HUNTINGTON BEACH : ‘Boxes From Hell’ Mystery Cleared Up

One resident described them as “boxes from hell.”

Another, Debbie Stock, said the huge, strange-looking metal boxes produced both fear and puzzlement in her neighborhood.

“The boxes are as big as trucks,” she said. “They just sit there in the streets, taking up a lane or two lanes. They’re black. They’re unmarked. Pipes stick out of them. And people I called in City Hall said they’ve gotten more than 100 calls about them, but they don’t what the boxes are. So, what are those things?”

City officials say they have indeed been getting many calls from residents about the big metal boxes that were plunked down on some city streets on Jan. 29.

City Administrator Paul E. Cook said the boxes weren’t city equipment. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he said, after getting an inquiry from the news media.

Later, Cook said he had solved the mystery. “It’s kind of interesting,” he said. “Those things are used by the Edison company to unsnarl fuel lines under the street.”

Michael Martin, Huntington Beach area manager for Southern California Edison, subsequently confirmed that the metal boxes are being used by the utility company.

“Oh, yes, they’re strange looking,” Martin said. “If I were driving down the street and saw one of those things, I’d be wondering, ‘What is that?’ ”

Martin said the big boxes are infrequently seen because Edison seldom has a problem such as its current one. “We burn natural gas (at Edison electric generators) 99% of the time, but we have as a backup source fuel oil that runs to our generating station in Huntington Beach in underground pipes,” he explained.

“This is kind of a first, but we found out last Monday (Jan. 29) that something was stopping the flow in the pipelines. We’ve been working around the clock since then.”

Martin said two kinds of very large metal boxes are used. “One (type of box) is used to heat the oil and make if flow better,” he said. “The other box is used to put pressure on the pipeline.”

Martin said workmen make cuts in the street, then dig down until they tap the Edison fuel pipe with lines connected to the box above. After the heat or pressure is applied for a period of time, the lines are withdraw, the street is repaired by Edison workers and the metal boxes are moved to another location.

Sizes of the metal boxes vary, he said, but he agreed that the description “big as a truck” is generally apt. But not all the boxes are black, he added. “The ones I’ve seen are green.”

Martin said Tuesday that he was not sure how many of the metal boxes are currently on Huntington Beach streets. Residents in western Huntington Beach say they have counted about seven, and Martin said that number sounded about right. “Some of the boxes are on Bolsa Chica, some on Newland, some on Westminster Boulevard,” Martin said. He added that other than causing traffic diversion, the boxes are not dangerous and don’t pose any hazard to nearby homeowners.

All of which was good news to the neighbors in the area. Stock, who lives on Silverheel Circle, said one of the mystery boxes had recently been on Edwards Street, near her neighborhood, and had provoked some anxiety. She said she originally worried that the boxes had something to do with earthquake safety.

“We live near a fault line,” she said. “We always hope the ground under you is stable, but you never know. Something like this makes you wonder.”

Martin, the Southern California Edison official, said that Huntington Beach residents may be seeing the boxes for several more days. “We still haven’t found where the problem is,” he noted.

But he said that people should not worry. The strange metal boxes may not be heavenly looking, he said, but they also are not from the other eternal destination.