Gusts Up to 45 MPH Kick Up a Little Chaos

Talk about a bad hair day.

Santa Ana winds of up to 45 mph blew through the San Fernando Valley on Wednesday, knocking down power lines, causing outages and felling tree branches.

Strong gusts downed power lines throughout the city and surrounding areas, knocking out power to thousands of customers.

Nearly 63,000 Southern California Edison customers were affected. For some, it meant flickering lights and blinking clock radios. Others lost power for several hours, said Tom Boyd, a company spokesman.

Most of those affected were in Orange County, although there were reports of sporadic interruptions in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Los Angeles firefighters went to several locations where lines were blown down, guarding the areas until busy Department of Water and Power workers arrived, said LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey.

There were no reports of injuries due to the downed power lines, authorities said.

At one point, the DWP had 6,400 customers without power, most of them in the San Fernando Valley, including parts of Sunland, Woodland Hills and Sherman Oaks.

“We’ve had a good deal of success getting them restored in a timely fashion,” said Karen Shephard-Grimes, a DWP spokeswoman, who added that power was expected to be fully restored by Wednesday night.

Meteorologists clocked winds of 25 to 35 mph in the San Fernando Valley with gusts as high as 45 mph.

The California Highway Patrol issued wind advisories on the Ventura, Golden State, San Diego and Ronald Reagan freeways, warning truckers of the possibility of their rigs being blown over by strong gusts.

The offshore winds are expected to continue through Friday and temperatures are expected to be slightly above normal, with highs in the low 70s today and Friday, said Wes Etheredge of WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.