Mass emergency power shutoffs stretched into another day following the strong Santa Ana winds that swept through Southern California. In one East County town, the entire community was in the dark for days. NBC 7’s Shelby Bremer reports on Dec. 11, 2024.
Power was restored throughout the day Wednesday across San Diego County after SDG&E shut off electricity for thousands beginning Monday amid Santa Ana winds and red flag warnings with elevated fire risk.
At its peak, the shutoffs impacted more than 57,000 residents and businesses, largely concentrated in East County, with more than 100,000 others in areas at risk of the public safety power shutoffs, or PSPS.
Nearly all of Ramona was without power for two days, including Tatyanna Jamora’s flower shop off Highway 67.
“I can’t believe it, this is happening, actually,” Jamora said. “Everybody is shocked by this act of just turning it off because they decided to do so. We are just so unhappy right now.”
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Jamora was preparing for a wedding Thursday, with the outage putting her behind schedule as she arranged by candlelight and in the dark.
“I have a floral cooler full of flowers, and it’s, you know, it has to be in the cooler being cold, but it’s not,” she said. “I have to keep the whole cool room open so the flowers don’t rot.”
She said she was out at least $1,500 in flowers she had to throw away as well as lost revenue from reduced business and foot traffic.
“It’s a huge distress on the people, huge distress, including me,” Jamora said, among several who expressed frustration at how early they lost power and how long it took to come back on. “It’s just absolutely strange and unnecessary.”
SDG&E declined an interview request but said in a statement, “We understand that it can be frustrating to be impacted by a Public Safety Power Shutoff, especially when conditions in an immediate area may not seem extreme.”
“It’s important to keep in mind that the electrical grid is highly interconnected, and the electric equipment serving your community might be fed from another part of the grid that is experiencing extreme weather conditions, resulting in a PSPS,” the statement continued.
SDG&E said crews were patrolling areas and inspecting power lines which “can be a lengthy process." The utility added that it "can be difficult to predict how long an inspection may take, given the varied length of each power line, the terrain and whether aerial inspections are required. If damage is found, repairs must be made before power can be restored safely.”
Next to the flower shop in Ramona, Lili Valenzuela was in tears over lost product at her ice cream shop.
“It’s been really hard, and not just for us, the whole community,” her son Jesus Aviles said.
Aviles said they didn’t receive notice from SDG&E about the shutoff, which came right after they had made a batch of ice cream and paletas.
“It’s pretty tough because we lost more than like $10,000 in product and sales,” he said, adding that they spent another $1,000 to purchase a generator — the last one at the store on Monday.
If he had gotten notice, he said he and his family would have behaved differently: they wouldn’t have made so much in the days leading up to the shutoff, and they would have moved their product out of storage where much of it was ruined without refrigeration.
“Definitely prepare,” Aviles said. “I would just prepare, prep more, buy more dry ice, buy more stuff that I would actually need for this type of event.”
Jamora said Ramona is no stranger to conditions like this week.
“This is nothing. We used to have much stronger winds, and the electricity was still on,” Jamora said. “I remember even like a couple of years ago, our house was like about to take off, even in the air. That’s how it felt. We still had electricity.”
By Wednesday afternoon, lights at both businesses were back on.
“What a relief,” Jamora said with a sigh. “It’s been a very hard and tough two-and-a-half days.”
