Surf City rolling along with blackouts

Tariq Malik

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- The state’s power crunch became all too real for

some residents this week as rolling blackouts temporarily blanked out

portions of Surf City, slowing traffic and solidifying the need to

conserve energy.

City officials said the outages began Monday and spread into Tuesday,

with a Stage Three power emergency ignited by rising temperatures and the

loss of power generators in Southern California.

By Wednesday, the crisis had slipped down to a Stage One alert, with

the blackouts halted for the time being.

The Southern California Edison Co. shut off power Tuesday to some

residences and businesses in an area bounded by Newland Street, the Santa

Ana River and Adams and Hamilton avenues, for about an hour, starting at

9:56 a.m., police said.

“Some of the major intersections there, like at Brookhurst and Adams,

and Magnolia and Adams, were left without working signal lights,” said

Sgt. Janet Perez, a spokeswoman for the Huntington Beach Police

Department, adding that additional officers were ready to help direct

traffic.

No collisions or other accidents and emergencies were reported to the

police or Fire Department during the outage.

At the AES Corp.’s Huntington Beach power plant at 21730 Newland St.,

electricity production was in full effect, with the additional peaker

unit running for hours to generate much-needed power, said Ed Blackford,

the plant’s site manager and president.

Edison general manager Jerry Dominguez estimated that about 10,000

Huntington Beach customers lost power over the course of the two days,

though not all at once.

“These interruptions are designed so that we can provide the amount of

power mandated by the state, and impact customers differently so we don’t

have whole neighborhoods and cities going down,” he said.

Resident Kathy Glenn said she was frustrated after returning to her

home in the 16000 block of Lynn Street from work Monday only to find that

her power was shut off.

“I conserve, and pay my bills, and still the power is out,” she said.

“Obviously it’s not enough.”

City officials said this week was a dry run of what the summer may

bring, though hopefully the recent rolling power blackouts proved the

reality of an energy drought and will further encourage conservation.

On the lighter side, some Surf City residents actually cheered last

week for the South Huntington Beach Blackouts, a fast-pitch softball team

for girls age 12 and under, in its 14-5 win over the team Caliente.