County responds to community without power, what you can do to prepare for outage
Residents at a mobile home park near Desert Hot Springs are cooling-off after a three-day power outage in sweltering temperatures.
Riverside County helped residents at Sam's Family Spa & Hot Water Resort after a Saturday power outage in Desert Hot Springs. The county's Emergency Management Department (EMD) and the Department of Public Social Services assisted.
The county said 14 residents chose to stay at an overnight shelter they provided.
Resident Marie Williams works at the resort and lived through the weekend long outage.
"It was hot. You could feel the sweat running down your back. It was so hot, a couple of times I jumped in the pool," said Williams. "I have a little small refrigerator and everything got thrown away... We had to supply waters for all the residents do wellness checks on them and everything."
The power outage started Friday morning and power came back Sunday afternoon. A consultant to the resort, Bill Mecham, said a transformer on a Southern California Edison power pole blew up which damaged the wire bringing power to the park.
"We were carefully paying attention to the folks who were in the park, and trying our best to do everything we could to make sure that that no one got super sick and no one was left alone or left without being checked off," said Mecham.
Mecham said the resort called EMD on saturday to tell them about the extended power outage.
Shane Reichardt with EMD said if an outage happens to you to call your utility provider first for resources.
"Personal preparedness really goes a long way in making sure that you're ready for anytime that the power does go out," said Reichardt. "The Emergency Management Department doesn't typically get involved until a power has been or is expected to go for a long duration. So 12 hours is usually about our trigger point where we start looking at what are the forecast? What is the population that's impacted?"
With temperatures reaching dangerous highs, it's important to be prepared for what to do in case a power outage happens to you and you're left with no AC.
The Emergency Management Department has tips for what to do if your power is out:
- Keep flashlights, spare batteries, and a battery-operated radio
- Refrain from opening your refrigerator unless necessary to keep its temperature for as long as possible
- If your power has been out for any length of time, food items in the refrigerator or freezer may have spoiled and can make you sick
If your power is out and you need a place to stay cool, there are local cooling centers you can can go to for free. The county provided a full list of cooling centers.
Watch News Channel 3 at 5 p.m. to hear from county officials about how you can stay safe during a power outage while temperatures are dangerously high.
POWER OUTAGE TIPS: https://www.sce.com/outage-center/preparing-for-outages
