LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Southern California utility Edison began unplugging thousands of customers on Thanksgiving Day as a precaution due to a powerful Santa Ana wind event that raised the fire risk in the region.
FILE – The overhead line will be visible on September 11, 2020 near Calexico, California. (Getty Images)
At 6 p.m., the SCE de-energized a total of approximately 5,100 customers: 3,015 in Ventura County and an additional 2,127 customers in LA County.
There are an additional 106,681 customers in Southland who are also at risk of turning off power on Thursday and / or Friday, including more than 51,000 in San Bernardino County, more than 26,100 in LA County and 11,600 more than in Ventura County.
The National Meteorological Service reports that winds of up to 60 miles per hour are possible in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and the Inland Empire on Thursdays and Fridays.
Conditions pose an increased risk of fires and can destroy trees and electrical wiring, the NWS writes.
A red flag warning will take effect Thursday from 2pm to 6pm on the mountains of LA and Ventura counties and the Santa Clarita and Ventura valleys, including the Antelope Valley. A red flag warning will also be in effect in LA and the rest of Ventura County, which will also start at 2pm on Thursday but end at 6pm on Friday.
In response, the SCE reports that precautionary public safety shutdowns can be forced, similar to the closure of an SCE about a month ago.
Some of the feasible cities are Santa Clarita, Moorpark, Simi Valley, Sylmar, San Fernando, Azusa, Rancho Cucamonga and Banning.
Downtime may occur until 3pm on Friday, depending on the region. Click here to find out if your address is in the stop area.
From August to October, there were several heat waves in California that caused power outages for the first time since 2001 and contributed to the spread of historic fires up and down the state, destroying and forcing thousands of homes. tens of thousands of people need to be displaced.
The SCE has informed California state regulators that their equipment could be faulty to ignite the Silverado fire, which erupted east of Irvine late last month, burned 13,400 acres and forced more than 90,000 to evacuate their homes.
Also last month, Ventura County fire investigators reported that both the Easy and Maria fires that erupted in October 2019 were caused by electrical equipment failures. In Easy Fire, the SCE’s equipment was faulty, officials said.
In November 2019, while the fires of Easy and Maria were still burning, the SCE reached a $ 360 million deal and acknowledged that its equipment was also responsible for launching the 2017 Thomas Fire and 2018 Woolsey Fire.
