[californiadisasters] Widespread Power Outages Across San Diego Co.

Widespread power outages across San Diego County

By Kristina Davis, Craig Gustafson, Pauline Repard and Gary Robbins - San Diego Union Tribune

5:17 p.m., Sept. 8, 2011

A major power outage has spread across San Diego County after a transmission line running from Arizona to California failed Thursday and power could remain out through most of Friday.

The outage began about 3:40 p.m., leaving 1.4 million customers without power throughout the county as well as eastern Arizona, northern Mexico and the southern part of Orange County. The power failure led to school closures, flight cancellations, blacked-out traffic lights and silent radio stations.

A spokesman for San Diego Gas & Electric said the company is working on a restoration plan but warned that power may be for a while.

"We want all of our customers being focused on emergency supply plans," the spokesman said. "We will do anything we can do get the power supply back as soon as possible here in San Diego."

Inbound flights are still landing at Lindbergh Field, according to airport spokeswoman Rebecca Bloomfield. Outbound flights have been halted until power is restored.

"We can't screen passengers," she said. "It is a security issue."

She also said that for the airlines, it is a ticket-processing issue, as all computers are down.

An FAA spokesman said the control tower at San Diego International Airport is operating on back-up generators to manage air traffic around the airport.

"If someone is coming to the airport to catch a flight, they should check with their airline first," Bloomfield added.

Bloomfield said they do not know how many flights are affected by the outage.

Hospitals around the county were operating off back-up power generators, and officials at several facilities said patients weren't in any danger.

At the University of California San Diego hospitals in Hillcrest and La Jolla, full power was being delivered to emergency rooms, burn units and other critical areas such as operating rooms that were in use when the blackout occurred, said spokeswoman Kimberly Edwards.

"Everything is super calm," Edwards said. "We drill for everything from earthquakes and tsunamis to power outages and water loss."

Power was also out at Scripps Health's four hospitals and the five medical centers operated by Sharp Healthcare. Spokesmen for both of those systems said their facilities were receiving limited electricity from backup generators.

At Sharp, a disaster preparedness team was communicating with hospitals through a radio system, spokesman John Cihomsky said.

Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Mike Mohler in San Diego County said there have been no serious emergencies reported to his agency across Riverside County's Coachella Valley, southern Orange County, Imperial and San Diego counties during the outages.

"People are calling 911 when they should be calling SDG&E," Mohler said.

Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/08/widespread-power-outages-across-san-diego-county/

--
Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
Read my blog at http://eclecticarcania.blogspot.com/
My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/derkimster
Linkedin profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kim-noyes/9/3a1/2b8
Follow me on Twitter @DisasterKim

__._,_.___

Be sure to check out our Links Section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/links
Please join our Discussion Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters_discussion/ for topical but extended discussions started here or for less topical but nonetheless relevant messages.

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___