Days after Saturday outage, full power returns to mobile home park on Thursday
Updated post 8/7 at 10:40 p.m.
Power has been restored at the Parkview Mobile Estates.
Thursday night, Southern California Edison released a statement to News Channel 3:
“Customers had service through generators at 11 p.m. last night. There was a brief outage overnight while SCE crews replaced and connected transformers, and all customers had their service restored by 2 a.m. this morning.”
Residents said they were relieved power was back on.
UPDATE as of 8/6 3:30 p.m.
The estimated time for full restoration is 11 p.m. on Tuesday night as they work to install new transformers, SCE told News Channel 3. Generators are in place and crews are working as fast as they can to restore the community's power.
Original report published on 8/5:
Residents at the Parkview Mobile Estates on Mesquite Avenue in Palm Springs have been without power for more than 48-hours.
The outage first began on Saturday, around 6:00 p.m. according to Southern California Edison. The company says "equipment problems with the transformer" are to blame for the outage. Jeff Monford, a spokesperson with SCE says the company is doing everything it can to restore power, including bringing in three backup generators to partially restore air conditioning to the club house, and some homes.
"Turns out it's required a few of them operating together in order to provide enough power so that the people in the park can have AC at their home and keep things safe there," said Monford. "We know that any outage is at least a hardship, and sometimes it's more than that, so our crews are working as fast as they can to safely restore the power."
Although generators are a temporary and partial fix, Monford says crews are working around the clock to solve the problem entirely.
“To fully restore power at this particular mobile home park requires transformers that will fit into the underground vault there," said Monford. "They are rectangular in shape compared to the usual round ones, and three of them will be tied together to work in a bank, collaborating with each other to transform the power to the correct voltage to go into the park. So those are being prepared and shipped right now, with the plan to install them tomorrow evening."
Edison also called in a 'Community Crew Support Vehicle' on Monday to provide residents with snacks, water, and a charging center for cellphones and medical devices.
On Sunday, the city of Palm Springs opened up the Demuth Community center to help impacted residents, but a spokesperson with the city says it would not be opening again on Monday.
One resident, Jay Genoa, says power outages in triple digit temperatures are unacceptable, especially in elderly communities like Parkview.
“There's a lot of concern across the board here," said Genoa. "Health, fire, you know? How is a pet going to survive when it's 120 degrees? You cant take them outside. There are some of us that are very, very concerned, and some people who are struggling, very much, struggling."
Genoa also says some residents had to be taken to the hospital for heat-related issues.
"There's one gentleman that we check on regularly who's in his 90s, and with a window air conditioning unit in his bedroom," said Genoa. "There's been several people that have been taken away in ambulances. I mean this is a really dangerous situation, and if it's not fixed soon it could turn deadly."
SCE says it hopes to have the power fully restored to the neighborhood by Tuesday afternoon.
