80 MPH Gusts And Widespread Power Blackouts Warned Of, Traffic Signal Emergency Power Failed
Written by 991KBU on January 18, 2021
A fierce Santa Ana windstorm is predicted to blow into Malibu later today.
A strong and widespread damaging wind event is expected to impact Southern California between Monday night and Wednesday morning.
The highest winds will be Tuesday into Tuesday night.
Damaging wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph are expected across portions of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
The Southern California Edison company warns it might shut off power in the Winding Way … Paradise Cove and Point Dume area again.
But this time … the warning also includes upper Malibu Canyon and the Saddle Peak area.
Even most of Thousand Oaks … tens of thousands of people … are in the potential blackout zone zone for this one.
High wind warnings start at 10 tonight. The late night hours of Tuesday night early morning hours of Wednesday may see the peak winds arrive.
This is a dangerous storm … clearly the strongest so far this fall and winter.
Mild Santa Anas caused accidental power outrages … and intentional power ourtages … last Friday.
City of Malibu crews brought out emergency generators for the first time … in an intentional power outage.
That’s a policy change … prompted by widespread unhappiness about an earlier decision not to deploy the generators for traffic lights at blacked out intersections.
Some signals failed .. even with the generators in place.
Caltrans electricians came out from Los Angeles to work with city crews to find out why the generators were not feeding power into the control boxes … to keep the traffic lights operational.
The problem appeared to be automatic transfer switches tghat were not working as intended.
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It looked like a summer day last weekend.
50 thousand people were estimated by lifeguards to be on Zuma and Surfrider beaches both yesterday … about that many Saturday.
The water is of course cold … not many people went too deep … and lifeguards say there were just a few rescues.
But crowds were intense … and they stayed late.
At 6:30 last night … one hour after sunset … traffic on PCH was backed up solidly from Decker Canyon Road six miles to Kanan … and again from Latigo Beach all the way … 20 miles … onto the 10 Freeway.
That’s 26 miles of stopped traffic … at 6:30 last night.
Canyon roads were jammed too.
During the day … one person was run over by a car inside Malibu Creek State park … near the campground.
That person was air evaced out in serious condition.
Several car crashes in Malibu during the weekend … of course.
