With many PG&E customer accounts serving more than one person, the planned outage could affect well over 1 million people. The utility plans to cut power in two stages, the first early Wednesday morning before sunrise and the second between noon and 5 p.m.

Much of eastern and northern Sonoma County, including parts of Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Windsor, Healdsburg, Cotati and Cloverdale, are expected to be included in the shutdown, according to PG&E maps.

The utility is expected to start restoring power Thursday around noon and it could take five days to complete that process. Densely populated parts of the county could have power restored within 48 hours.