LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Record-breaking heat overwhelmed some Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison equipment today, leaving nearly 47,000 customers blacked out.
As of 10 p.m., about 37,000 of DWP's 1.5 million customers were without power. Some 9,600 SCE customers in Los Angeles and Orange counties were blacked out.
Because of the high number of outages, DWP revised its estimated restoration time from 12-24 hours to 24-48 hours late Saturday. The utility added that some more complex outages might take even longer than 48 hours.
The problems ranged from underground cables to overhead power lines, as well as larger-scale equipment including overloaded power distribution stations and related equipment.
The most affected areas include Westlake with 4,585 customers losing power, Koreatown with 4,962 customers and Los Feliz with 3,300 customers blacked out.
In the San Fernando Valley area, Encino was down from 1,400 to 78 customers without power and Sherman Oaks had about 1,600 customers without power.
Outside L.A. city limits, Southern California Edison also reported power outages related to temperatures that hovered over 110 degrees in some places. A total of 7,793 customers had lost power in L.A. County, according to the on-line Outage Center. Some 1,856 customers in Orange County were without power.
SCE urged its customers to do whatever they could to reduce pressure on the system, such as keep thermostats at 70 or above, judicious use of air conditioning and use of drapes, curtains and blinds to keep sunlight and heat out of rooms.
The LADWP said Saturday's power demand was the second-highest of any weekend day in the city's history, with peak use exceeding 5,700 megawatts, one day after a July record of 6,256 megawatts was used on Friday, which was the most used since a day in 2006 when 6,165 megawatts were used.
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