In the Dark in San Francisco

Terence P. Jeffrey
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:46:57 -0800
Opinion

We were at my brother's residence in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco — watching the college football playoffs — when my sister, who lives in San Francisco's Richmond District, where I was planning on spending the night, texted us to let us know that the power was out in her neighborhood.

Using our cellphones to do some quick research, we soon discovered that the power had gone down in most of the western half of San Francisco — including at the Presidio, which sits on the southern side of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the Richmond District, which sits south of the Presidio, and in the Sunset District, which sits south of the Richmond District on the other side of Golden Gate Park.

When the game we were watching ended, I left my brother's place to drive north into San Francisco with the intention of attending the 5 p.m. Saturday Mass at St. Ignatius Church.
Updated: Wed Dec 24, 2025

We were at my brother's residence in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco — watching the college football playoffs — when my sister, who lives in San Francisco's Richmond District, where I was planning on spending the night, texted us to let us know that the power was out in her neighborhood.

Using our cellphones to do some quick research, we soon discovered that the power had gone down in most of the western half of San Francisco — including at the Presidio, which sits on the southern side of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the Richmond District, which sits south of the Presidio, and in the Sunset District, which sits south of the Richmond District on the other side of Golden Gate Park.

When the game we were watching ended, I left my brother's place to drive north into San Francisco with the intention of attending the 5 p.m. Saturday Mass at St. Ignatius Church.

This church is one of the most iconic architectural features on the western skyline of San Francisco. It was completed in 1914 and sits on the campus of the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university. While visiting San Francisco this December, I wanted to attend Mass there because it was the location of many celebrations related to my familial history, including my own high school graduation.

But when I got in my car and headed north toward St. Ignatius from San Mateo County, the navigation system on my iPhone recommended a rather peculiar route. Rather than send me on what would ordinarily be the shortest and most direct route north toward the church, it directed me to head to the eastern side of the city.

Realizing that the power was still out on the western side of the city, I obeyed the orders of my iPhone's navigation system.

After winding through normally little-used roads that run through residential neighborhoods in San Francisco's southeastern quarter, I drove over a hill into the Haight-Ashbury district, where the power was still on.

At his point, I was only a few block from St. Ignatius Church.

To get there I would have to drive up Stanyan Street, which runs along the eastern border of Golden Gate Park and crosses the Panhandle Park, which runs to the east of Golden Gate Park.

St. Ignatius sits just a few blocks north — and up a slope — from Panhandle Park.

But here is where the traffic came to a stop.

While the power grid was working south of Panhandle Park, it was not working north of it.

This resulted in a significant traffic jam where Stanyan Street crossed John F. Kennedy Drive, the main road running West to East coming out of the park.

What would San Francisco drivers do about this lack of basic roadway technology at this major urban intersection?

The official instruction sent out to whoever had the electronic means to receive it was that during the blackout drivers were supposed to treat all intersections where the traffic lights were out as if there were a stop sign there instead.

Did San Francisco drivers do this at the intersection of John F. Kennedy and Stanyan? Yes.

So, I sat in my car in the Stanyan Street queue, slowly progressing to the spot where it would be my turn to yield to the imaginary stop sign — and then I did.

I still managed to arrive at St. Ignatius a few minutes before 5 p.m. There was a group of people on the sidewalk beside the church talking to two priests who were standing there.

I parked and walked toward the side door of the church.

As I approached that door, one of the priests told me he was sorry that they had had to cancel the 5 p.m. Mass because of the power outage.

I got back in my car and drove west down Fulton Street to the residence where I was staying in the Richmond District. At about that time, KCRA, a local television station, was reporting: "The blackouts were caused by a fire that broke out inside a PG&E substation at 8th and Mission streets, fire officials posted on social platform X."

But people in the Richmond District at that moment could not turn on their TV or access X.

As I sat in a residence in that neighborhood at about 6:30 p.m. that evening, I felt the room gently rattle. Was it an earthquake?

It was later reported that an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter scale had been centered near the town of San Ramon, which sits across the bay east of San Francisco.

The power came back on at 9:15 p.m. that night, but internet service did not return to the neighborhood where I was staying until sometime Monday morning.

And this took place in a region that is one of the technology capitals of the world.