Blackout Hits at Random in Valley, Area

Saturday’s big blackout struck the San Fernando Valley area capriciously, leaving some residents in the sweltering darkness of stalled elevators and unlit shops, while handing others little more than a momentary lull in the rumble of their air conditioners.

Throughout the Valley and its environs, police said, motorists struggled through intersections where the traffic signals were either out completely or just blinking. By late Saturday night, many signals still were not working, said Lt. Brad Kubela of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.

Passersby reported fender-benders and close encounters at darkened intersections, but Kubela said there were no more accidents than usual.

“We had tons of calls,” said Bob Collis, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Fire Department, but there were no significant traffic accidents or injuries as a result of the outage.

“People called to say their power was out, but everybody knew that,” he said.

In the Antelope Valley, where the power remained off until about 7 p.m., much later than the rest of the region, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Station called in at least 40 volunteers to help direct traffic, said Lt. Art Valenzuela.

The phones were also ringing off the hook at the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station. One man called to complain that he couldn’t iron his clothes because the power was out.

“You gotta love people to do this job,” said the officer who took the call.

At Burbank Airport, emergency power kicked in shortly after the outage and service was not disrupted. The airport has generators that can run for six hours without refueling, said spokesman Jim Mayfield, and extra fuel was on hand for longer emergencies.

Local hospitals used emergency power. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, a backup system was needed for only 10 minutes before the power came back on, said spokeswoman Kathy Mitchell.

At Northridge Fashion Center, employees at the Macy’s store had planned to spend the day celebrating. Saturday was the one-year anniversary of the reopening of the store, then a Bullock’s, that was destroyed in the Northridge earthquake.

But when the power died at 3:48, the party went with it. The mall, despite its auxiliary power system, quickly heated up, and Macy’s was down to three working cash registers.

A still and nearly empty popcorn machine in the middle of menswear attested to festivities earlier in the day. At the perfume counter, a few employees were nonplused, handing out free samples of men’s cologne.

Their colleagues had retreated to the employee lounge.

“They’re all eating cake, as a matter of fact, but the sales manager is probably up in his office crying right now,” said Jacqueline Donohue, a vendor for Aramis Inc. “Would you like some fragrance samples?”

Mary Carl of Sunland was at the Northridge mall having her hair done when the lights went out and the blow-dryers stopped.

“I told her, ‘You’re gonna look like a witch,’ ” her husband, Ed, confessed later.

“I told him, ‘I already do,’ ” Mary Carl shot back.

The mall was back to full power about 5:15.

Gil Gaytan was a lot luckier--and he wanted to make sure his customers knew it.

The power may have been out from Mexico to Canada, but everything was fine at the El Queso Grande Restaurant in North Hills, where Gaytan is general manager.

“I don’t know why. It just blinked for a few minutes and came back on,” said Gaytan, who posted hand-written signs declaring “We have power.”

The restaurant was the only one of nearly 40 businesses in the North Hills Shopping Center to maintain electricity. And despite a few moments in the dark when panicked customers clamored for their checks as car tires squealed and skidded in the intersection outside, business was good--very good.

“People kept pulling up asking if we had power, so I put the signs up so they wouldn’t have to get out of their cars,” Gaytan said.

A loss of power at an ice cream shop wreaks havoc on the inventory, as Duane Smith, manager of a Baskin-Robbins store in Northridge learned Saturday. Smith turned away 10 grumpy customers, agreeing only to complete the orders that were in mid-scoop when the freezers stopped humming.

And no, he said, there is no backup plan.

“It’s ice cream,” he said. “The plan is for it not to melt.”

The randomness of the blackout is particularly well illustrated by the tale of two Shell gas station clerks. Beno Deb, who works at the Shell station at Tampa Avenue and Sherman Way in Reseda, barely had time to step outside of his sales booth when the lights came back on.

But his friend, Sunil Alagh, who works just a few blocks away at another Shell station, wasn’t so fortunate. Alagh’s power was out for more than an hour, and he estimates that he lost 100 customers.

The only thing to do, he said, was try to stay cool.

“I took off my tie, my shoes,” Alagh said. “I was a helpless person standing here in the dark, fighting off people who wanted to buy beer.”

Times staff writer Jose Cardenas contributed to this story. Sharon Bernstein is a Times staff writer, and Sylvia Oliande and Maggie Barnett are special correspondents.