Re: Power Outages

Southern California Edison has announced that it may take the unprecedented step of shutting down power in bark beetle-infested forests in San Bernardino and Riverside counties under hazardous conditions of high, sustained winds and low humidity. SCE?s new protective outage policy is an extraordinary precautionary measure to reduce the risk to lives and property.

It affects some 31,000 SCE customers in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, where more than a million trees are dead or dying. When high winds strike the bark beetle-infested forest, weakened tree limbs and other material
are more likely to fall or get blown into SCE facilities. This could result in wildfires. Depending on the duration of these conditions, outages could last from several hours to several days.

Intensive communication efforts are underway to notify affected customers, property owners, public safety agencies, legislators and other parties regarding the need to implement this unprecedented safety measure.