PG&E crews continued to scramble Tuesday evening to restore power to nearly 297,000 customers around the Bay Area, officials said in the latest update on regional outages at 4:30 p.m.

The South Bay is still reporting the most outages, with 131,158 without power.

In the East Bay 91,988 are affected; 63,731 on the Peninsula; 8,186 in the North Bay and 1,004 in San Francisco, according to PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland. 

The reason for the escalating outages is rain, accompanied by intense gusts that have led to downed trees and wires in every part of the Bay Area.  

Winds of 74 mph have been clocked at San Francisco International Airport; 97 mph at Mount Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountains; 93 mph along Mines Road in the East Bay; and 71 mph in the Las Trampas and Oakland hills, McFarland said.

"Elsewhere, widespread gusts 45-55 mph have been reported and will continue with isolated gusts 65+ mph possible through the Sacramento and northern San Joaquin Valleys, as well as along the Sierra foothills and over elevated terrain," McFarland said.

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