Only 109,000 DWP Metro-Area Customers Still Lack Electricity

About 314,000 customers were without power in the Southland Friday and thousands of students were kept home from schools, as offshore winds gusting as high as nearly 100 mph overnight knocked down trees, utility poles and power lines and raised fears of wildfire.

Chatsworth, however, seems to have escaped the brunt of the storm, with little wind damage.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the nation's biggest municipal utility, reported at 9 p.m. that 109,000 of its 1.4 million customers were without power due to the high winds. The majority of those customers were in the metro area, with a few remaining in the San Fernando Valley.

A measure of how disruptive the winds were was provided by Pasadena, where officials declared a local emergency and urged residents to stay home and avoid streets strewn with downed tree limbs and power lines.

Several veteran Pasadena firefighters said it was the strongest windstorm they could recall in at least 30 years.

As of early Thursday afternoon, the city had "red-tagged" 42 residences -- houses and individual apartments -- as being unsafe for occupancy, Pasadena Emergency Management Coordinator Lisa Derderian said. Derderian noted that some apartment buildings can have units that are red-tagged, while other units in the same building are not.

The Pasadena Unified School District canceled classes, after-school programs, events and sports-related activities at all campuses Thursday and Friday. District officials said that although students will not be in attendance Friday, all district employees are expected to report for work to prepare for the reopening of schools on Monday.

Citrus College in Glendora and schools in the Alhambra, Arcadia, Azusa, Duarte, Glendora, La Canada, Monrovia, San Gabriel, San Marino, South Pasadena and Temple City districts were also closed Thursday, though the Los Angeles Unified School District reported that all its schools stayed open.

Wind-related damage and outages were widespread throughout the Southland, affecting locations ranging from The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, which will remain closed again Friday and Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich also declared a state of emergency for the county due to wind damage. Antonovich's District 5 includes Chatsworth.

Los Angeles Recreation and Parks General Manager Jon Kirk Mukri ordered Griffith Park closed due to downed trees and the danger of additional damage from continuing gusts. The park will be closed until debris is cleared and officials determine it is safe for people to re-enter the park, spokeswoman Andrea Epstein said.

In Glendale, wind gusts caused damage to The Americana at Brand's 100- foot-tall Christmas tree, though the mall remained open for business.

Trees toppled over onto homes and vehicles throughout the region and made some streets impassable, though no serious injuries were reported.

In hard-hit Pasadena, a large ficus tree fell onto a Shell station at San Gabriel and Colorado boulevards overnight, but nobody was hit. A man who works at the station said he turned off the gas pumps and watered down the area because fire crews were too busy to immediately respond..

Highland Park was among the hardest-hit areas, with about 13,000 customers without power, while about 10,100 customers were without power in the Venice area.

Southern California Edison, which serves Southland customers outside Los Angeles, reported at 5 p.m. that 205,321 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.

Edison officials noted that the continuing winds were hampering efforts to restore power, and affected customers should be prepared to be without electricity al least into Friday.

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

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.

However, 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.

That low-pressure system, however, began moving east into Arizona this afternoon, causing winds to shift to the northeast and weaken slightly. But forecasters said mountain areas -- particularly in the northern reaches of the Golden State Freeway and the Antelope Valley Freeway, as well as the Santa Clarita Valley, would still be prone to "potentially damaging wind gusts near 60 mph."

Peak winds around the rest of the county were expected to top out around 50 mph.

The offshore flow will be weakening rapidly Friday afternoon, and winds were expected to diminish dramatically. But another round of high winds was expected later Saturday into Sunday.

In the meantime, the risk of wildfire was considered so high that it prompted fire departments to take special precautions.

In Los Angeles, red flag parking restrictions went into effect at 8 Thursday morning and will remain so 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 park in an area where there are restrictions, 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 Chief Brian Cummings includes 18 additional engine companies, six brush patrols, one battalion command team, one water tender and one bulldozer strike team, said the department's Brian Humphrey said.

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 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.

-- City News Service