Strong winds led to Southern California; many props for power outages

SAN BERNARDINO, California (KABC) – Dangerous Santa Ana winds are moving to the South, posing a greater fire hazard as thousands of people threaten to turn off their power.

Southern California will be hit Tuesday by the trifects of increased winds, low relative humidity and low humidity, which will keep firefighters awake.

A large area is affected – from Santa Clarita to the highlands, from the Los Angeles basin to the Santa Monica mountains and all the way to the coast. At the highest altitude, gusts can reach up to 90 km / h.

“Right now we’re under the gun,” said Roland Sprewell of the LA County Fire Department. “We have a relentless veldfire season that apparently does not want to leave.”

In response, local firefighters are recruiting staff. They send strike teams to places with the greatest risk. They also restrict parking in serious zones with very high fires to ensure fire trucks have a place to park if a fire breaks out.

In anticipation of the extreme winds, Southern California Edison is already shutting down power from some of its customers.

The wind howled Monday afternoon in the North Park neighborhood of San Bernardino where residents turned off for another public power outage.

“Everyone buys generators now, it’s a pretty normal thing,” James Garcia said.

“It’s not a good normal. Nothing is a good normal anymore,” Joe Lunt said.

Many of the neighbors invested in generators because of the frequency of electricity during wind events.

“Today we made sure we had enough oil and gas to make sure the generator could run for 25 to 30 hours. Most of what we turned off was 28 hours,” Mary Beth Norris said.

Norris says her big concern is her elderly neighbors.

‘The thing that really scares me is the people who are on oxygen machines. They have no way to keep it going once the battery runs on their oxygen machine. ‘

Potentially, more than 32,000 Southern California Edison customers in San Bernardino County could interrupt over the next few days.

In the province of Ventura, more than 113,000 customers were experiencing a possible outage.

“Very strong and damaging winds are expected from morning to Wednesday morning, and without rain for the past four weeks, the predicted strong winds and high temperatures are a major risk for wildfires,” Ron Gales told Edison, Southern California.

In Anaheim, strong winds prompted officials to close the mass COVID-19 vaccination site at Disneyland Tuesday. According to Anaheim city officials, the appointments are scheduled for Tuesday for another day.

Shutting off power is designed to reduce the risk of fires caused by electrical equipment when strong winds are forecast. Several major fires in California have been connected to electrical equipment.

SCE customers can sign up for alerts to let them know if the power is off.

Some of the largest, most devastating wildfires in California history have been linked to electrical equipment.