SoCal Edison Slowly Restoring Power In Inland Empire Following Snowstorm
CRESTLINE (CBSLA) — Work crews spent Monday night coming up and down State Route 138 trying their best to restore power to nearly 3,000 homes in Crestline and Lake Arrowhead that were still in the dark — five days after the power went out.
As of 10:30 p.m., SoCal Edison said about 524 customers in Crestline and another 212 in Lake Arrowhead were still without power after the storm that brought so much snow it snapped tree branches that toppled on power lines, dragging some down with them.
"I didn't think anything could be this bad," Kristine McConaughy, a Crestline resident, said.
By Friday, the storm damage had knocked power out to 26,000 customers.
"And then from then on, we were just freezing," McConaughy said. "Freezing."
It was so cold that the McConaughy family rented a hotel room for the weekend, but other families weren't able to do that.
"Can't rent a hotel," Karla said. "Can't take 300-pound dogs to a hotel."
Karla said her two dogs, Max and Gizmo, helped keep her warm during the outage, but her son was one of the unlucky drivers who got stranded in the snow at the bottom of the hill.
"He was walking until 1:30 in the morning trying to get his truck out," Karla said. "It was only five miles, but that's a long walk in the snow, him and his dad."
SCE was able to restore Karla's power Saturday evening, but much of the repair work was delayed due to road closures and snow pack covering equipment.
"It was just too much," Karla said of the snow. "Nobody could move. It was like a ghost town."
Edison said it hoped to have power restored for most customers by Monday night, which was a happy sight for McConaughy and her family.
"Our lights just came back on, and it was like, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you'," she said.