Winds Leave 300,000+ Without Power, Businesses Closed

More than 340,000 customers were without electricity in the Southland today as offshore winds gusting as high as near 100 miles per hour overnight knocked down trees, utility poles and power lines and raised fears of wildfire.

The City of Pasadena provided a measure of how disruptive the winds turned out to be by declaring a local emergency this morning and urging both working adults and schoolchildren to stay home to avoid roads strewn with downed limbs and power lines.

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The Pasadena Unified School District reported its schools would remain shuttered today, and canceled after-school programs, events and sports-related activities at all campuses.

Schools were also closed in the following public school districts — Alhambra, Arcadia, Azusa, Duarte, Glendora, La Canada, Monrovia, San Gabriel, San Marino, South Pasadena and Temple City — along with Citrus College in Glendora.

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced that all its schools were staying open.

In the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, a large tree fell onto a house at 600 N. Mott St. at 5:12 a.m., but no one was hurt, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Matt Spence. In Pasadena, a large tree fell onto a Shell gas station at San Gabriel and Colorado boulevards overnight.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s biggest municipal utility, reported at 10 a.m. that 129,000 of its 1.4 million customers were without power. About 123,400 of those customers are in the metro area, and the remaining 5,600 are in the San Fernando Valley.

Venice was among the hardest-hit areas, with about 12,000 customers without power, while about 14,700 customers were without power in the Highland Park area.

Southern California Edison, which serves Southland customers outside Los Angeles, reported at 11 a.m. that 213,255 of its customers were without power, with the hardest-hit areas including San Gabriel, Alhambra, Altadena, Arcadia, El Monte, La Canada Flintridge, Monrovia and Sierra Madre.

Crews from both the DWP and SCE worked through the night to bring power back. The outages were believed to be affecting both residential and commercial customers.

In the northeastern portion of the city, power outages affected water- pumping equipment, prompting DWP to call for residents to conserve water in Mount Washington, Mount Hermon, Monterey Hills, Cypress Park, Glassell Park and Montecito Heights.

At Los Angeles International Airport, an hourlong power outage starting around 7 p.m. Wednesday affected all passenger terminals and caused 20 inbound domestic flights and three international flights to be diverted to other area airports. Power was restored by 8 p.m., but delays lingered this morning, said LAX spokeswoman Nancy Castles.

Airport officials faced a secondary challenge during the outage. Some airport tenants had failed to secure their equipment as requested, and containers rolled onto two runways on the south side of the airport, causing their temporary closure, Castles said.

As of about 9 this morning, all flight activity at LAX was reported normal, with general arrival/departure delays of 15 minutes or less.

However, due to weather conditions, flights destined for McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas were experiencing delays averaging about one hour, said LAX spokesman Marshall Lowe.

The National Weather Service, citing the wind and low humidity, issued a red flag warning, denoting wildfire conditions, effective until Friday evening. In doing so, the NWS warned of sustained winds in the 45-60-mph range, gusting to around 85 mph.

But the winds that kicked up beginning Wednesday night turned out to be even more powerful. Winds gusting at 97 mph were recorded overnight in Whitaker Peak in the Los Angeles County portion of the San Gabriel Mountains, the weather service reported, adding that 67-mph gusts were monitored in Saugus while Malibu was wracked by gusts of around 50 mph.

NWS meteorologists said the “very strong offshore wind event” affecting the region’s mountain, forest, valley and coastal areas resulted from the alignment of two systems — a cold low-pressure system that came down the Nevada-California state line to combine with a buildup of strong surface-high pressure in the Great Basin.

“Close all windows and secure all outdoor objects such as lawn furniture,” an NWS advisory urged residents.

The risk of wildfire was considered so high that it prompted fire departments to take special precautions.

In the city of Los Angeles, red flag parking restrictions were put into effect from 8 this morning until 8 a.m. Friday. The restrictions are intended to prevent parked cars on narrow streets from blocking emergency vehicles. To find out if you live in an area where parking is restricted, go to http://lafd.org/redflag/.

Along with issuing the parking restrictions, the Los Angeles Fire Department also bolstered its staffing to ensure rapid response. The beefed-up deployment ordered by Fire Chief Brian Cummings includes 18 additional engine companies, six brush patrols, one battalion command team, one water tender and one bulldozer strike team, said department spokesman Brian Humphrey.

Coinciding with fire-weather conditions, there was also an extra 911 dispatcher at the department’s communications center working alongside each battalion chief, and an officer specially assigned to coordinate swift and effective air operations, Humphrey said.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, extended its contract for two firefighting SuperScooper aircraft for another week. The aircraft are leased from the government of Quebec in Canada, said Tony Bell of county Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s office.

The SuperScoopers can carry up to 1,620 gallons of water and take only 12 seconds to scoop up water from a lake and inject it with a fire-resistant foam — a combination three times as effective as water alone, Bell said.

The SuperScoopers can get airborne in as little as five minutes and fly three hours before they have to refuel.