“We were still saying it was wind-related,” as of 6 p.m. on Thursday, she noted.The outage occurred north of Main Street primarily between North 8th Street and North Mill Street.“At that time we had about 255 customers who were impacted in the Santa Paula area during the height,” of the winds and the outage said Williams.“By 4 p.m. everybody in Santa Paula was up I believe, but naturally there might have been,” a few customers that had to wait longer for their power to return. “For sure, everybody was up by 6 p.m.,” said Williams.“Other than the wind what exactly at this point in time we’re not sure,” of an exact cause.As of Friday SCE was “still in a storm mode,” with the SCE Emergency Operations Center still open through Friday responding to electrical failures.“We still have high-wind incidences occurring in Carpinteria and Camarillo/Somis areas,” Williams said Friday. “SCE crews are, of course, still scurrying around…we had a lot of activity Thursday but the winds are supposed to die down at about 3 p.m. today (Friday) so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
Wind storm causes electrical power outage in Santa Paula
December 22, 2004
Santa Paula News
Wild winds were to blame for Thursday’s power outage that left Main Street traffic signals blank and some mid-town homes without electricity for hours.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesWild winds were to blame for Thursday’s power outage that left Main Street traffic signals blank and some mid-town homes without electricity for hours.According to Nancy Williams, Southern California Edison Region Manager, the “whole system was impacted by the extremely high wind that came roaring through Thursday morning,” cutting power to about 10,000 SCE customers throughout the region.Most of the power outages were “Related to tree branches in the lines; we also had a tree take out three poles in the Oxnard area,” noted Williams.Described as gale force winds in some areas of the state, gusts in the Santa Paula area began early Wednesday evening and intensified throughout the night.Trash barrels were flying, metal covers over outdoor water heaters were stripped off and flying debris dotted the skies. City crews placed stop signs at Main Street intersections for a two-block stretch in the central business district.In a limited area in Santa Paula electrical power was knocked out before noon on Thursday and the outage lasted as long as six hours.An exact cause of the power outage was hard to pinpoint as of Friday, said Williams.
