Fontana Residents 'Fed Up' With Possible Thanksgiving Day Planned Power Outages
FONTANA (CBSLA) — Nearly 84,000 homes and businesses in Southern California could have their power shut off on Thanksgiving Day to try to prevent wildfires during a Red Flag Warning.
"I talked to a lot of residents today and they are fed up," said Mayor Acquanetta Warren of Fontana.
Moderate to locally gusty Santa Ana winds are expected Thanksgiving Day, peaking Thursday night into Friday morning, then gradually weakening into Saturday.
The Fire Weather Watch said the Red Flag Warning will start at 2 p.m. Thursday and end at 6 p.m. Friday.
During this time, the dry and windy weather means high fire danger and risk of rapid wildfire spread if a fire were to start.
Southern California Edison announced the move to try to prevent brush fires from sparking from downed and damaged power lines.
"It has been very frustrating," added Warren. "I get what the residents are feeling. I'm feeling it. We really need to come up with a better method."
Fontana is frequently windy, Warren added, and despite past shutoffs, they have not seen any fires.
"They're never clear on how long the power outages will be," she said.
The majority of impacted power customers, 39,127, are in San Bernardino County, 21,059 customers are in L.A. County, 16,676 customers in Ventura County, 4,422 in Riverside County, and 2,679 in Orange County.