Thousands Lose Power in Fresno County |
|
July 24, 2006 - Power officials are reporting that 28,000 customers in the Fresno County are without power this afternoon. 4,000 customers on the Yosmite valley floor are also without power. Areas affected in Fresno County include:
There are no estimated times for power to be restored and crews are still investigating what caused each outage. High Temperatures in CaliforniaThe start of a new work week amid sweltering temperatures pushed California's electricity supply to the brink on Monday, triggering some businesses to voluntarily cut their power usage. As the eighth day of a scorching heat wave threatened to drive the demand for electricity to record levels, state energy managers elevated their emergency warning as they dipped into reserve supplies to keep up with the demand for power. The California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's power grid, had declared a "Stage 1" emergency Monday morning, asking individuals and businesses to voluntarily reduce their electricity use. But as temperatures climbed into the 100s around much of the state, the emergency was elevated to a "Stage 2," in which ISO called on businesses to reduce their power usage in exchange for lower rates.
The reductions appeared to be working by mid-afternoon.
The commercial reductions Monday could save the state 1,800 megawatts of power, McCorkle said. One megawatt is approximately enough electricity to run 750 homes. But involuntary rolling blackouts remained a possibility around the state later Monday as power usage was expected to reach a record 52,000 megawatts during the peak hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., said ISO president Yakout Mansour. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed state agencies to reduce electricity use by 25 percent and turn off unnecessary equipment. He urged local and municipal governments and universities to do the same. With temperatures across California climbing into the triple digits again Monday after record-breaking weekend highs, state and local authorities were investigating at least 13 deaths in the smoldering Central Valley. At least two Fresno County residents died from heat-related causes over the weekend, according to the Fresno County Coroner's office. A 58-year-old man who died Saturday and a man in his 40s who died Sunday after he was found unconscious on a front lawn both had temperatures higher than 109 degrees, Cervantes said. The weekend deaths of eight other residents, all in their 70s, 80s and 90s, are also being investigated as possibly heat-related, said Fresno County Coroner Loralee Cervantes.
Meanwhile, state officials
were investigating a Stockton nursing home for negligence after a
patient died when the air conditioner gave out in the 115-degree
weather. They also were looking into the deaths of a gardener who
collapsed on the job in Bakersfield.
In Modesto, a patient
at Doctors Medical Center died Saturday of heart failure apparently
caused by the heat after being admitted with a 106-degree temperature,
hospital officials said.
Meanwhile, power companies
continued to work to restore electricity to thousands of customers who
lost power on Sunday. Some 50,000 customers in Northern California
still were without electricity, including 35,000 in the San Jose and
East Bay, according to Pacific Gas & Electric.
Brian
Swanson, a spokesman for PG&E, said the outages were caused by
equipment and transformer failures rather than a lack of supply.
PG&E called in 133 crews with a total of 430 employees to help
restore power there.
"We
have more than enough supply to meet demand," Swanson said. "The main
call for conservation isn't a supply issue, but relieving the strain on
the system."
In Los Angeles, about 20,000 Department of
Water and Power customers remained without electricity. Complicating
the repairs, workers were having difficulty rerouting power while they
fixed overloaded transformers.
"If you can just run the air
conditioner and not anything else. ... Turn the TV off. Maybe not run
the washer and dryer at the same time," agency spokeswoman Kim Hughes
said.
Heat, lightning and wind were blamed for outages
Monday affecting some 17,000 SoCal Edison customers, mostly in the
Inland Empire.
Monday's forecast called for high
temperatures of 111 degrees in Morgan Hills, 110 in Fresno, Stockton
and Modesto and 109 in Bakersfield. An excessive heat warning was
issued for a large portion of Los Angeles County, from the Santa
Clarita Valley in the north to the Santa Monica Mountains in the
southwest. Forecasters were predicting highs up to 110 degrees.
At
San Diego beaches, temperatures were expected to reach the mid-80s,
while inland the barometer could reach 92 degrees with a slight chance
of rain.
The sweltering heat was the result of a
high-pressure system mixed with humidity from subtropical moisture
streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico, according to Jamie Meyer, a
National Weather Service meteorologist.
The high pressure
will drop off somewhat in the coming days along with the humidity,
causing temperatures to fall a few degrees each day until midweek, she
said.
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
