Power Outage Snarls Sunset Strip
A power outage caused a major blackout in the Sunset Strip area of West Hollywood on Friday night, cutting electricity to nightclubs and causing a major traffic jam on Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards, authorities said.
“Traffic has just come to an absolute standstill and it’s giving us fits,” said Sgt. Gaylord Cox, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
An explosion in an underground vault may have caused the 8:45 p.m. outage, said Melanie Savage, a Southern California Edison Co. spokeswoman. She said that about 550 customers in the area lost electricity.
“We put candles on the tables and dangled flashlights from overhead lighting fixtures,” said Barbara Lazaroff, co-owner of Spago restaurant.
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