City Blasts Edison Over Both Unplanned Outages, And Planned Ones
Written by 991KBU on October 23, 2018
Southern California Edison officials appeared before an unhappy Malibu city council last night. And the beleaguered power company changed its story … again … over whether it issued warnings to the city that it would shut off power intentionally to the city.
The company spokeswoman acknowledged that such warnings -were- issued to the city.
But… she said … the winds blacked out Malibu before the power company could flip the switch.
Even … before the power company could get out warnings that it might black out the western part of the city.
And company spokesman Diane Forte told the Malibu City Council last night … that the power company heard loud and clear from unhappy customers at the King Gillette ranch public forum two weeks ago.
NEWSCART 77876 FORTE EDISON :21 QQQ THAT MALIBU HAS RAISED.
“We understand the concerns about the cell towers, land lines, communications, the traffic signals and Caltrans, the water tanks, the concern for medical baseline customers, and the desire for undergrounding.
“We spoke at that meeting, and we would like to convene a meeting with the mayor, and the Mayor pro tem, and other interested stakeholders and see if we can collaborate on the issues that Malibu has raised.”
Not good enough, for Malibu city councilwoman Laura Rosenthal.
NEWSCART 77877 :19 ROSENEDISON :18 QQQ: LIVING IN MALIBU
“What really gets me besides the whole planned shutoff, and I know that this was not one of them, is the fact that we lose power so easily.
“This was not even in the top 30 Santa Ana events that I’ve certainly lived through in my many years in Malibu.”
Other council members agreed … and suggested that the Edison company is being lax in trimming trees that grow into the power lines.
Many of the power outages last week were caused by tree branches … the company said.
The question remains …. why did Edison give zero advance warning that it was goiung to try to cut off power to malibu …. when it has a new high tech weather center and a promise to give at least 48 hours notice.
An Edison spokesman tells KBUU News that the company was caught unaware of the severity of the approaching wind.
The National Weather Service … however … predicted the 65 mile per hour winds three days before they arrived.
And the KBUU weather forecast on Friday … three days before the windstorm … called for 60 mile an hour plus winds.
Where was Edison???
A company spokesman tells KBUU … they simply blew the forecast.
