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Some residents in San Bernardino County say they are frustrated with a lack of communication with SCE after 4 days. SCE says it’s working to restore power as soon as possible.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Southern California are still without power on Friday afternoon, Jan. 11, with some residents having gone without electricity since Tuesday because of the high winds and wildfires sweeping the region.
Some 278,000 Southern California Edison customers were affected by outages as of midday Friday, either due to weather or fire-related damage or as a result of pre-emptive safety shutoffs, SCE spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas said. Los Angeles Power and Water representative Vanessa Lopez said that 56,000 customers were without power as of 8 a.m. Friday, 6,500 of them in the Palisades fire footprint. Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are all bearing the brunt of the outages. As of Friday afternoon, about 27,000 customers in Los Angeles County, 64,400 in Riverside County and 16,400 in San Bernardino County were affected by pre-emptive shutoffs to prevent electrical equipment from starting wildfires in high winds, according to SCE. The company did not have figures for power outages caused by fires or wind. Michael Martinez is one of several San Bernardino residents who say they’re going on four days without power. “I can understand a two-day power shut-off,” he said, citing the extreme winds on Tuesday and Wednesday. “I can understand that, even though our utilities are underground.” Ornelas said that underground lines are also connected to overhead infrastructure, which, if damaged, could lead to outages. However, Martinez said SCE’s outage map indicated that his neighborhood’s outage was the result of an intentional outage. “It’s a safety issue,” Martinez said. “Not only are the alarms off, and WiFi off, but they’re using candles to keep their homes lit at night.” He raised concerns about the danger open flames pose, given the high winds. He also expressed concern for neighbors who don’t have adequate resources, particularly the elderly and disabled and those who can’t afford a hotel. While his family has access to a gas stove and solar-powered lanterns, and will be able to replace the hundreds of dollars of spoiled perishable foods, he recognizes that not all families have similar advantages. San Bernardino resident Scott Denon’s neighborhood has also been without power since Tuesday. He said he received an update around 7:30 a.m. that morning, informing residents that an inspector was on their way to the power line. As of noon on Friday, Denon says the inspector still hadn’t arrived, and power has not been restored. “There’s elderly people freezing in their homes and they have medical equipment they can’t use,” Denon said. “They don’t have money to get generators or hotels.” Denon, along with Martinez’s wife Shawn, said that Southern California Edison representatives gave them a list of nearby hotels that would offer discounts for people without power. However, they say they called multiple hotels, who said that they were unaware of such discounts. Southern California Edison spokesperson Jeff Monford said that he was unaware of customers’ issues with finding discounted lodging, and said that it was possible that not all hotel employee’s were up to date on pricing adjustments. He advised people to continue calling hotels from the list available on the company’s website to find more options. “This is a widespread, unprecedented event,” Southern California Edison spokesperson Jeff Monford said. “This could be a miscommunication, for the hotels. We are sorry for this additional difficulty during the hardship of being without power.” Southern California Edison is unable to provide an exact date when power is expected to be restored, given current conditions. “It may take several days for us to restore power to all of our customers,” Ornelas said, “but we are working quickly to restore power as safely as we can.”Crime and Public Safety |This map shows where the Kenneth fire is burning near West HillsKenneth fire erupts in West Hills, moves into Ventura County and jumps to 960 acresThis map shows where the Palisades fire is burning in Pacific PalisadesFactcheck: Was the LAFD budget cut? No, it actually increased. Here’s how.LA County Fire mistakenly sends out emergency evacuation alert to entire countyBabies over bachelor’s degrees: DeSantis appointee says women should choose motherhood over higher ed
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