Southern California Edison officials said Monday they’re tapping utility experts from hurricane-prone areas to help them identify how they can respond more efficiently to windstorms in the future.
It is now known that more than 440,000 Southern California Edison customers faced outages from the fierce winds that pummeled the San Gabriel Valley and surrounding areas starting Nov. 30, some of whom were without power for a week.
The Rosemead-based utility, among those that have faced strong criticism for its handling of the windstorms, is one of several entities participating in Rep. Adam Schiff’s roundtable panel on windstorm response at 9 a.m. Thursday at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 125 S. Grand Ave in Pasadena.
“I hope we’ll get a better sense of how we handled this dress rehearsal on a major disaster, that we can learn from it and we can improve if we are forced to deal with something more serious,” Schiff, D-Pasadena, said Monday. “Also, (it’s) to give the public a chance to have their questions answered.”
The California Public Utilities Commission, which has launched a probe into Edison’s windstorm response and related safety concerns, is also holding a public hearing about the matter from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Jan. 26 at Temple City High School.
On Monday, Southern California Edison spokeswoman Veronica Gutierrez said the utility has brought in two third-party experts from Alabama and Florida from the Southern Company – a parent company to utilities in the south – “to take a look at our response and to see how we can do better.”
“Southern Company is viewed as an expert in doing this because of where they are,” Gutierrez said. “These winds were hurricane-force winds that we don’t normally have here.”
The utility is also looking at how it can improve communication to customers during such times. While the utility had meter readers and volunteers from the community go door to door contacting 5,000 customers in one weekend alone, “we obviously didn’t have enough,” Gutierrez said.
In addition, Edison is looking at how to better utilize community resources, such as cities and town councils, for things like distribution of emergency supplies and communicating information, she said.
The Altadena Town Council, for instance, has offered use of its neighborhood watch system in the future “to let folks know what is and what is not happening,” she said.
“The resources that are available out there in the communities themselves … is something we really need to take advantage of,” Gutierrez said.
But Gutierrez pointed out that the unusually fierce windstorms that hit concentrated areas largely in the San Gabriel Valley downed more than 200 power poles and 650 spans of wire between poles and destroyed more than 125 transformers.
Part of the reason for the initial slowdown in restoring power had to do with safety concerns since crews had to verify that wires were not in potentially dangerous positions – such as on a metal swing set – before switches were turned on, she said.
“We’re very proud of the fact that no member of the public was hurt,” Gutierrez said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced Monday that it had approved 11 low-interest loans to homeowners so far totaling more than $250,000 from the high winds from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4. More than 100 loan applications have been issued so far to homeowners, renters and businesses affected by the winds.
The SBA reopened its Disaster Loan Outreach Center Monday at the Pasadena Fire Headquarters at 199 S. Los Robles Ave. Suite 550 on the fifth floor, to provide loan assistance to windstorm victims in the counties of Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura.
“This morning, we’ve just been gangbusters,” said SBA spokesman Kevin Wynne of Monday’s high turnout.
The temporary center will be open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Jan. 20. Applications must be submitted by Feb. 17.
Additional information and application forms are also available by calling the SBA at 1-800-659-2955, emailing disastercustomerservice@sba.gov or visiting SBA’s website at www.sba.gov/services/disasterassistance.
626-578-6300, ext. 4496
