UPDATED: The lights are back on for most of Monterey area but nearly 7,000 customers are still in the dark.

Saturday night, March 11, one block after another in Monterey and Pacific Grove lit up after approximately 48 hours of no electricity due to a major transmission line break in high winds the night of Thursday, March 9. At that time, around 37,000 households were affected.

Two days later it was a moment of relief as lights, heaters and modems switched on for many households—but not for nearly 7,000 others in Carmel, Pebble Beach and other regions who were told by PG&E they may have to wait until 10pm Sunday night, March 12.

UPDATE: Residents in Carmel and Pebble Beach received notices on Sunday that they may not have power until 8pm, Monday, March 13, a full four days since the outage first began.

PG&E officials are blaming too many downed trees and power lines for the delay in repairs.

"In our assessment of the area, we've found that the damage is much more extensive than anticipated," PG&E spokesperson Karly Hernandez says by email. "Our crews are finding many sites of wires down, trees down (due to ground saturation) and in some cases broken utility poles." She also says access for crews was an issue due to flooding and downed trees.

Additional crews were expected to arrive Sunday, joining the 17 crews, representing 68 workers, already on the ground. Some crews came from Southern California Edison as part of a mutual aid agreement.

"We anticipate access to damaged areas may still be difficult, which could add to the time it takes to restore power," Hernandez says.

For anyone who is medically fragile or in distress, they can dial 211 to find out what resources are available to help.

Carmel officials opened up a warming center at the Carmel Youth Center at Torres Street and Fourth Avenue where people can charge devices and get warmed up. 

"It was really a big ugly storm. We got hit hard," says Carmel City Administrator Chip Rerig.

At Dolores Street and Third Avenue, trees fell and literally snapped electrical poles in two, Rerig adds. He expects it will take some time for PG&E crews to make repairs there.

In Pacific Grove and Monterey, officials were busy Friday and Saturday attending to issues created by the extended power outage. P.G. had a warming center open at City Hall where people could charge devices and get hot coffee. City Manager Ben Harvey says the plan was to keep the center open daily from 9am-4pm for as long as the power was out.

Monterey officials opened the El Estero Park Center and the Monterey Public Library as warming centers where people could also ask questions and request help. On Friday there were over 150 people per hour in the library, with about 100 each hour on the city's WiFi network to charge phones and connect with the internet, since the Verizon cell network was down, says spokesperson Laurie Huelga by email.

The Verizon outage proved a challenge for not just residents—the network was damaged on Thursday night for over 24 hours leaving residents of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach and Carmel who use Verizon and Xfinity Mobile with no cell service—but also for the area's fire department network. Huelga says city officials "worked around the clock" to bring Verizon towers downtown and to Station 13 on Del Vina Avenue off of North Fremont Street to support the department's communication network. 

To help vulnerable residents, Monterey officials contacted the presidents of neighborhood associations asking them to spread the word about neighbors checking in on neighbors.

"To give you an idea of the sheer volume of activity on Thursday and Friday, we had: 136 calls in our Fire Department in a 24-hour time period, Thursday morning to Friday morning; 10 homes impacted by trees; over 32 downed trees causing 12 street closures," Huelga reports.

With power out for so long, food safety is an issue. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides a chart explaining what to throw out and what to keep, available here.

Residential customers without power for 48 hours or longer are potentially eligible to receive compensation for food spoilage from PG&E. Information is available here. Claims may also be filed for property damage, personal injury and lost wages due to a power outage.

Anyone restocking their refrigerators might consider holding off buying too much food for the time being: Another atmospheric river is expected Monday night, with many more downed trees to come.