Emergency repair leaves dozens without power in +55 community during triple-digit heat

The power and more importantly the air conditioning are back on tonight for dozens of people in a Cathedral City community. The power was off for about five hours at the Canyon Mobile Home Community, near Cathedral Canyon and Dinah Shore. Southern California Edison said an emergency repair was to blame.

“I noticed it starting getting warm, then my ceiling fan stopped,” said Susan Ladd, a resident of the community.

Joe Huard has been living in the community for almost a decade. He says he is frustrated to ride out another power outage in triple-digit heat.

“Living here is like living in a third world country. This park, every year, there’s 3,4 power outages always in the summertime. We never get reimbursed by the company, never a penny. and that’s not fair,” Huard said.

Some people said it got as hot as 98 degrees in their home.

“I left, i just had to leave the house cause I can’t tolerate the heat,” Ladd said.

Huard says the neighborhood is a 55+ community and the outages are potentially dangerous.

“The woman next to me, she’s 92 years old. Luckily her son is here. They took off, I don’t know where they went. I said are you leaving? Tommy said ‘My mother can’t stay in this heat’ and then there’s a woman, about the third house, passed the flag, and she’s an elderly woman in her 90s too and I don’t know what she’s going to do,” Huard said.

A representative with SCE said the power went out because of a bad primary cable a little after 1 p.m. and lasted until 6:15 p.m.

Power has been restored to all customers but additional repairs will be scheduled at a later time.

“Wait till it’s August, 115-118 and then the whole park will be down. Every year, every year, I’ve been here 9 years and its the same tune. every year,” Huard said.