SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Thirty-thousand families could have their power shut off at any moment. SDG&E warning that with high fire danger, some customers may be in the dark for the start of Christmas Eve.
Billy Joyce is one of those customers.
“You definitely start to think about it as you sleep, as you’re awake,” said Joyce.
He lives with his family and ranch full of horses in Alpine. That’s a lot of mouths to feed when you may be in the dark.
“Are we going to have to worry about evacuating?” said Joyce. “What’s going to happen to our animals? All that stuff you start to worry about.”
He has a generator that will run the well and some lights, but it doesn’t power everything.
“You can’t start the oven or you can’t start you range, you can’t have all the lights on,” said Joyce.
That rage and oven are vital tools he needs to not only feed his family, but the 75 other people he’s making holiday dinners for.
“Knowing the power would go out we had to start cooking at 5:00 this morning. I didn’t know if it was going to get shut down at 9 a.m. or what have you,” said Joyce.
The chef and for Dinner Bell SD raised more than $3,000 to helps those who would otherwise go hungry. Joyce selflessly taking on a big project while the threat of fire and no electricity still looms.
“Starting tomorrow we’re delivering prime rib and ham dinners along with all the fixing and over $500 in gifts per family,” said Joyce. “Just normal people trying to get by, and have young kids, and just bummed they can’t have a Christmas.”
Joyce says because he started early, he was able to get all of the cooking done while the power was still on.
As of Wednesday night, about 400 customers in Campo, Descanso, and Potrero had been impacted by the safety shutoffs, according to SDG&E.
