Power Surge Forces 210 From Homes in Anaheim

An electricity surge that sparked small fires, caused appliances to go haywire and temporarily displaced hundreds of residents was caused when a line to overhead transformers snapped, fire authorities said Monday.

“I can’t remember a line coming down like that, just snapping off,” said fire Capt. Earl Stokes, a 30-year veteran of the department. “These lines are super strong, meant to stay up there for a decade.”

The power surge Sunday night caused a small fire in one house, electrified cable lines and caused an outage that forced 210 residents in 39 homes to evacuate, authorities said. There were scattered vegetation and fence fires, Stokes said. Smoke wafted from some attic vents.

No one was injured, but one family was housed overnight by the American Red Cross. The others were allowed to return to their homes about 10:30 p.m., a little more than three hours after the surge.

Old equipment, possibly wiring in the conductors, is suspected, said Melanie Nieman, a spokesperson for Anaheim Public Utilities, the city-owned power firm.

The lines connected to the cylindrical transformers are so sturdy that they can withstand the high-pressure jets of water shot at them by cleaning trucks, Stokes said.

The source of the outage was a transformer near the intersection of Dorchester and South Elder streets, Nieman said.

The energized electrical wire from the transformer collapsed and touched cable television equipment at the eaves of homes, said Nieman.

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but something like this is rare,” Nieman said. The utility does routine, visual checks of its transformers, she said.

It’s not unusual for sparking and other problems to increase as the season gets colder and windier, Stokes said. But it usually takes direct physical force, such as an accident, to cause a transformer line to collapse, Stokes said.

After the line collapsed Sunday, the high voltage of that line was transferred to a cable line with a lower voltage capacity, Stokes said. Because cable lines are part of a system, the extra dose of voltage affected more than one home, he said.

The result: a surge of electricity into a few dozen homes, and in some cases, straight into appliances.

Cliff Lorenzen was in his kitchen baking cookies when the line collapsed. His sons Anthony and Michael, ages 12 and 8 respectively, were watching television when they heard what Anthony called a “popcorn-popping sound.”

“The backyard had turned green, and there was a flashing,” Anthony said.

The brothers, who had been watching a movie about space aliens, were scared at first and sneaked a peek through the back window. Small bolts of fire charged back and forth on the power line above the family’s swimming pool, occasionally exploding in little green, blue and red flashes, they said.

“It was flashing like fireworks . . . like Disneyland fireworks,” Anthony said, pointing to the shredded power line. “That line was like a laser.”