The lights were out in much of Malibu on Friday, causing a traffic jam from the Civic Center to Topanga as traffic signals at major intersections — including those at Pacific Coast Highway and Coastline Road, PCH and Las Flores Canyon Road, and PCH and Webb Way — went in and out of power.
Utility alerts from the local Sheriff’s Department and the City of Malibu struggled to keep up with the outages, eventually switching to a generalized message by late Friday morning, Oct. 30.
“Traffic lights are malfunctioning due to several power outages in various locations around City. Drive carefully,” read an alert from the L.A.S.D. issued at 10:44 a.m.
According to Southern California Edison (SCE), a total of 6,580 customers in the Santa Monica Mountains area were without power on Friday, with outages that spanned from just a couple of hours to well into the evening. Over 1,800 of those customers were located within the boundaries of the City of Malibu, but these numbers don’t include the 2,139 resident students who went without power after Pepperdine University was thrust into the dark at 10:24 a.m. Friday morning.
Power was out in areas from Busch Drive to Topanga Canyon Boulevard and from Malibu Colony Drive to the Ventura Freeway in Woodland Hills.
“Santa Ana winds blew throughout Southern California Edison’s service territory on Friday, Oct. 30,” read a statement provided by SCE spokespeople. “There [were] seven power outages in Malibu on Friday; four were a result of the wind. There were two maintenance outages, and the other one because of overhead equipment failure.”
Two of the power outages were for planned “maintenance outages.” A total of 88 customers who were without power Friday were given previous warnings of outages due to pole replacements at Carbon Canyon Road and Cliffside Drive.
Trees fell across power lines at Fines and Cross Creek roads, causing an outage to 1,610 customers that lasted from 10:23 a.m. to 12:34 p.m. Friday. That same tree took out power for 80 additional customers from 8:49 a.m. to 7:18 p.m.
Perhaps the more troubling outages were those that took place in the Topanga area, where power failed, but trees were not to blame.
A “failed overhead wire due to wind at Hillside Drive East of Will Geer Drive” was to blame for an outage that affected 2,410 customers from 8:34 am. to 3 p.m., while a “failed overhead wire due to winds at Meadow Creek Lane and Las Virgenes Road” caused another 2,346 customers to go without power from 9:30 a.m. to 1:21 p.m. in Topanga.
Hans Laetz, general manager of local radio station KBU, has spent years monitoring power issues throughout Malibu and provided more information about the outages not caused by downed lines.
“The top wind speed on Friday was 68 miles an hour at Fire Camp 8, which is on a ridge top above Malibu,” read KBU’s newswire for Monday, Nov. 2. “State law requires power lines to be designed to not fail at speeds below 92 miles an hour, unless hit by a tree limb.”
In addition to traffic jams that lasted all day, Pepperdine students and staff enjoyed a day off, with classes cancelled due to the widespread power outage.
Although details weren’t immediately available, university spokespeople said an outage like the one on Friday is not common.
“It’s my impression that this hasn’t happened in a long time,” said Alexandra Forero, PR associate for Pepperdine.