San Diego is preparing for the possibility of the worst Santa Ana event in years.
Over the weekend, SDG&E sent out alerts to more than 117,000 customers, warning them about the possibility of a power shut-off.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 50,000 customers were without power. SDG&E says the window for the "period of concern" was between noon on Monday, Dec. 9, and noon on Friday, Dec. 13. You can follow this link for updates.
"We are expecting that we will see damaging winds across portions of our backcountry with this particular event. All indications are we will see winds well over fifty mph, even over seventy mph in the windiest areas of the backcountry," said Brian D' Agostino meteorologist and Vice President of Wildfire and Climate Science at SDG&E.
D'Agostino says high winds will reach the coast overnight into tomorrow morning.
"We think we could see winds thirty to fifty miles per hour making it all the way down to coastal areas. It’s only the strongest Santa Ana winds that make it all the way down to the coastline," said D' Agostino.
The last time there was a Public Safety Power Shut-off was in 2021.
"We’ve analyzed fifteen years of weather data to look at where we expect the strongest winds to materialize, coinciding that with where we have dry fuels where if a fire starts, it could grow rapidly. Those are Public Safety Power Shut-offs," said D' Agostino.
Once power is turned off, it could be days before it's back on.
"A lot of times we see damage to the infrastructure, downed trees, different types of impacts, so we have to clean up any impacts to the electric system, then we have to repair everything, and a lot of times we can’t start this process until the winds have reduced enough to get helicopters up into the mountains," said D'Agostino.
The utility is recommending backcountry residents prepare for the possibility of a multi-day power outage.
"We have to make sure we do not get complacent to wildfire risk here in San Diego. This is the time where we have to be prepared. We have to implement any type of preparation."
