Power outage hits parts of San Francisco

A power outage in parts of downtown San Francisco Tuesday affected office computers, lights and a hosting company for several Web sites.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the local utility, reported 30,000 customers were without power due to an explosion under a manhole cover on Mission Street, according to the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle. The outage lasted from about 1:50 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time.

Among the businesses affected was 365 Main Inc., a Web hosting company at that San Francisco address. Among the Web sites it hosts is Craiglist.com, the popular global community Web site. An error message greeted people trying to get to Craigslist.com, although that site is back up, a Craiglist spokeswoman said. The 365 Main facility also serves Yelp.com, a user-generated review site for restaurants, travel, and other subjects, whose site was down for a time.

The outage also darkened the offices of IDG, which includes the offices of InfoWorld and PC World, among others.

"Some customers within the 365 Main facility were temporarily affected by the utility failure," said 365 Main spokeswoman Cynthia Harris, in an e-mail. "The building is currently 100 percent operational and running on back-up power generators. 365 Main will continue to operate on back-up generator power until PG&E can confirm that utility power is stable."

The outage affected businesses sporadically throughout the afternoon as power went off for a few minutes, came back on, but went out again.

The power went on and off about six times over a 45-minute period beginning at about 2:00 p.m. at Paragon Restaurant and Bar near the AT&T Park baseball stadium, said Alex Desquiron, general manager.

Although each outage lasted no more than a minute, the restaurant had to stop cooking food because the exhaust blowers over their grills run on electricity, he said.

But business picked up. "Some people left their offices early and came in for a drink," Desquiron said.