Power Outage Hits Wide Area of Westside
Tree trimmers whose hydraulic boom brushed against a 220,000-volt electric line were blamed Monday for a power failure that knocked out electricity to 120,000 homes and businesses in Inglewood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Hollywood and Santa Monica, Southern California Edison officials said.
The power failure occurred at about 1:20 p.m. It lasted about four minutes in most areas but lingered more than an hour in other areas.
Traffic signals in some cities, including Beverly Hills, were left disabled for more than an hour after power was restored until municipal crews could reset timers.
In Santa Monica, startled lunchtime diners at a top-floor cafeteria were stranded until they found a catwalk that led across the courthouse rooftop to a stairway that descended to the building’s holding-cell area.
Edison spokesman Tom Boyd said no one was reported injured at the tree-trimming site. He said Monday’s outage was not weather-related.
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