Rolling Blackouts Hit Southland for First Time as Production Falls

A series of rolling outages--which could resume today--began about noon, extending from Sacramento to San Diego and continuing into the night. In all, power was temporarily cut to roughly 1.3 million customers.

Eighteen of Orange County's 34 cities were hit by the rolling blackouts, which began about noon and continued for Southern California Edison customers statewide until about 7:30 p.m. The outages triggered traffic accidents, trapped people briefly in office tower elevators and cut into lunch fare at restaurants unable to serve hot food. A second wave of outages for San Diego Gas & Electric customers in south Orange County continued into the evening.

Even Anaheim, which has its own power company, did not escape a blackout. The lights went out in that city, a police spokesman said, for about 20 minutes just after 5 p.m. in the canyon area of Anaheim Hills near Serrano Avenue and Weir Canyon Road.

The blackouts resulted from a patchwork of circumstances: increased demand, more power plant outages, less output from the state's financially struggling alternative energy producers, lower electricity imports from neighboring states, and sharply reduced voluntary power cuts by big businesses.

The outages--the first since January--show that the power problems caused by the state's failed foray into deregulation remain acute nearly a year after the first symptoms appeared in the form of skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices.

But the state's problems may be just beginning, with the unseasonable temperatures foreshadowing a crunch to come. Monday's demand was 30,000 megawatts--50% lower than what is expected this summer when it turns hot.

The blackouts were the most extensive yet, affecting customers of Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, as well as some municipal utilities. In all, the three investor-owned utilities serve about 9 million customers.

Only residents in the territory served by Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power and the municipal utilities of Glendale, Burbank and Imperial County were immune, because those areas do not depend on the state power grid to deliver their electricity.