liberty utilities

UPDATE 3:30PM - Residents with proper identification will be allowed to pass through closed highway areas in Topaz Estates and north of the fire. School buses will be running as normal for Thursday afternoon.

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The Nevada Highway Patrol and California Hwy Patrol are working traffic control for the Slinkard Fire in Topaz near the Nevada and California state line.

North of the fire, Hwy 395 is closed in both directions at Leviathan Mine Road, which is south of Gardnerville, Nevada.

South of the fire, Hwy 395 is closed in both directions at Hwy 182 in Bridgeport, Calif.

“Here at Liberty, one of our core values is community. We are all part of this community and enjoy participating by giving back whenever we can.” This was the collaborative comment given by the sponsor crew members from the Adopt A Day of Nourishment host Liberty Utilities at their sponsorship dinner on August 21. Representing Liberty Utilities were team members Theresa Faegre, James Martin and Kelsey Zieba who had a fun time serving the Solar Eclipse themed dinner proved by Bread & Broth’s creative and talented cooks.

UPDATE 12:42PM - Power has now been restored to all customers.

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UPDATE 12:00PM - Power is still out to 2,418 NV Energy customers. The power company estimates they will have power restored by 2:00 p.m. Monday. All Liberty Utilities customers have had their electricity restored.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Three Liberty Utilities customers have fallen victim to aggressive phone scams over the last two days taking at least $2,500 from the victims.

In each case the crooks pose as a Liberty Utilities collections representative who threatens to shut off their power if payment was not made within a specified period of time. Sometimes the caller has specific customer information such as last payment amount; Liberty is unaware of how this information has been obtained.

A power outage in the Tahoe City area Wednesday morning left approximately 1,500 customers in the dark.

Crews from Liberty Utilities discovered a bad underground cable that needed to be replaced.

Most customers had their power restored by 12:10 p.m. but 96 customers will be without electricity until midnight as the cable is replaced.

For up to the minute updates, visit Liberty's emergency website or follow them on Twitter @LibertyUtil_CA.

Liberty Utilities-CA serves nearly 50,000 electric customers in one of the most pristine areas of the country—the Lake Tahoe and surrounding region of Northern California. While it’s no surprise that our customers rank environmental responsibility as very important, it’s been a welcome surprise that they rank Liberty’s environmental stewardship higher each year. In 2016, 75% said we were environmentally responsible—up from 68% the year before!

Liberty Utilities has taken several steps in recent years that contribute to our customers recognizing our environmental commitment.

Local bicycling advocates spent Friday at South Tahoe Middle School, teaching students about bike safety, bike skills and how to do repairs on bikes.

As part of the 12th annual Tahoe Bike Challenge, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), the Lake Tahoe Bike Coalition and the Community Mobility Group put the students through a series of stations learning how to fit helmets correctly, how to do hand signals, a skills rodeo, the parts of a bike and how to fix a flat and do other repairs and an obstacle course.

9:25 p.m. update: Several readers are reporting their power has been restored on Mandan, Golden Bear, part of Sierra Tract. It looks like all should be back on soon if you're still experiencing an outage.

The Liberty Utilities website is still showing 3705 customers out. They have not said what the cause of the outage was at this time.

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Liberty Utilities is reporting a widespread power outage in South Lake Tahoe. As of 9:00 p.m., 3705 customers are out along Pioneer Trail, Black Bart, Sierra Tract, Sierra House and a few other areas.

Crews from Liberty Utilities will be in the Glenshire neighborhood in Truckee on Thursday, May 18 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to repair damage caused when a car hit a power pole.

Residents in the area can expect intermittent outages no longer than 30 minutes at a time through the day. The 21 customers who live along Glenshire Drive may be without power most of the day. Those residents have already been notified directly by the utility company.

A new solar energy project will be unveiled to the public on Wednesday, April 19 at 9:30 a.m. in the town of Luning, Nevada. Since going on line, the new 50 MW Luning Solar Energy Center has supplied 25 percent of Liberty Utilities' customers’ energy needs with clean, renewable energy.

The Luning center is located on Highway 361 at Mile Marker 25, approximately a three-hour drive from South Lake Tahoe.

“We’re very excited to share this official opening with our customers and the community of Luning,” stated Travis Johnson, Liberty Utilities’ VP of Electric Operations.

There are now 27 cities in the United States committed to operating with 100 percent renewable energy, will South Lake Tahoe be #28?

Cities already on board include both large an small communities. Some of those are Madison, Wis.; San Diego, Calif.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Pueblo, Aspen and Boulder, Colo.; and Moab, Utah. Efforts are currently underway for Truckee to join that group. Even Las Vegas operates their municipal buildings and facilities with 100 percent renewable energy.

Liberty Utilities will be at community events around the Lake Tahoe Basin through the end of April where customers can come by and receive free LED light bulbs if they sign up for a free energy audit.

Energy experts will be at the Liberty Utilities booth at these events providing customers with the most up-to-date information about ways they can reduce their energy consumption and, as a result, their energy costs.

- Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber Business Expo. Friday, March 31 from 4:30 – 8:30 p.m. at Harvey’s

Liberty Utilities is once again offering academic scholarships for eligible high school and college students within its service territory which includes South Lake Tahoe, North Lake Tahoe and surrounding areas. The eight schools participating in the fifth annual scholarship program are South Tahoe High School, Loyalton High School, Douglas High School (students residing in Alpine County only), Coleville High School, North Tahoe High School, Truckee High School and Portola High School, as well as Lake Tahoe Community College.

9:30 p.m. update:
Portola: Trees fell on primary line; crews on site making repairs; most customers should be restored by 10 pm.
River Road/Silver Creek/Fir Crags Road/Hwy 89. Avalanche danger and weather conditions prohibiting crews from accessing damage; customers should plan on multi-day outage. We hope to access Weds morning.
Ward Canyon: broken pole; estimate most customers restored by 10 pm.

An avalanche near the Stanford Sierra Camp on the shores of Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe took out a main power line, causing the area to be without power for much of Tuesday.

Camp officials said there was no damage. Snow came down the mountain as it does about every other year, coming to rest against one of the Stanford Camp's cabins as well as an employee restroom.

Liberty Utilities crews were called out at 10:30 a.m. February 7 to repair the power line and restore power to 25 customers. Power was back up to all by 3:00 a.m. Wednesday.

5:10 p.m. update: There are currently electrical outages in South Lake Tahoe affecting about 162 customers. Crews are already working diligently to restore power to all customers.

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1:20 p.m. update: Power has been restored to all Placer County and El Dorado County customers affected by this morning's outage on the west and north shores of Lake Tahoe.

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There is a widespread power outage in the Lake Tahoe area affecting 4,125 customers of Liberty Utilities.

11:00 p.m. update - NV Energy was able to fix the problem at their substation in Truckee and all of Liberty Utilities customers should be back on line at this time.

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There has been a transmission problem from NV Energy to Liberty Utilities, resulting in power outages throughout the North Lake Tahoe area.

At their last update at 8:00 p.m., Liberty Utilities told customers in Northstar, Truckee and Glenshire to expect rotating outages throughout the night and into Wednesday morning. The problem is at the NV Energy North Truckee Substation that feeds Liberty's distribution lines.

Power is back on to the 136 customers in the River Road area off of SR-89 after last week's storm severely damaged power lines.

"We also want to sincerely thank those hardy customers for their patience and understanding during this multi-day outage until we could reach and repair the severe damage caused by the winter storms. At this time, most if not, all customers should have power restored," said Liberty Utilities spokesperson Kathy Carter.

Liberty Utilities announced significant progress was made today in getting power restored to several areas that remained without power since a powerful storm hit the Sierra Nevada this week.

With the use of helicopters and additional crews coming in from outside areas, lines are being repaired.

Although access to the power line that feeds the Floriston/Portola area presented a significant challenge, Liberty was able to restore power about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Most of the Tahoma area has been restored with the rest of the West Shore expected to be back online in 24 hours or so.

5:30 p.m. update Thursday - The Tahoe Keys and Tahoe Mountain area has just lost power temporarily. The West Shore has been restored from Tahoe City South to Sugar Pine Rd. and HWY89 (735 Customers). South Shore crews are deployed and working on six primary wires serving multiple areas. Restoration times are estimated between 8:00 p.m. tonight and tomorrow afternoon. Tahoe Pines Area (Barker Pass Rd. to Cherry St.) has very heavy damage with multiple poles down that requires helicopter repair. Weather permitting, helicopter repair will start tomorrow.

Power outages are still plaguing Lake Tahoe area residents and businesses, and Liberty Utility crews have been working nonstop to deal with the issues caused by the blizzard. There are currently approximately 20,000 customers without power in El Dorado, Placer and Nevada counties.

"All Liberty Utilities and NV Energy crews have worked together through the night," said Liberty Utilities spokesperson Kathy Carter. "Because of the numerous large trees that have fallen through lines and wires down, it is causing the restoration process to be very slow working one community at a time."

Liberty Utilities has closed their walk-in and call center offices in Tahoe Vista and South Lake Tahoe due to treacherous weather conditions.

There are approximately 2,000 customers still without power, crews are still trying to make repairs although they are hampered by unsafe conditions including avalanche danger.

10:00 p.m. - 20 customers are without power near Turnback Lane and Golden Bear due to a tree falling on a power line.

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9:15 p.m. - The power has been restored to all South Lake Tahoe customers affected from Al Tahoe to Heavenly. Those who were affected on the west shore and north shore have not yet been restored.

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Liberty Utilities is reporting a circuit tripped in the substation at Stateline, putting 2,700 customers in South Lake Tahoe into the dark.

The customers stretch from Heavenly Mountain Resort to Al Tahoe and some stop lights in the area are also out.

Weather conditions are expected to worsen over the weekend and increased power outages are anticipated. Liberty Utilities is doing all possible for preventative measures, however they are urging their customers to be prepared.

The utility company has added additional line crews for the weekend in preparation and will address the most serious and potential safety situations in priority.

They are asking customers to only call in case of an emergency 1-844-245-6868.