Local News in Brief : Horn Is Blowing, But Where’s Fog?

Saturday’s weather was sunny, hot, and clear, so why was the foghorn at Redondo Beach blowing?

About 20 Redondo Beach residents called the Harbor Patrol office to put that question to officers after the foghorn broke Friday and sounded off about every 20 seconds throughout Friday night and Saturday, officers said.

“There’s a switch that’s broken that the phone company needs to come out and fix,” said Harbor Patrol assistant Craig Tallman. Until the phone company can make the repair, the foghorn will continue to blow “a couple of long blows in sequence every few seconds, then it’ll stop, then start again,” he said.

A similar breakdown occurred last January, when a storm hit Redondo Beach, causing massive damage and apparently setting off the foghorn. After Friday’s breakdown, as in January, sleepless residents called the Redondo Beach Harbor Patrol to complain about the continuous bleating.

Officers were expecting the phone company to repair the foghorn late Saturday or Sunday, Tallman said. In January, it took a day before the foghorn was fixed, he said.

Harbor Patrol officers did not know what caused the present breakdown but, according to Tallman, problems with the foghorn have been common since January. Usually “we would go over and kick the relay box, and it would stop,” but that did not work this time, he said.