Edison Customers Prepare for Worst

While communities in northern and western Los Angeles County dodged the rolling blackout bullet Thursday for a third consecutive day, residents served by energy-strapped Southern California Edison continued to prepare for outages.

Electricity customers in such areas as the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys and western Los Angeles County stocked up on batteries, candles, portable heaters--whatever they needed to ward off the cold and dark.

“I have a mobile home, and it’s extremely cold,” said Kathy Taylor of Newhall. “I can live without a TV or lights, but I need electricity for my heater.”

Taylor, 44, said she had a “big tub” of emergency earthquake materials, including flashlights, water and blankets.

Scott Abrams, manager of Home Depot in Santa Clarita, said he had seen a trend recently in customer purchases.

“There’s been definitely a change in what customers bought,” Abrams said. “They’ve been buying a lot of flashlights, generators, portable heaters, power failure lights and lots of batteries.”

By Thursday morning the store was sold out of power generators. Abrams, who estimated that the store had seen a 100% to 150% increase in generator sales, said another shipment of the $400 to $650 machines was due soon.

At Newhall Hardware Store, Darlene Long, 55, of Saugus, bought 1 1/2 gallons of oil to light six lamps at her home, one of which hangs in her bedroom.

“It gives good light, and it lasts a long time,” she said. “It’s also safer than candles.”

She also bought batteries for a radio that has weather and TV bands to keep her updated on the state’s energy crisis.

Jack Henderson, 69, of Palmdale, said he dusted off and tested a power generator that had been sitting in his garage.

“It works,” he said, “but it’s got to have gasoline, so I’m still paying money.” Henderson also was shopping for a camping lantern.

The possibility of rolling blackouts had many people and institutions on alert and ready.

Campuses in the Las Virgenes Unified School District conducted business as usual Thursday. The district has had power outages before and is prepared for more, Deputy Supt. Donald Zimring said.

“The vast majority of our classrooms have ambient light,” he said. “We have portable generators we bring in to make sure the lights, intercoms and phones are working.”

The district’s three high schools are equipped with on-site generators, which “we’ve been cycling on just to make sure they’re operational,” he said, adding that he did not anticipate closing any schools.

Officials at College of the Canyons in Valencia also prepared for possible blackouts.

“We’ve done everything we can think of,” said Sue Bozman, a spokeswoman for the college, which is conducting spring semester registration this week.

“All the faculty and staff have flashlights. We locked down our elevators so no one gets stuck in one. If the power goes off and we can’t use computers, we have paper backups so we can continue to register students,” she said.

Only a weeklong intensive Spanish class was in session Thursday. College officials again declined to shut down the campus voluntarily under Edison’s “interruptible” service program. Despite whopping penalties, which in the past have run as high as $60,000 a day, officials refused to close Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’re in our last week of registration and school starts next week. We can’t shut down,” Bozman said.

Bozman said the college signed up for Edison’s program in 1992, long before deregulation. From that time until early May 2000, the school was asked--and it agreed--twice to shut down.

Since May, the college has received 19 shut-down orders and did so six times, she said. The 13 times it refused cost the college $140,000 in punitive rates, although the school’s insurance picked up $32,000. The insurer declined to renew that coverage this year.

The college has no emergency reserves to cover the penalty costs, which will be paid out of its general fund, Bozman said, adding that college officials hope to drop out of the voluntary interruption program as soon as possible.

In fact, in Santa Clarita, about two dozen businesses and campuses participating in the voluntary power cutbacks program have pleaded for the city to intervene in resolving problems. Many are paying heavy fines or have been forced to lay off employees, City Manager George Caravalho said.

A citizens group formed a month ago has expressed its concerns to the governor and plans other meetings with elected officials, Caravalho said. The group also is considering ways for the city to initiate conservation and education programs.

Although studies are preliminary, the city is considering saving energy, for instance, by turning off every other street light.

“Businesses have been hit very hard,” Caravalho said. “We’re waiting to see what legislators do in the next couple of days.”

Farther north at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, classes remained in session Thursday, but campus offices were closed for the third consecutive day, spokesman Steve Standerfer said.

The 900 students attending a four-week winter intersession were moved to classrooms in a single building, Standerfer said. Heat and electricity to other campus buildings were turned off.

Under normal circumstances the Edison program participants pay an average rate of 7 or 8 cents per kilowatt hour. When they decline to close voluntarily, Edison charges a punitive rate of more than $9 per kilowatt hour.

Standerfer said Antelope Valley College typically spends about $100 per hour on electricity. Even with conservation measures in place, to remain open this week cost the college $2,500 per hour for electricity.

In December alone, the college paid an extra $75,000 in penalties.

“That’s more than enough to pay a full-time faculty member for a year--with benefits,” Standerfer said. “It’s difficult to run a school this way.”

Standerfer said the college plans to keep classes in session for the rest of the term, which ends Jan. 26. The campus will have limited office hours for registration, counseling and the bookstore from 1 to 4:30 p.m. today and 1 to 7 p.m. next week.

In the event of rolling blackouts, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies could be called to work overtime if things get too hectic, said Deputy Ismael Lua, of the Lost Hills station in Calabasas.

Stations are equipped with generators so operations shouldn’t be disturbed. Lua said he has faith that citizens will handle any situation intelligently and lawfully.

“I think people have common sense. We just hope they obey the law. . . . If you come up to an intersection and all the lights are out, you treat it as a four-way stop,” he said.

Sheriff’s deputies will probably be out directing traffic at busier intersections, Lua added.

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Times staff writers Martha Willman, Thuy-Doan Le and Dalondo Moultrie contributed to this story.