Power outage, pipe bomb, fire keep Yuba City authorities busy

Power outages that began Thursday afternoon affected 1,200 Yuba City PG&E customers and were just the beginning of a wild afternoon for authorities.

A downed wire at Teegarden Avenue and Shasta Street in the downtown area was thought to be responsible.

About 700 customers had their power restored by 6. The rest were still without power at 6:30 p.m.

PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson said it wasn't clear what caused the wire to do down.

Emergency calls about the power outages, and about a levee fire inside the affected area, came in at nearly the same time as calls about the downed wire.

Fire alarms had been activated in a Sutter County office building and courthouse annex on the east side of Second Street, just two blocks from the levee fire and four blocks from the downed wire.

Firefighters at the scene saw a small amount of smoke near what appeared to be a burned-out heating and air conditioning unit.

The fire caused no apparent damage and no one was injured.

Interim Yuba City Fire Chief Pete Daley said it was unclear whether those incidents — and another near-simultaneous incident involving a pipe bomb discovered during service of a search warrant — were related.

The pipe bomb was found by Yuba City police in the Cedar Grove Apartments at Second Street and Garden Highway.