Laguna Left Powerless in Heat of a Sweaty Sunday Afternoon

Just two hours went by Sunday sans electricity in Laguna Beach.

But this is a beach town. At the peak of summer. And on this sultry, sunny day, it was laden with thousands of sweaty beach-goers and tourists seeking refuge from inland heat.

Let’s forget the garden-variety power failure in which your refrigerator and its ice and food go lukewarm and your fan goes dead--along with your sense of humor.

Traffic signals on Coast Highway were out throughout the village-like downtown on the worst day of the week for vehicle snarls. The result was a giant, snakelike parking lot backed up for miles in the sun.

Had the Pageant of the Masters offered matinee performances, police said, Laguna Beach would have been a worse mess.

As it was, Police Sgt. Mike Hall said, “our power went out here, but the lights went out and then the generator kicked on, so we were OK. But we held over the whole day shift just for the traffic control.”

Keith Sheldon, a San Diego Gas & Electric Co. spokesman, said a transformer apparently withered from heat at 2:40 p.m., knocking out power to about 2,400 customers from downtown Laguna Beach north to Corona del Mar. By 5:20 p.m., power was restored.

In the meantime, merchants had to make do.

At Heidi’s Frogen Yozurt Shoppe on Broadway, that effort lasted about 10 minutes. By then, the cold dessert was melting to a creamy soup in Heidi’s machines, forcing the shop to close for business at 3 p.m.--eight hours early.

“We served it melted for a while, but we’re just cleaning it up now,” said Heidi’s worker Paul Townsend, 14.

Of equal importance, Townsend added, was that “the cash registers don’t open” during a power failure.

But customers at the store across Coast Highway from Main Beach had been good natured, Townsend said. And patient. By 4:30 p.m. the power was back and the yogurt shop reopened.

“We’ve been really busy,” Townsend said, since the power went back on.

At the oceanfront Las Brisas Restaurant, the kitchen shut down as the popular brunch hour closed and the early-dinner crowd began arriving, manager Fouad Ziady said. Stocked with plenty of ice, the bar remained open, and cold ones were served--with the exception of beverages that require an electric blender.

“We could still serve drinks, but our brunch is served through 3:30, and we lost an hour of our dinners,” Ziady added.

South a few blocks on Coast Highway, at Hotel Laguna, reservations could not be made for a chunk of the afternoon because the beachfront inn was without phone service, along with its electricity.

Acting “like (traffic) signals,” Sgt. Hall said, police officers from the day shift who were due to clock out at 3:45 p.m. stayed on the streets for 75 minutes while the night shift responded to other calls in the city.

Otherwise, he said, “it would have been mass confusion.”