A massive power outage in California has left tens of thousands with no electricity and an airport with absolutely no way to get travelers off the ground.

The outage, which is affecting the Oakland, California region is affecting roughly 54,000 customers, according to reports, leaving a huge swath of the community in the dark.

#BREAKING The city of Oakland is experiencing a power outage. PG&E outage map reports that more than 54-thousand customers are without power. Coliseum Way is having traffic issues. Please drive safely through the area. @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/X05FNl1qAb

— John Zuchelli (@tvzuke) February 19, 2023

What’s worse is the effect this is having on the Oakland airport, which was pretty much fully offline for half an hour while crews worked to restore power.

UPDATE: Machines seem to now be powered, line has started moving pic.twitter.com/FFu4BmtQsb

— matt ashlock (@matt_ashlock) February 19, 2023

The source of the outage is a fire at a PG&E substation in Oakland, according to local media reports. The Oakland fire department acknowledged they were fighting a fire at the scene and PG&E confirmed to them it could affect upwards of 50,000 people.

Oakland Fire is currently responding to a Fire at the PG&E substation near 50th Avenue and Coliseum Way. PG&E reports approximately 50K customers in the City of Oakland may be impacted by this outage. Please check the PG&E outage map at https://t.co/l6SyUTfHA6 for current status. pic.twitter.com/4BfDKTLPTx

— Oakland Fire Department (CA) (@OaklandFireCA) February 19, 2023

The source of the fire is currently unknown. While power is currently restored to the airport, it’s unclear when power will return to the rest of the city.

Grid Failures Across the Country

Such outages are proving that the U.S. power grid may be at risk of compromise after several notable incidents have caused outages in other parts of the country.

As we have previously reported, an attack on multiple power stations resulted in widespread outages in North Carolina. The FBI began to investigate the incident as a potential act of terrorism.

Once the infrastructure could be examined in the daylight, it was determined that the damage was much more extensive than first thought, and local news reports said sources within the county’s emergency management office believed power could be out through Thursday.

This estimate was confirmed during a Sunday afternoon news conference, at which officials also announced that a State of Emergency had been declared for the county and that investigators from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are working with Moore County to find the perpetrators. Sheriff Ronnie Fields said he’s also in contact with the US Attorney’s office and that the perpetrators will likely face federal charges.

There have long been concerns that the U.S. power grid is quite vulnerable to shutdown from both accidents and terrorist actions.