LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While Pacific Gas and Electric moved forward on Wednesday with a public safety power shutoff that was reduced in scope, company officials said they are looking at an offshore weather system that could herald still another shutoff this weekend.

An estimated 178,000 customers in 15 counties are impacted in this latest shutoff, PG&E said Wednesday night. That was down from 179,000 customers in 17 counties reported earlier in the day.

After several days of monitoring conditions, PG&E called the shutoff on Wednesday morning, at which time the number of Lake County customer accounts in Cobb, Loch Lomond, Middletown and an area south of Kelseyville that PG&E said would be impacted remained unchanged at 1,889, of which 65 were to be medical baseline customers.

During a Wednesday evening press briefing, the overall number of customers estimated to be impacted remained unchanged.

However, a few hours later, the company said the revised number of impacted Lake County customer accounts totaled 341, with 17 baseline customers. Updated mapping showed the footprint of the Lake County outage had moved closer to the Sonoma County border.

The Middletown Unified School District reported that it had confirmed with PG&E that its schools would not be impacted in the shutoff.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and send communications if anything changes,” the district reported on its Facebook page.

Customer resource centers have been opened at Konocti Vista Casino, 2755 Mission Rancheria Road, in Lakeport and Twin Pine Casino & Hotel, 22223 Highway 29, in Middletown, and will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

On Wednesday evening, PG&E officials told reporters they were looking at another incoming weather system that has elevated the risk of another shutoff for Lake and surrounding counties this weekend.

PG&E meteorologist Scott Strenfel said European forecast models are indicating that the weekend weather event could be stronger than the one that occurred on and around Oct. 9, with a fire weather watch anticipated to be issued by the National Weather Service.

PG&E President and CEO Bill Johnson said that the weekend wind event could trigger a shutdown beginning late Saturday.

However, with that possibility still days out, PG&E said the details remain unclear.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.