Power cut to some Southern California customers, due to high wind and fire dangers
Southern California Edison began widespread power cuts to customers Wednesday morning following a National Weather Service "Particularly Dangerous Situation Red Flag Warning," due to strong Santa Ana winds.
The utility company had already shut power by 7 a.m. to 13,800 customers in the four counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura, with numbers expected to rise as winds were forecast to pick up through the morning.
By 1 p.m., the list of SCE shutoffs had grown, with many more pending. Public Safety Power Shutoffs in Los Angeles County increased to 15,101 customers, in Ventura County 23,420 customers had their power cut, 12,104 customers in San Bernardino County, and in Riverside County 9,249 customers had faced power shutoffs. More customers in all the counties were listed under consideration, as weather conditions are to dictate.
Two public schools in San Bernardino are without power, Paakuma' K-8 School, and Kimbark Elementary School. Both schools sent out social media messages, that they will remain open through the power cuts.
"Our teams will be working this morning to get our office phones and internet restored via a generator. Classrooms and restrooms all have skylights for natural light, and temperatures during the day are mild enough to avoid heat issues."
The San Bernardino Unified School District said Kimbark Elementary will also remain open "Kimbark ES. Operations & Support departments will be working to support the school throughout the outage."
SCE said earlier that more than 55,000 customers could have their power shut off while planned outages were already scheduled for 1,113 customers by 10 p.m. Tuesday, By that time, 2,230 customers had already had their power shut off.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also announced the possibility of outages, saying that planned shutoffs could be carried out and there could also be accidental cuts to electricity with strong winds taking down power lines.
The worst of the wind is Wednesday morning, but the fire danger and elevated winds stick around until Thursday afternoon.
The PDS warning is in effect from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, the valleys of central and southeastern Ventura County and Ventura County's inland coast all the way to the beaches from Malibu to Oxnard.
Another PDS red flag warning is in effect from 9 a.m. Wednesday to 9 a.m. Thursday for the southern Ventura County mountains and the San Gabriel, Santa Susana and Santa Monica Mountains.
Santa Ana winds will be especially strong and widespread in parts of LA and Ventura counties, with the most powerful and potentially damaging gusts expected to be up to 60 to 80 mph in the counties' mountains and foothills from Wednesday morning to Wednesday evening, forecasters said. Some of the San Gabriel Mountains are expected to see isolated gusts of 80 to 100 mph.
Meanwhile, the Malibu coast and Ventura County coastal plain, among other coastal and valley areas of LA and Ventura counties, could gusts between 50 and 70 mph, NWS said. Humidity levels in these areas are expected to decline to between 8 to 15 percent, conditions that forecasters say will likely continue into Thursday and Friday.
Before 7 a.m. Wednesday, Freemont Canyon in the Santa Ana's had wind gusts of 77 mph, the Malibu Hills saw gusts at 76 mph, and just to the south of the 10 Freeway, near Beaumont, gusts reached 51 mph. In Simi Valley, gusts reached 64 mph Wednesday morning.
