Scheduled power outage leaves residents hot under collar
Southern California Edison will be cutting off power to several customers for a few hours Thursday for maintenance.
Some residents in the Sundance II community in Palm Springs got a postcard in the mail from SCE reading their power will be shut off Thursday sometime from 9:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m.
“I just thought this is lunacy, SCE’s own website indicates that they will make every attempt not to shut down service in times of enormous heat waves and here they are,” said Mark Robinson. He’s worried about the power being out when temperatures could get as high as 15 degrees above normal.
“Like many big corporations they don’t think about the impact that they have on individuals,” said Robinson. He and his husband tried to contact SCE to get the maintenance rescheduled. Robinson has a 8-year-old dog suffering from B-Cell lymphoma. The dog, named Misty, is undergoing chemotherapy and shouldn’t be exposed to heat.
Some of Robinson’s neighbors will also have their power shut off.
“I’ll be alright, but I think it can be dangerous for certain people or older people who can’t get out,” said Bill Elsbury, who lives in the same condo complex as Robinson.
SEE IF YOUR AREA IS GOING TO HAVE A SCHEDULED OUTAGE
Robinson walks with a cane after multiple surgeries for arthritis. He mostly stays home unless he’s taking Misty to the vet.
Robinson’s husband tried asking SCE to reschedule the maintenance for when it’s cooler.
“Their first response to him on the web was we have the authority to do this, nobody can tell us not to and we are just going to go ahead and do it,” said Robinson.
The couple even went to Facebook where SCE said it would look into the issue, but Robinson never got an update.
“My plan if this takes is to crank up the air conditioner very high to build up a head of steam in the unit and clearly not open anything, we’ll have water, and make sure the dogs get what they need so I wont have to open refrigerators,” said Robinson.
KESQ/CBS Local 2 contacted SCE and asked why they couldn’t reschedule the maintenance for a time when temperatures aren’t so high.
“SCE does maintenance work on our equipment because we want the power grid to be modern, reliable and absolutely up-to-date. However, we do understand that any ongoing maintenance work is an inconvenience, so we isolate outages down to the smallest area possible and complete the work as quickly and safely as we can. As Southern California demands more electricity , SCE will continue upgrading and maintaining the grid to meet this growing demand. So it is necessary from time to time to temporarily turn off the power so that we can install upgrades to the grid safety,” said Nena McCullough, public relations with SCE.
McCullough also told us once a maintenance project is scheduled, there is a time table set by the California Public Utilities Commission and they need to finish the project within that time table. If they don’t, they run the risk of something breaking and having an unscheduled power outage.
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