• The local power company blows it … turns off the power for a windstorm that was neither predicted by the NWS, nor severe.
• Malibu residents most unhappy not only with useless blackout … but annoying repeat alarms set oo by the power company.
• Southern California Edison refuses to answer it’s telephones… During the blackout, even though it’s required to report public reaction to the state.
• The Malibu Pie Festival is disrupted by the power outage… bringing back memories of the Great Thanksgiving Blackout Fiasco nine years ago.
• Caltrans will be at City Hall tomorrow to show the latest set of plans for rebuilding Pacific Coast Highway.

SCE Blows It With Weather Forecast. But Defends Its Decision To Black Out Malibu in Minor Winds

“We understand power outages can be a hardship; however, we cannot compromise on safety.”

That;’s the reaction from Southern California Edison’s spokesman … to their decision Friday night to black out Malibu … and leave the power off all weekend. 

And the power outage was a fiasco … in the eyes of many who were affected by it. 

Not strong enough wind to justify it.

The power was cut after the high winds passed.

The power was not restored despite tiny winds. 

Too many notices .. waking people up … over and over. 

The list goes on. 

SCE spokesman David Eisenhauer told KBUU Radio yesterday that the power company did what it had to do … to protect the public from a Santa Ana windstorm that threatened the public safety.

And … winds that threatened the power company’s overhead equipment.

The high winds arrived Saturday morning … from sunrise until just about 2 p-m … when they began dtying. 

Peak winds on the Cuthbert Circuit hit 34 miles an hour Saturday morning. … at 8:40.

The power was not cur off until five hours later … when the winds had dropped 8 miles an hour … and the wind never again topped 13 miles an hour,

But Edison kept the power off … all night Saturday … all morning Sunday … in an area where the winds were dead still … or less than 5 miles per hour.

The scene could not be more ridiculous … in the eyes of residents.  

No wind … no threat of wind … no traffic lights .. no cell towers or Internet. … and no power

Spokesman David Eisenhaur tells KBUU News that the power had to stay off because there might be stronger wins occurring upstream … blowing debris onto power lines.

“This means that de-energization might still be required because of winds occurring upstream.”

We can see the record … the power company has several wind gauges on each of its circuits.

The record is that the power was shut off after the winds had already subsided … 

And that the winds never reached even close to the SCE threshold to cut power.

In fact … most of Malibu had either dead calm or negligible winds for the entire 22 hours of the blackouts.

Edison says there are many factors that go into determining when to turn off power … dangerous wind speeds, low humidity, and dry fuels.

The wind never reached dangerous levels. 

And the forecast winds from the National Weather Service were for peak winds of only 40 miles an hour at the mountaintops … 30 miles an hour along the coast.

Winds like that happen all the time.

At least three traffic signals on Pacific Coast Highway blacked out during the outage. 

Several cellular companies lost power at their sites, knocking out people’s communications devices when they needed them to coordinate family movements during the blackout.

Repeat SCE Warnings Of Nonexistent Wind, Power Outages That Never Happen, Anger Malibu

Many people inside and outside the blackout area are angry over the repeat notifications that Edison kept messaging or calling.

Over and over again … the same message … waking people up and causing not just a little fear and stress.

Edison says they understand the repeat messages … as they put it …  can be inconvenient.

Eisenhauer tells KBUU that SCE is required by the CPUC to send several notifications to any customer who might get de-energized.

For an expected shutoff, SCE must send it 1-4 hours prior to de-energization, and because we de-energize based on real-time conditions.

But the real time conditions never materialized.   And the SCE weather forecast apparently was a miss … 

And the question of why such a broad area was blacked out … and why the Edison system has not been segmented into chunks that can be better controlled … that question remains.

CPUC Regulates Blackouts, But Gets Misleading SCE Data About Complaints

The California Public Utilities Commission regulates the power company.

It requires the power company to file an analysis after it does an intentional power blackout.

The state looks at the number of complaints, phoned or emailed into the Edison company during the blackout… To ascertain how badly people were affected… How badly their lifestyles were altered by the intentional power blackout.

But during the entire event… Southern California Edison did not answer its phones.

And people who went to the companies website we’re not given the option of leaving complaint online.

In fact… The Edison company does not have an email address for the public to use for complaints.

There are no actual human beings working the lines at the SCE customer care center… By all appearances.

Customers who wish to complain about the weekend, power outage can only contact the California public utilities commission … 

The CPUC does have an online complaint form … and it does have a staff of people who answer the phones to take down complaints … during weekday business hours.

In years past… SCE has told the commission over and over again that gets very few … if any … public complaints during intentional blackouts.

It does not report that the company refuses to answer the phone for the general public.

SCE Repair Crews  Got Power Back Within Minutes of ‘All Clear’ But ‘All Clear’ Was Delayed

One bright piece of news regarding the SCE intentional outage.

The all clear was issued just before noon yesterday. 

And moments later … power delivery resumed. 

This indicates that SCE field line workers had already inspected lines and were waiting for the all clear.

It also indicates that the supposedly-hazardous winds did not actually cause any damage to overhead lines. 

No comment from the power company about that yet.

SCE Outage Causes Pie Festival Woes, Bakers Haul Unbaked Pastry To Venice Late At Night

For the second time in nine years… this weekend’s electrical system failed just in time to nearly ruin a major baking event in Malibu

Nine years ago … there was an intentional blackout in Malibu on Thanksgiving morning.  Hundreds of turkeys got thrown out before they could even be roasted.

This weekend… it was the intentional blackout the day before the Malibu Pie Fstival … the annual fellowship and fundraiser at Malibu Methodist Church at Zuma Beach. 

Larry Jones … is a volunteer at the pie festival.

70693 PIES LARRY JONES

“My wife was one of those baking pies for the festival. 

“She does dozens of pies every year and she had a whole Lotta pies ready to go in the oven yesterday and the power went out and we are in the Point Dume Club and several other people couldn’t bake their pies either.

“So, people like Kaye Gabbard drove around and picked up pies from everybody and took them to her house.

“She baked the pies and kept sending pictures of the finished pies, so they finally got baked.”

That sorry was repeated over and over again. 

One woman … a professional baker … hauled more than a dozen pies to a friend’s house in Venice, and baked there.

As for disrupting life … Larry Jones says …

70694 FOOD LARRY JONES 

“Well yesterday morning I did our big Costco/Trader Joe’s run, came home and had no power so I cramped things into an ice chest and I don’t know how they’re surviving.

“And our refrigerator this morning wasn’t cold. So we don’t know how much food we’re gonna have to throw away that we just bought yesterday..”

You were thinking about asking Southern California Edison to pay for your damaged food, forget about it. 

In years past, the power company has made it clear that they will only pay for damage that is caused by their negligence.

Turning power off on purpose, they say, is not negligent

They maintain it is prudent.

Traffic Signals Fail During Outage, No Generators

During the blackout… Traffic signals on Pacific Coast Highway either went dark or came back to life flashing red.

Batteries inside the signal control boxes failed.

Computers cannot be brought back to life without an electrician traveling out from Los Angeles.

The city has purchased small portable generators that are designed to plug in to the signal boxes which are owned and operated by the state agency… Caltrans.

Connecting external generators to internal computers, is a cludge … a technically-risky system that Caltrans has warned might not make work right.

Over the weekend… despite warnings from Southern California Edison that they would shut off the power … generators were not taken out of storage… And brought to the traffic lights.

Many resident said they experienced close calls with people running blacked out traffic lights.

No temporary stop signs were placed in intersections … Caltrans won’t let the city do that.

There were no crashes.

SCE Turns Off Power, A Second Time, In Malibu Park

And on top of everything else … SCE had to turn off the power in the Malibu Park neighborhood for a scheduled power outage last night.

Several hundred homes were blacked out at 9 o’clock last night … ruining the Dodgers telecast just moments after they clinched the National League championship by beating the New York Mets.

Large Edison trucks were seen moving out of Malibu at 11:15 last night.

And we might point out that KBUU radio did not go off the air … and continued to provide emergency power outage information around the clock Friday and Saturday..

One of the station’s four relay or transmitting towers … which relay the signal over the air … lost power … 

But stayed up on batteries and solar. 

Caltrans Will Unveil Latest PCH Lane Plans Tuesday Night

A critically important Caltrans meeting is tomorrow night … to get one last set of comments from Malibu about the agency’s plans to rebuild Pacific Coast Highway in eastern Malibu.

Caltrans officials will present their next set of possible configurations for PCH in the business and residential districts east of Malibu Creek.

The safety director at Caltrans’s Los Angeles office is Leee Haber.

And he told KBUU News Friday night … this meeting is the third revision … taking Malibu opinion into consideration.

70695 HABER MON 

“So this is an opportunity for the community to come back in, see more, and provide additional input for this really important opportunity for the community to come in and say what they like, what they’re interested in, and what aspects of they would like to see modifications of.”

The latest PCH designs will be unwrapped at 6 tomorrow night at Malibu city hall.

Planning Commission Will Argue With Coastal Commission Staff Again Tonight

Malibu planning commission has had real problems with a LA county waterworks plan to rebuild a water tank on Busch Drive… a  water tank that serves the area above Malibu high school.

After first rejecting it… The local planning commission approved it years ago.

But it hasn’t been built.    It’s up for another two year extension.

And speaking of water .. the local planning commission will also take up a request by LA County Waterworks to build a mile and a quarter long section of water pipe on the bottom of Encinal Canyon Road… 

The water pipes will connect the Malibu water system with the water system over the hill… the LAs Virgenes water system. 

The 1 foot diameter pipe would allow either system to feed water to each other.

Malibu has only one pipeline delivering water to the city… From a connection point to the state water system in Culver City.

If it fails… The local reservoir hold only a few days worth of water supply.

Also tonight… The planning commission will consider a demand from the California coastal commission that it rescind an approval that it gave to widen the driveway down from Broad Beach Road to Escondido Beach.

In a highly unusual move… The coastal commission staff as objected to widening the driveway… Which serves an existing house..

The owners claimed that the driveway needs to be widen for emergency purposes.

It’s a tiny project … moving six dump trucks worth of dirt .. and extending a retaining wall from 3.8 feet high to 6 feet high.

The planning commission meeting to consider that is at 6:30 tonight.

Pie Contest Winners:

Apple:  Dutch Apple Crumb / Lana Duncan

Fruit: Cherry Lattice / Linda Pingatore

Gluten-free or vegan: Lights Out Pie / Liam Fox

Chocolate: Hazelnut French Silk / Beth Milliken

Cream Pie (tie): Passionfruit Coconut / Heidi Ahmundson

          and Huckleberries With Almond Cream / Beth Milliken

Meringue: Agoura Lime Pie / Al Coleman

Kids, 6 and younger: Pumpkin Cookie Top Crumble / Malibu Methodist Day School Science Room

Older Kids: Pecan Pear Harvest / Sadie Regan