Friday’s Blackout May Have Been Planned, But No One Knew
Written by 991KBU on October 8, 2018
Power went out over western Malibu on Friday.
And it appears to have been a planned outage …. that many people did -not- get notice of.
The outage was not listed on the city’s website.
The Southern California Edison company told people Friday that the power was out due to equipment failure.
But after the power was restored … postcards began arriving in mailboxes from Edison… alerting residents to a planned outage on Friday.
Cellphones went out for three hours.
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The Southern California Edison company will have a public forum … tomorrow night … to explain its plans to intentionally turn off the power during severe wind conditions.
The controversial project could see between 2 to 10 blackouts per year … systemwide …
The power company will not say exactly what wind speeds will trigger the blackouts … although one company spokesman has said winds of 40 to 50 miles an hour may trigger the blackouts.
Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains routinely get gusts above 40 miles an hour during Santa Ana conditions.
The blackout plan is being challenged by Malibu interests … including the city and this broadcast company … at the California Public Utilities Commission …
but the rules have already been changed … and the blackout plan is already in effect.
Tomorrow night’s meeting is explanatory only … no government agency is hosting it … it’s a power company hosted event.
It goes from 6:30 to 8:30 tomorrow night at the King Gillette Ranch … on Mulholland Highway just east of Malibu Canyon Road.
