Outage leaves 537 in La Cañada without power, affects traffic along Foothill Boulevard
A power outage left more than 500 homes and businesses in La Cañada Flintridge without electricity Monday afternoon.
The outage began at 3:03 p.m., according to Southern California Edison, and initially affected 1,367 homes. Mary Ann Milbourn, a spokeswoman with Edison, said the number shrank to 537 homes after 30 seconds.
“The cause of it was that we had some underground equipment that failed at Oakwood Avenue and Foothill Boulevard,” she said. “We were gradually getting more customers online as we were rerouting circuits.”
The borders for the affected were Foothill Boulevard on the north side, Georgian Road on the south, Chevy Chase Drive on the west and Gould Avenue on the east.
While the outage lasted several hours that day for most of the affected area, some were left without power until late next morning.
Around 28 homes and business did not get service restored until 11:49 a.m. Tuesday, Milbourn said.
She said the length of the outage was because of the difficulty that comes with having equipment underground, which makes it harder to find problems.
The Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station said several intersections were impacted by the outage, which required motorists to treat the areas as four-way stops.
Pat Anderson, president and chief executive of the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce, said the outage also had an impact on local businesses.
Because the outage lasted for several hours, Anderson said it required businesses to either close for the day or to use a power generator to keep operations going.
“The hardest hit seems to be grocery stores and restaurants,” she said. “Without power, neither one of them could be open so there’s no way for them to do business.”
She said if businesses experienced losses because of the outage, they can contact the chamber for information on how to file a claim with Edison.
Twitter: @Andy_Truc
UPDATES:
Oct. 4, 2017; 12:27 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from Southern California Edison on the outage and from a member of the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce.
This article was originally published at 4:25 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2017.
