Malibu escaped major problems Thanksgiving Day, as electric power was cut to the entire city by Southern California Edison in advance of a Santa Ana windstorm that was much stronger than originally predicted.
By midday Thursday, SCE was sticking with a 9 a.m. Friday time as the earliest that power would be restored. Some residents were told by SCE that early Saturday morning was the target for re-energization.
In the past, SCE has said it would take between 3 to 8 hours to inspect power lines and safely turn them back on.
The threshold wind speed for intentional blackouts in some Malibu neighborhoods is 28 m.p.h., according to documents filed by SCE with the state last winter. SCE uses wind speeds and other conditions to determine when to kill power.
The winds that arrived Wednesday night and continued into Tanksgiving Day were about 10-15 miles per hour stronger than the National Weather Service had predicted.
At least eight “downed line” calls were made to Los Angeles County firefighters Thursday morning, as peak winds as high as 77 miles per hour hit the city. That measurement was taken by a wind gauge mounted on a power pole on Murphy Way, above Paradise Cove, before communications was lost at sunrise.
Some of those drowned lines were communications lines, not power lines.
SCE had predicted that only customers west of Pepperdine University would see their power intentionally cut. But during the night, all of Malibu was switched off. Also blacked out were area north of the mountains, all the way to the 101 Freeway and east to Calabasas.
Most traffic signals on PCH in western Malibu stayed up on battery power overnight, but by 7 a.m. a few had failed. City crews were stationing portable generators at the Caltrans control boxes, and they restored signal service to every intersection but one, at Zumirez Drive.
PCH traffic was flowing smoothly all night and all day. The only observed incident was a tree that fell over at the Sterling Farm at 1:37 a.m., and blocked two westbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway.
Traffic was able to use the left turn lane for Heathercliff Drive to avoid the work crews, sawing up the tree.
Countywide, SCE estimated that 63,844 customer accounts were turned off on purpose by midday Thursday. That apparently not including the 2,000 or so accounts in western Malibu that it missed in its tally, as it erroneously reported that the Gallahad Circuit had not been turned off. It was turned off at about 6:40 Wednesday night.
Virtually all of the SM Mountains and parts of suburbia south of the 101 Freeway, including Topanga Canyon, are blacked out also.
Wireless customers were saying that T-Mobile wireless service was up, but Verizon was down at the Trancas and Paradise Cove area. Charter/Spectrum had techs all over installing gasoline-powered generators trying to keep their network up.
Wireless customers were saying that T-Mobile wireless service was up, but Verizon was down at the Trancas and Paradise Cove area. Charter/Spectrum had techs all over installing gasoline-powered generators trying to keep their network up.
Frontier Fiber (formerly FioS) was up, as long as people had batteries or power to their home terminal boxes.
KBUU was off the FM air from 4:47 am to 8:40 am. with a flipped circuit breaker at its mountaintop antenna. Winds topped 77 mph up there just before the outage.
KBUU was off the FM air from 4:47 am to 8:40 am. with a flipped circuit breaker at its mountaintop antenna. Winds topped 77 mph up there just before the outage.
Resetting it was delayed as the local conditions were treacherous, too dangerous to open up the cabinetry.