Nearly two months since the last blackout, Pacific Gas and Electric representatives came to Chinatown to help residents and businesses file claims for loss of business and food spoilage caused by four power outages within the past nine months.

“The merchants are happy they can file a claim,” said Pius Lee, Vice-president of the Stockton Street Merchants Association and a San Francisco port commissioner.

Forty-five merchants gathered last week in offices donated by Lee to file claims ranging from $300 to $7,000. All told, at least “a couple of million dollars” in lost business and food was caused by three extended outages this year alone, Lee said.

The longest, on April 27, affected the neighborhood for five hours -- nearly as long as a Dec. 8 blackout that darkened lights all over the city. Two others, a 65 -minute outage on May 20 and a 132-minute one on June 14, also affected primarily Chinatown; In some cases only a few blocks were hit.

Few Chinatown merchants or residents filed for compensation for the Dec. 8 citywide blackout, for which PG&E paid out $7 million in claims.

Though that incident led to widespread publicity about PG&E’s claims procedure, word apparently failed to reach many in Chinatown, Lee said. Chinatown residents and businesses in Chinatown did not know that they could apply for compensation from PG&E.

“The merchants were complaining, but they don’t know what to do,” said Lee.

In June, Lee wrote a letter in June on behalf of the Stockton Merchants Association asking for explanation for the blackouts in addition to calling PG&E to send representatives to Chinatown to assist in filing claims.

“I write the letter, then they respond fast,” Lee said. “Based on the letter, they did something, improved something, otherwise they don’t do anything.”

Three PG&E representatives were on hand to handle the forms, while volunteers including Benny Yee and Burton Lee of the Stockton Merchants Association helped in translating. “I’m very happy to say that they came and a lot of people were happy with the location to file the compensation.” said Pius Lee.

“There are still many merchants who are not coming forward,” said Lee. “I encourage them to come. Don’t give up the opportunity. They are entitled to come. There are hundreds of merchants in Chinatown, and residents can file claims too.”

PG&E representatives maintain that outages occur in Chinatown as often as they do elsewhere. “Chinatown is not unique in having outages,” said spokesman Len Anderson. He said there were at least as many outages in the South of Market area, as well as two or three outages in the Fillmore so far this year.

PG&E says that it is making repairs to prevent the power failures from re-occurring. Two conductor failures and a phase imbalance were diagnosed as problems in the past, and the company has replaced two interrupters, and is working to rebalance power loads on some circuits. It is also trying to identify circuits that are in need of rewiring.

“We want to jump in and take care of. We don’t like outages any more than any body else,” Anderson said.

“No matter how well you try to keep up your system, it’s like trying to maintain an automobile. Things break time to time, breakers don’t function, something goes wrong with the transformer.”

Fortuitously, Chinatown is scheduled this year for a routine inspection, in which PG&E will inspect the fuses, wires and connection points. Still, since much of Chinatown’s wiring is in the underground bowels of an infrastructure well over a century old, the inspection cannot help but be incomplete. Said Anderson: “You basically inspect what you can see.”