East Bay councilman rips BART, PG&E for ‘one incompetent event after another’ over highway closure, outages

LAFAYETTE — A Lafayette City Council member ripped BART and PG&E for “one incompetent event after another” when a crane used in BART track work clipped power lines Monday morning, causing them to fall and shut down westbound Highway 24.

In a Facebook post and an email, Councilman Cameron Burks, who wrote “with respect,” addressed BART Director Debora Allen and Pacific Gas & Electric with critical, blistering comments.

Burks wrote: “Simple Question on behalf of our community: Who was at fault with today’s incident causing the Highway 24 closure & what are you going to do about it? No spin. No blaming ‘an accident’ to spread liability. Investigate immediately and, perhaps, for one of the first times, take responsibility and inform our public in a transparent way & identify accountability. It’s one incompetent event after another with frankly both of your agencies.”

Authorities said the crane hit the power lines at about 5:22 a.m. Monday as it was being moved in the area of Deer Hill Road and First Street, causing them to fall onto the highway. Traffic was halted and diverted off the highway until the lanes were reopened at 6:25 a.m. Both directions of Highway 24 were intermittently closed throughout the day so crews could complete repairs, officials said. Just after 3 p.m., the CHP said all lanes on Highway 24 had reopened, except the fast lane in the eastbound direction, which was already scheduled to be closed for BART’s track work.

PG&E said about 725 customers in the area lost power after the lines were knocked down, but all of them got it back at 3:37 p.m. Monday. No injuries were reported.

The crane and its operator were both contracted workers, BART said.

Burks said the city was notified of the incident “at 11am (the incident occurred before 7am) with a short, shallow note” from Rod Lee of BART’s external affairs. “No apologies and certainly no explanation how this occurred. Typical BART comms and lack of transparency,” Burks said in the Facebook post and email.

“We deserve a straight answer for our public to understand why you have impacted our city, once again … through profound incompetence,” Burks continued. “You’ve been planning this work for months — you are supposedly professional organizations.”

Allen responded Monday by criticizing Burks for posting on Facebook, but by Tuesday morning, her comments had been scrubbed from the string of comments on Facebook. Only Burks’ response to Allen remained visible: “I represent the people of Lafayette, Deborah.”

In another email time stamped at 6:11 p.m., Burks said he was at Lafayette Whole Foods grocery store “where they’ve had to dump a major stockpile of perishable food because of the incompetence of either/or both PG&E and BART. I imagine Safeway, Diablo and our other stores have experienced the same. Do you all know what impact you’ve had on our community today and on multiple occasions over the past months? It’s absolutely stunning.”

At 5:35 p.m. Monday, PG&E spokesman Tom Guardino responded to Burks, saying in an email: “I left a message for your city manager earlier today about the outage. Nobody has reported to us the cause of the incident. The minute I hear something specific and official, I will follow-up as soon as possible.”

It’s not the first time that PG&E has come under fire from Burks. In June, he criticized the utility for three consecutive days of power outages in Lafayette. The outages affected about 10,800 customers.

“Complete failure on the part of Pacific Gas & Electric Company to provide reliable energy to Lafayette this week. Multiple, prolonged electrical outages around town,” Burks said in a Facebook post on June 13. Burks said he was speaking as a Lafayette resident and not as a city official.

The planned work is part of a project to replace 5,000 linear feet of rail, 10,000 feet of train control cables and six track switches, which allow trains to change from line to line. Crews are also removing and replacing 2.8 million pounds of rock ballast used to support the tracks, as well as installing 320 new electrical insulators, which protect the electrified third rail. The work is part of the $3.5 billion in repairs and upgrades voters approved in 2016 under the Measure RR bond.

BART resumed regular service Tuesday.