WOODLAND HILLS— The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported an estimated number of 3,800 customers in the San Fernando Valley area that were without power over the night of August 15 during a heat wave surge.
The National Weather Service has been reporting that there is a heat wave alert likely to last until Thursday, August 20, with highest temperatures projected to appear on Tuesday. The SoCal area has had temperatures as high as 114 degrees as of Sunday, August 16.
With the alerts of rising temperatures, the LADWP has sent out statements encouraging residents to conserve their electricity as much as possible: “After a weekend of extreme heat and more high temperatures in the forecast, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has issued a statewide flex alert beginning today from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and extending through Wednesday. A flex alert is a call for voluntary electricity conservation during peak hours to lessen the strain on the state’s grid. CAISO had also issued a flex alert on Friday.”
Even with the flex alert, there have been a series of blackouts reported. The LADWP is continuing to investigate the cause of the outages, and there are no reports that it is directly related to the heat wave passing through.
Sunday morning LADWP reported, “Our crews worked all night restoring power to affected customers. At 8am this morning we have 2600 customers out. Many of those remaining are small localized outages. If you are affected pls be assured our crews will get you restored.”
According to LADWP’s chart on outages, the Jefferson Park area currently has 40 customers reported to be affected, 25 in the Van Nuys area, 8 in the Woodland Hills area and 10 in the Canoga Park area alongside 40 other areas.
For those suffering with power outages, the city offers several “Emergency Cooling Centers” that can be found through https://lacounty.gov/heat/.
