Surprise! SCE Pulls The Plug On Paradise Cove
Written by 991KBU on October 31, 2019
An intentional blackout hit Malibu with zero advance notice last night …. and there is no word on how long it will last.
Six hours after the highest Santa Ana winds hit Malibu yesterday … Southern California Edison turned out the power to one part of the city.
The first P S P S – Public Safety Power Shutoff … in Malibu was implemented last night.
At 8:49 … with two out in the ninth inning of the final game of the World Series … TV sets and everything else went dark in the Cuthbert Circuit.
That includes the eastern half of Point Dume … Paradise Cove … Winding Way and Latigo Cove … dark all night.
Edison’s weather forecasters blew it.
The National Weather Service had predicted the strongest winds would be yesterday midday … and that is in fact when the strongest winds hit.
But Edison weather experts had predicted the PSPS would be necessary after midnight …
The winds then were in the 30 to 40 mile per range.
Nevertheless … power was cut after the danger had passed.
Power signals failed …. some immediately … some after several hours.
Extra cops were pout on the street overnight.
Captain Matt Vander Hoerk says three dozen extra badge-carrying deputies were sent to the Malibu Lost Hills Station.
NEWSCART 75334 VANDERHOERK SQUADS
“We had three squads… which were 33 extra deputies and three extra sergeants to help us with everything fire related and everything else that was being tasked.
“So we were fortunate to have the resources to assist us in this past week.”
Two major concerns in Malibu … traffic lights are out on P C H at Heathercliff … Kanan Dume … Zumirez and at Paradise Cove.
Batteries on the traffic signals started to fail almost immediately when the power went out last nights started to fail almost immediately when the power went out last night.
The longest performance was at Paradise Cove where the battery lasted eight hours before the traffic lights conked out.
City manager Reva Feldman says the city is bringing generators to those signals … but it’s not clear yet if Caltrans has rewired them to accept generator power input.
The other issue … water … and the electric pumps that fill up the water mains and tanks.
The city manager says the local water agency has that under control.
NEWSCART 75333 FELDMAN WATER PUMPS 22
“I spoke to Waterworks District 29.
“They are prepared for outages … and have generators prepositioned and staged throughout the Malibu area in the event that there is a power outage and a fire at the same time … to make sure that they’re operate their pumps are operating continually.”
City manager Reva Feldman.
The big question … of course … is when will the power be turned back on???
At 9:30 …. SCE officials told KBUU that patrol officers were in Malibu and ready to check the Cuthbert circuit wires to make sure they had not been compromised by the winds.
And that they are waiting for the go sign from the SCE PS PS command post in Irwindale.
But it is important to remember that across the SCE service area … almost 73 thousand customer accounts are intentionally blacked out this morning.
Only about 1000 of those are here in Malibu … so there’s a big line.
Also … the nearest big SCE maintenance yard to Malibu is in Moorpark … right at the heart of the Easy Fire.
The 23 Freeway still has traffic restrictions on it … but it is still open.
In California right now about a quarter of 1 million SCE customer accounts are still under consideration for a PSPS Public Safety Power Shutdown …
In Malibu … the Galahad and Maguire circuits are under consideration.
Also … NAS Point Mugu
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Strong Santa Ana winds gusting between 40 and 60 mph will continue to impact wind prone areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties
through Thursday morning, with isolated gusts to 70 mph in the Los Angeles county mountains (including the western portions of the Santa
Monica mountains).
Very dry air is associated with these Santa Ana winds with widespread single digit humidites through Thursday … as low as 1 to 2 percent in some locations.
Overnight recoveries tonight will be near zero over Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, and poor everywhere else.
