to get a plan in place," but declined to name the owner.

"Due to customer confidentiality, I’m unable to share the owner of the traffic light," Sarkissian said. "However, I can confirm it is not owned by PG&E, and we reached out to the owner several times since early July."

When the Voice told Sarkissian that it had independently confirmed that Caltrans owns the lights and asked if and when Caltrans was notified, Sarkissian declined to answer.

For its part, Caltrans said that PG&E had provided notice about the power outage on July 13. Caltrans made preparations to send out a crew if needed, Caltrans spokesperson Victor Gauthier said.

When asked if Caltrans told the public about the outage or coordinated with agencies like the Mountain View Police Department, Gauthier said that utility companies are responsible for these types of notifications.

PG&E did not answer questions about whether it notified the public or the Mountain View Police Department, though Sarkissian said that the utility company "did provide notification to impacted customers in advance, as is standard practice for planned outages."

According to Nelson, the police department ended up finding out about the outage at 12:30 p.m., when someone walked into the station and told officers what was going on. At that point, she said that the outage wasn't causing traffic issues, so the department didn't send officers to respond.

"It is not common practice for us to provide traffic control when signal outages occur," Nelson said.

As the afternoon went on, the situation got worse. By around 4 p.m. Nelson said she learned that emergency dispatchers were "receiving numerous calls about the outage that were impacting emergency communication lines."

At this point, the police department tweeted about what was happening, telling the public that the intersection should be treated as a four-way stop and not to call 911 to report the outage, because the lines needed to remain open for emergencies.

The police did not send officers to manage traffic on scene, Nelson said.

According to Caltrans, when a signal outage lasts more than two hours, local police are responsible for providing traffic control, if needed. Planned outages typically only last one to two hours, Gauthier said, and state-owned traffic signals have backup battery systems that can temporarily power a traffic signal during an outage, but they don't last longer than two hours.

While the Mountain View Police Department reports that it wasn't notified about the outage in advance, the city of Mountain View did receive two notices from PG&E about planned electric outages in the area on July 18. Both were sent to the city's P.O. box and appear to have been mailed because the city is a property owner with PG&E accounts in the outage area, city spokesperson Lenka Wright said.

The first notification, dated July 6, informed the city about a planned outage from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on July 18 impacting the corner of Grant and Bentley, which is a block away from intersection of Grant, El Camino and 237.

The second notification, dated July 7, reported that a traffic signal at 170 E. El Camino Real could be impacted from 9-9:30 a.m. and 6:30-7 p.m. on July 18. 170 E. El Camino is also near the Grant, El Camino and 237 intersection.

PG&E confirmed that both notifications were in reference to the same planned outage, but for separate PG&E meters.

The city did not notify the police department about the estimated timeframe for the outage, Wright said, adding that "the city is addressing process improvements with internal communications for departments that may be affected by PG&E notifications"

Wright also said that it would have been PG&E's responsibility to notify the public and that the city "will be working with PG&E about how we can improve the notification process."

According to PG&E, the overall outage was originally supposed to last from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., but delays getting started pushed the time window later. About 90 customers were impacted and PG&E notified those customers in advance and when the outage time changed, Sarkissian said.

According to Sarkissian, the outage took place because a "local rehabilitation center" was upgrading their panel and, to support the project, PG&E installed a new transformer and underground switch. Sarkissian declined to name the business, citing customer confidentiality.

When asked what PG&E's process is for deciding whether to shut down power to a major intersection during commute hours and whether efforts were made to schedule the work outside of peak times, Sarkissian said that permits determine the time of day when work is conducted. In this case, the permit was for daytime work, she said, but didn't respond to follow-up questions about why the permit was for daytime work and which agency PG&E received the permit from.

"Whenever possible, we aim to avoid work when it will be disruptive," Sarkissian said.