Los Angeles wildfires leave hundreds of thousands without power
(KTLA) – Hundreds of thousands in Los Angeles are estimated to be without power on Thursday as the historic fires continued to devastate the city.
Kathleen Dunleavy, with Southern California Edison, indicated that as many as 340,000 residents were without power as of 4 a.m. Thursday. A figure provided by PowerOutages.us, which tracks nationwide outages, put that figure closer to 420,000 on Thursday morning.
An outage map provided by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) showed just how widespread the outages extended, with significant outage reports coming from dozens of populous areas in L.A. County.
Portions of the city affected by the fires, like the Pacific Palisades and Hollywood Hills, have had power intentionally turned off as crews battled the blazes. Other areas, including throughout the San Fernando Valley, have also been affected.
Footage captured by Nexstar's KTLA overnight into Thursday showed power surges repeatedly flashing in the Los Feliz neighborhood in a synchronized fashion.
As of Thursday morning, the LADWP map indicated that crews were working to restore service in a handful of the affected areas. But it may not be a speedy process, according to officials.
A representative from Southern California Edison told KTLA on Wednesday that once crews decide to turn off power for a particular area, it's not a simple process to restore it once deemed safe — a series of steps need to be processed before power can come back on.
Lily Dallow contributed to this report.