Cold Winds Cause Outages, Drive Homeless Into Shelters

A cold front packing winds as high as 40 m.p.h. knocked down tree limbs and power lines across Ventura County on Wednesday, leaving thousands of residents temporarily without power as homeless people huddled in area shelters to avoid one of the coldest nights of the year.

Meteorologists said a change in wind patterns forced frigid arctic air to dip into Southern California, plunging temperatures to levels that could damage the county’s delicate citrus and avocado crops.

“As this air moves in, it is such extremely cold air and moving so fast that the result is gusty winds,” said Ken German, a meteorologist with Weather Data Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. German expected high winds, gusting to 50 m.p.h., to continue through today.

Winds knocked out power lines Wednesday, resulting in several power outages in the county, with some lasting only minutes and others hours.

Southern California Edison reported three electrical power outages in Ojai during the morning--two of them caused by flying tree branches caught in the lines--said Michael Montoya, area manager for the company. Nearly 2,000 customers lost power, including Ojai City Hall and Ojai Valley Hospital. Electricity was restored within minutes, Montoya said.

Thousand Oaks also suffered a temporary loss of power three times Wednesday morning. Each incident lasted several minutes and a total of 2,900 customers were affected.

As the day progressed, the outages became more severe.

About 2,000 customers in the east end of Simi Valley were without power for most of the afternoon after lines went down at about 1:30 p.m. due to the winds, said Carol Larson, area manager for Southern California Edison. Lines also fell at about 2:15 p.m. in Bell Canyon. Power for both locations was restored after nightfall, Larson said.

For homeless people, several days of cold weather drove them to shelters in increasing numbers. The National Guard Armory in Oxnard opened its doors to homeless people for the seventh consecutive night, county officials said.

About 50 men and a few women, many wearing ski caps, set up their cots, stood around talking, and waited in line for steaming vegetable soup and sausages. They were grateful to have a warm place to stay out of the wind. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said William Geib, 40, who has spent every night at the armory since it opened. “It is too cold out there.”

As part of a statewide program to use armories to house the homeless during the winter months, armory doors open when nighttime temperatures drop to 40 degrees or below, or to less than 50 degrees with a 50% chance of rain.

The armory has been open more nights than this time last year, said Nancy Steinhelper, deputy director of the Ventura County Adult Protective Services Department, which runs the program in Ventura.

“This time last year we opened for six nights in a two-week period from Dec. 10 to the 23rd. This year we have already been running seven nights in a one-week period,” Steinhelper said. She added that the number of people “vary from year to year, according to the weather.”

Other shelters in the county also reported higher numbers of occupants in the last week. Fred Judy, founder of the Zoe Christian Center in Oxnard, one of two full-time shelters in Ventura County, said his shelter had reached capacity at 159 people Wednesday afternoon, 30 more people than the average occupancy.

“During the cold spells we make room,” Judy said. “We get people to double up with each other. About this time every year it is the same thing. Any time during the winter months, we find an increase.”

David Shaw of the Ventura County Rescue Mission in Oxnard said his shelter has witnessed a 20% increase since the cold snap began over the weekend. “We usually have 35 to 40 people sleeping in every night. Now we have 50 to 70.”

Citrus and avocado growers were ready to plunge into the chilly night air and turn on wind machines to protect their crops. When the temperature sinks to 30 degrees, the machines are turned on to circulate the air and raise the temperature above the plants, said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

“The very worst scenario is where it gets very cold and very still--that does the worst damage,” Laird said. He said farmers fear the weather is going to get colder in the next few days. “The consensus is that between now and Saturday, it is going to get very cold,” he said.

Meteorologists expect temperatures to dip below freezing by the end of the week.