Public Safety Power Shutdown outages affected tens of thousands of customers in Riverside County during the high winds that began on Tuesday, January 7. In addition to Idyllwild, Pine Cove and Mountain Center, Southern California Edison maps showed affected neighborhoods in Poppet Flats, Hemet and San Jacinto. Anza and Thomas Mountain seemed to have been spared.
By 1 p.m. Wednesday, SCE’s website reported 3,151,479 customers impacted by outages,, with another 1,157,552, potentially impacted by scheduled outages. The winds were fueling four major fires in southern California. The National Weather Service showed most of southern California under a Red Flag Warning. The Warning is expected to last until Thursday. When winds subside, SCE tells us that restoring power may take eight hours. The lines must be inspected for damages before re-energizing them, and this requires day light.
Idyllwild’s Town Hall was open as a public warming and charging station. Snacks, water and information were available from SCE, as were free power outage survival gear bags including pre-charged solar power banks. Some local businesses had their own generators, including Pure Bean, Mile High Cafe, and the Mountain Center Fork and Spoon.