Thousands of Long Beach residents remain without power and stoplights around downtown are still dark, as crews work around the clock to restore electricity to a large swath of the city following fires in three electrical vaults.
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The outage forced the closure of the city’s Mission H2O LB Kickoff Event set for Saturday at Promenade Square, according to the Long Beach Water Department.
The power outage, reported along Shoreline Drive south of Ocean Boulevard, occurred at about 3:08 p.m. Wednesday. The outages appear to be the result of failure of equipment in the underground system in the downtown area where several underground vaults were damaged.
SCE will continue to provide updates as soon as they are available. “We can talk. We haven’t been doing that for awhile now, so it’s good”, said Jennifer Sanchez, of Long Beach.
Prior to the arrival of Long Beach firefighters, bystanders alerted a Long Beach police officer about the fire, who then requested assistance and was directed toward a back alley where he was met by other neighbors stating that two people were trapped inside the apartment that was on fire, according to officials. Map courtesy of Southern California Edison and Google. But in the meantime, customers are airing their grievances with the company and sharing images of the outages on social media.
When power is out, traffic signals may be out so approach those intersections as four-way stops.
“This has been very trying for the city, a very serious issue, but the professionalism and the community have really come together to make sure that it’s been as smooth as possible”, Garcia noted.
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While lights are back on for some businesses along Pine Avenue and the East Village, temporary outages are likely through the night. Do not use candles because they pose a significant fire hazard. Connecting generators directly to household circuits creates “backfeed”, which is risky to fix crews.
