A spokesperson for San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) said that over the weekend, there were more than 13,000 outages across the county.
On Monday morning, SDG&E crews were seen working in La Jolla, where hundreds of outages were reported. Hundreds of outages were also reported on SDG&E's outage map in Valley Center.
ABC 10News went to Valley Center to track the outages, but most had been restored upon arrival.
At the Valley Center Municipal Water District office, General Manager Gary Arant explained how they were prepared and why their office didn’t experience any outages.
“We haven’t been affected by any outages. This facility is fully powered,” Arant said. “We have generators that come on automatically. We have generators at our critical pumping stations, and I have four that we can deploy.”
Arant said that in the early 2000s, they invested in hardening their systems so if the power goes out, their generators automatically kick on.
It keeps operations running during extreme weather events, such as the heatwave the county experienced over the weekend.
Arant said the Valley Center Municipal Water District serves 30,000 customers with 29 pumping stations.
“We have a lot of customers who live in higher elevations,” Arant said. “If the power goes off to the pump stations and the reservoirs run out of water, those people don’t have water. If there’s a fire, firefighters won’t have water to fight it with.”
SDG&E told ABC 10News that one explanation for the thousands of outages over the weekend was air conditioning systems running through the night.
“Prolonged, extreme heatwaves, coupled with little to no cooling during the overnight hours, add stress to electrical equipment and can cause unplanned outages. Rest assured our crews are working to get power restored as quickly and safely as possible. Our recommendation is to precool your homes during the early hours of the day and set your thermostats to 78 or higher during peak hours (4-9 p.m.), when electricity is in highest demand.”
On SDG&E's website, the following recommendations are listed for customers without power:
During an outage:
- Check whether the outage is limited to your home as soon as it occurs. If there is a problem with your breaker, one or more of the switches may be turned off. Simply turn it back on and power should be restored.
- If your neighbors don’t have power either, report the outage with our easy-to-use mobile app or call us at 1-800-411-SDGE.
- To avoid an overload, unplug TVs, appliances and electronics, and turn off light switches, but leave one light on somewhere you’re going to see it when the power comes back on.
- Use flashlights or a bright lantern rather than candles, as they can tip over and cause a fire.
- Refrain from opening your fridge or freezer door—you let cold air out, and your food won’t be re-cooled until the power is restored.
- Visit our outage map to view up-to-date outages in your area, and check updates and restoration times.
