Public Safety Power Shutoffs, the manual release cord, the one thing you must never do with it, and California's battery backup law.
Codes are amended locally. Where a city adopts an amendment that changes the answer, the section below says so — and the permit counter, not this page, is the final word.
PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E all de-energize circuits during extreme fire weather under the CPUC's de-energization framework, established through Rulemaking R.18-12-005 and refined by Resolution ESRB-8 and Decision D.19-05-042. Utilities must notify customers in advance where they can. Events routinely last more than a day across whole counties, which is long enough for a garage door to become a real problem.
Never pull the manual release cord while the door is OPEN if there is any chance a spring is broken. The counterbalance, not the opener, is what holds that weight up; disconnect the trolley with a failed spring and the door comes down. Release the door only when it is closed, or when you are certain the springs are intact. This is the single most dangerous moment in a home power outage involving a garage.
With the door fully closed, pull the red cord straight down to disengage the trolley, then lift the door by its bottom edge with both hands and a straight back. To re-engage, close the door, pull the cord toward the door, and run the opener once — on most units the carriage clicks back on by itself. A trolley left disconnected is the commonest reason a door 'does not work' after the power comes back.
Health and Safety Code §19891 and §19892, added by SB 969, require residential garage door openers sold, installed or offered for sale in California from 1 July 2019 to include a battery backup that operates the opener during an outage, with a $1,000 civil penalty for non-compliance. That battery is a consumable. Most openers flash a light or beep when it has aged out, and a multi-day PSPS is exactly when you discover you ignored it.
The surge when power returns kills logic boards. So does a GFCI trip: garage ceiling receptacles are usually GFCI-protected and frequently trip on restoration, which is the first thing to check and costs nothing. A surge protector on the opener circuit is cheap insurance in PSPS country.
Know where your release cord is and that it moves freely. Confirm your backup battery holds a charge. Keep the safety sensors clean, since dirty photo eyes and a door you cannot close is a bad combination when you are evacuating. And if your opener predates the 1993 federal entrapment-protection requirement and has no photo eyes at all, an outage is a good moment to price a replacement for reasons well beyond the power.
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