Stage 2 Alert for California

After surviving record heat and energy usage over the weekend, Californians will be faced with strict conservation measures and possible blackouts today.

"While we got through today just fine, we're very concerned about Monday. Everybody goes back to work and cranks on the computer, the coffee machine, the fax machine," said Gregg Fishman, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, a nonprofit corporation that manages the state's power grid.

"A lot of the office buildings that closed over the weekend have heated up, so the air conditioning load on a hot Monday is often incredible," Fishman said.

The state likely will hit a Stage 2 power emergency today and could face rolling blackouts, a Stage 3 emergency, in the afternoon, when usage levels typically peak, Fishman said.

An estimated 436,000 customers in the greater Bay Area lost power at some point Saturday or Sunday in heat-related power failures, PG&E spokesman David Eisenhower said. By 8 p.m. Sunday, service had been restored to 73 percent of those customers, leaving about 124,000 without power. Eisenhower said Bay Area crews were responding to 2,400 separate blackouts, most in the South Bay and inland East Bay.