PINE VALLEY, Calif. (KGTV) — After three long days, the power was finally back on Wednesday evening for people in Pine Valley. As ABC 10News previously reported, the electricity was intentionally shut off due to the high fire risk created by gusting Santa Ana winds.
Pine Valley residents told 10News their power had been out since Monday, and they’ve been getting by thanks to The Pine Valley Store.
Jerry Sadler Sr. commented on the situation: "This is a nice little lifesaver here in the community."
“For the past two days, just about everyone in town has been in the dark since Santa Ana winds came through their area,” Sadler said. "I've been up here 35 years, and that was probably one of the strongest winds I've been in."
The store is being powered by a generator, allowing residents to charge their devices and purchase necessities.
“As a matter of fact, yesterday I charged myself in this power source, so I was grateful for that,” said Sadler. “They can buy hot food, cold food, whatever they want. The owner, a fellow named Al, is so good to the community.”
Three sisters visiting the store on Wednesday mentioned that school has been out, preventing them from completing assignments that are done online.
"It's really boring, actually," they said.
The sisters also expressed concern for their baby brother, who relies on consistent power due to his autism.
“Since there's no power, it's like, hard for him because he sleeps with rain noise and he is autistic. So... his bottle and his toy and his stuff that... What we usually do, it's like, harder for him,” they explained.
According to SDG&E's outage map, Pine Valley is considered part of the Japatul Valley, where as of Wednesday, 1,133 customers were without power.
"Sometimes if it's a lot of wind or something, they have a tendency to want to warn you that it's going to go off because they don't want any big brush fire, so we don't want that either," says Sadler.
The app indicates that SDG&E shut off the power "due to unsafe conditions in the air."
Fortunately, power was restored Wednesday afternoon.