Mild Santa Anas Predicted Overnight … Saturday … and Monday
Written by 991KBU on October 17, 2019
Here we go again.
Gusty mountain winds from the north are expected to increase this afternoon and increase all weekend.
The strongest winds will be tonight into early Friday … and Saturday night into Sunday.
Peak gusts … 30 miles an hour.
No blackouts predicted for Malibu.
But it will be hot … high temperatures above 90 in the Santa Monica Mountains and inland.
Southern California Edison has put 28 hundred customer accounts in the Antelope Valley on notice … they may get their power shut off due to high winds this weekend.
That’s 50 miles from Malibu … and Malibu is not yet on the warning list.
This would be the second set of power blackout warnings this fire season.
Last weekend …. power was cut to some areas within 25 miles of Malibu.
And SCE transmission lines apparently sparked a fire … 30 miles away from the nearest blackout zone.
It killed two and took out nearly 20 homes.
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Nearby Ventura County is taking stock of its first round of intentional power outages … imposed by Southern California Edison as winds topped 50 miles per hour.
Some schools closed … a hospital was forced to temporarily switch on its generators… and some highways jammed.
About 233,000 Edison customer accounts were put on notice of a potential Public Safety Power Shutoff.
About 10 thousand houses and buisnesses in Ventura County lost power …. mostly near Fillmore.
Officials say some customers only got blackout warnings after the power went out.
Edison was unable to tell them who and where was blacked out after some power was restored. And there was a power outage over a broad part of Thousand Oaks outside the blackout area.
The county fire chief tells the Ventura County Star he feels “The answer should be undergrounding and hardening lines, not shutting off the power to the community,”
While it’s hard to tell whether an outage prevented a fire from starting, the consequences of an outage can be dire, he said.
