Officials said more than 8,000 Edison customers in Southern California were without power on Thanksgiving night, and an additional 100,000 were threatened with the light going out as high winds led to an increased risk of wildfires.
Homes in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Kern and San Bernardino have suffered a power outage as part of the utility’s public safety power outage program, which aims to reduce electrical systems from becoming a hotbed of fires.
At 9:30 p.m., there were 3,015 customers without electricity in Ventura County, while 2,679 customers in Orange County lost their service, according to a utility map managed by the utility company. Roughly 1,200 residents in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were also affected by the shutdowns late Thursday night, the company said.
The company said an additional 102,440 customers were shut down in Ventura, LA, Kern, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, depending on weather conditions.
The closures were carried out in such a way that meteorologists warned of a potential Santa Ana wind of 65 km / h in some parts of the San Fernando Valley and the Santa Monica Mountains. Over the weekend, both Ventura and Los Angeles counties are under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are ideal for fires to ignite.
The utility said the decision to implement risk-based closures was based on information gathered from hundreds of meteorological stations and wildfire cameras.
“We are very sympathetic about why this is the number one event during a pandemic, when people are at home and two during the holiday,” said Jeff Monford, senior consultant at Edison International, who said some of the affected customers include company employees. booked.
Customers were first notified of possible outages on Tuesday, Monford said. The company has also set up resource centers and sent trucks to some of the affected areas to provide water, snacks and electric filling stations, he said.
Edison was investigated earlier this year after the company admitted that the Bobcat fire, which scorched 115,000 acres in LA County and destroyed dozens of homes, could begin after the tree branches hit its equipment.
