About 300,000 utility customers across Southern California were hit with power outages Thursday morning as heavy Santa Ana winds continued to rip through the region.
As of 6 a.m., 211,327 Southern California Edison residential customers were without power, with outages most heavily concentrated in the foothill communities. That number was up from 198,652 outages at 4 a.m., as winds continued to topple trees and down power lines.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said about 88,700 of its 1.4 million electric customers were experiencing power losses due to high winds.
About 83,000 of its affected customers were in the central area and the remaining 5,700 in the San Fernando Valley.
“We anticipate that it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Southern California Edison spokeswoman Vanessa McGrady.
Crews will work first to restore power to customers who have been out the longest and will repair circuits with the most customers on them, she said.
“Crews have been working throughout the night. We just ask people to be patient,” she said.
Southern California Edison’s outage map also shows a less concentrated number of outages in areas along the coast, including more than 2,000 customers in Manhattan Beach.
I believe we had about 5,000 without power here in the Valley. Like they say on The Weather Channell "It could happen tomorrow!"
