Seniors at California Complex ‘Abandoned’ During Blackout

One woman in her 80s tripped over another resident who had fallen on the landing in a steep stairwell. Others got disoriented, even in their own apartments, and cried out for help.

At least 20 seniors with wheelchairs and walkers were essentially trapped, in the dark, in a low-income apartment complex in Northern California during a two-day power shutoff aimed at warding off wildfires.

Residents of the Villas at Hamilton in Novato, north of San Francisco, say they were without guidance from their property management company or the utility behind the blackout as they faced pitch-black stairwells and hallways and elevators that shut down.

“We were surprised by how dark it was,” said Pamela Zuzak, 70, who uses a walker to get around. “There was nothing, nothing lit. It was like going into a darkroom closet, pitch black, you couldn’t see in front of you.”

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. shut off power to more than 2 million people over the weekend to prevent its equipment from sparking fires amid hot, dry gusts. It was just one of four pre-emptive rounds of shutoffs imposed by the utility this month.

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By PG&E’s estimate, more than 900,000 people were without power Wednesday, some of them since Saturday, while crews battled fires in Northern and Southern California.

The outages turned urban highways dark and blackened shopping malls once glittering with light. People stocked up on batteries, water and gas and lamented the spoiled food in refrigerators.

But the blackouts are more challenging for older and disabled residents who lack the transportation and money to rush out for ice and groceries, said John Geoghegan, head of the Hamilton Tenant Association.

He said about a third of the Villas’ 140 residents are too old, sick or cognitively impaired to care for themselves during an extended outage. He alleges the property management company VPM “abandoned” its tenants.

Geoghegan came home Saturday night to find residents milling in the parking lots, some near panic. “Some expected they would be communicated with, but they weren’t hearing from anybody,” he said.

VPM Management of Irvine, landlord Affordable Housing Access of Newport Beach, and the on-site manager did not respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press.