Thousands of LA County residents remain without power amid Santa Ana winds, wildfires
More than 75,500 Southern California Edison customers are without power in LA, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties as of Tuesday morning on Jan. 14. That number includes more than 60,000 public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) in the region due to wind related damages, according to an SCE spokesperson.
In LA County, where the Eaton and Palisades fires have ravaged communities, 22,202 SCE customers remain affected by power shutoffs as of noon on Tuesday.
“Numbers do change throughout the day, just because we do aim to implement or activate these PSPS in those areas that are seeing the strongest impacts… And when there’s lulls in the air, in the winds, we’re also aiming to restore customers there. It may be temporary, conditions could change and customers may see their power go out again, due to PSPS,” an SCE spokesperson said.
The areas most impacted in the LA area by SCE’s public safety power shutoffs are La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena, Malibu, Santa Clarita, and the Santa Monica Mountain area.
These power shutoffs have been implemented due to SoCal’s wind event as a tool of “last resort” to protect the public, officials said.
A team of meteorologists at SCE are monitoring and assessing real-time weather conditions including winds, ground vegetation, moisture levels, and humidity to see when a power shutoff may be needed, according to an SCE spokesperson.
SCE’s power shutoffs will remain in effect for the duration of the wind event. And a number of things must happen before that power is restored, officials said. SCE must inspect infrastructure including electrical polls, power lines, transformers, etc. to know what repairs are needed.
“And then there is a process of making those repairs, and once that’s complete, that’s when customers get their power back,” said an SCE spokesperson.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s online power outage map shows areas around the Palisades, West LA, Brentwood, Universal City, and south of the Skirball Cultural Center that are queued for dispatch assistance.
The agency had not returned calls seeking comment at the time of publication.
Residents can check on power outage updates online at SCE’s outage map and LADWP’s power outage map.