Governor Newsom provides update on utility power shutdown

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Governor Gavin Newsom is at the California State Operations Center and is providing an update into PG&E's 'Public Safety Power Shutdown.'

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The head of California's energy regulator blasted Pacific Gas and Electric's communication and management around power shutoffs impacting hundreds of thousands of residents in an effort to prevent wildfires.

"The situation frankly has been unacceptable," Marybel Batjer, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said at a meeting Thursday. "The impacts to individual communities, to individual people, to the commerce of our state, to the safety of our people has been less than exemplary."

"This cannot be the new normal," she said.

PG&E has defended it decision, casting the blackouts as a matter of public safety aimed at preventing catastrophic wildfires.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.