Electrical Storm Hits Area

by Geghard Arakelian

An electrical storm with heavy rains battered the foothills Monday, affecting traffic lights along Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta, and blowing out circuits for Montrose residents.

At exactly 1:36 p.m., Monday, about 1900 Glendale Water and Power customers in Montrose lost their power for about 10 minutes.

“We got notice of it [the power outage] at 1:42 p.m. and we got notice that service had been restored at 1:52 p.m.,” said Joy Gaines, of Glendale Water and Power.

The outage was caused by lightning. “It hit a transformer, caused the circuit to trip open,” said Ramon Abueg, electrical services administrator for Glendale Water and Power. “When you have lightning it is always a possibility.”

Aside from households losing power, in Montrose, traffic lights all along Foothill Boulevard were blinking red. Throughout the day power roller-coasted on and off through traffic lights from La Crescenta Avenue and Foothill Boulevard to La Cañada.

“Circuits that were out were affected and there were outages. That happened throughout the community,” said Paul Klein, spokesperson for Southern California Edison. “We had crews working around the clock restoring power. We were able to restore power to customers quickly.”

Edison crews began restoring power to traffic lights and homes Sunday night at the start of the storm and throughout Monday, Klein said.

Lightning also hit an electrical transformer in the afternoon near the intersection of Raymond Avenue and Foothill Boulevard.

Southern California Edison was called in to take care of the transformer. “We work to get power back as quickly as possibly. We appreciate the customers understanding during this time, which was a trying time,” said Klein.