Rolling Blackouts In SoCal: See Whether Your Home Is Impacted

LOS ANGELES, CA — For the ninth consecutive day, Californians are being asked to conserve energy this afternoon to avoid outages as a historic Western heat wave continues.

The state's power grid operator hopes to continue its streak of avoiding rolling blackouts — the practice of periodically cutting power to some customers to alleviate strain on the grid during major heat events.

Officials on Thursday asked all residents to conserve electricity during the hours of 3 to 10 p.m., extending the previous Flex Alerts by two hours.

Thursday's flex alert was issued for Thursday from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Here's how to track whether your home is subject to an outage.

• Californians can track outages across the state with this dashboard, which pulls data from the California office of Emergency Services.
• For Southern California Edison customers, an outage map can be found here.
• For San Diego Gas & Electric customers, an outage map can be found here.

The California Independent System Operator on Wednesday thanked residents and businesses for heeding another “flex alert,” a request to reduce electricity consumption during peak evening hours.

On Tuesday, Californians apparently scrambled to shut off lights and unplug energy-draining appliances Tuesday afternoon after a text message alert was sent en masse, asking residents to conserve energy.

The text message, sent by the state's Office of Emergency Services, may have helped the state avoid rolling blackouts in the midst of an oppressive and historic Western heat wave.

The message was sent to residents at 5:45 p.m. and within five minutes, grid officials recorded an "immediate and significant" drop in energy use, the state said.

On that same day, peak energy demand surpassed 52,000 megawatts, far above the previous high of 50,270 megawatts set on July 24, 2006, authorities said.

Residents on Thursday were yet again urged to take the following power-saving steps:

• setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher
• avoiding use of major appliances
• turning off unnecessary lights
• avoid charging electric vehicles

Californians were also advised to pre-cool their homes as much as possible and close blinds and drapes to keep interiors cool.

READ MORE: CA Turns To Natural Gas To Avoid Outages During Record Heat Wave

The state's record heat wave was on track to be the hottest and longest in California for September ever while peak summer heat for the state is normally in July and August, emergency officials reported.

California’s state capital of Sacramento hit an all-time high Tuesday of 116 degrees, breaking a 97-year-old record. Other records were set or tied in Northern California:

• Livermore, 116 degrees (tied a record set Monday)
• King City, 116 degrees (broke 2017 record)
• Santa Rosa, 115 degrees (broke 1913 record)
• Napa, 114 degrees (broke 1961 record)
• Redwood City, 110 degrees (broke 1972 record)
• San Jose, 109 degrees (broke 2017 record)

Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in state history.

A wildfire that started Friday in the Northern California community of Weed killed two people and one that erupted Monday and spread rapidly in the Hemet area of Southern California also killed two people. Authorities said they apparently died while trying to flee the flames.

The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.