Santa Ana Gusts Cause Gaps in Electrical Service

Gusty Santa Ana winds knocked out power to thousands of residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties Monday and were blamed for overturning a big rig on the Pomona Freeway during the morning rush hour, authorities said.

Southern California Edison officials said at least 22,000 customers were affected by the disruptions, caused mostly by power lines knocked down by tree branches. About 3,400 customers in Fontana lost power Monday morning, and about 5,000 homes and business served by Riverside Public Utilities also suffered outages.

“When the wind kicks up, it picks up stuff and smashes it into our facilities,” said Edison spokesman Tom Boyd.

“Plus it blows trees over, and limbs. They don’t even need to fall; you just need to get some leaning.”

The highest gusts of wind were measured at 54 mph at Ontario International Airport on Monday morning. The strong winds are expected to last until about 2 p.m. today, said Don Whitlow, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

“This was definitely a Santa Ana situation,” he said.

California Highway Patrol and fire officials reported heavy winds on freeways and thoroughfares but said there were no reports of life-threatening accidents.

“There’s a lot of tree limbs going down, and I know of some electrical problems, but there’s nothing major,” said Tracey Martinez, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

The Santa Ana winds usually put fire crews on alert for wildfires, but the recent rainstorms that swept through Southern California helped quell the fire danger, Martinez said.

Still, threat of fires is not completely over, Martinez said.

“Everything dries up pretty quickly,” she said.

Gusty winds were blamed for a big-rig jackknife that blocked two lanes of the westbound Pomona Freeway.

The empty truck overturned just east of Pyrite Street in unincorporated Riverside County, blocking traffic for about an hour, said CHP Sgt. Mike Soubirous. The driver was not injured.

“It looks like the guy just panicked and braked, jackknifed and ended up facing the wrong way,” Soubirous said.

“It was windy, and whatever impact he felt from it, he overreacted.”

In Riverside, as many as 5,000 of Riverside Public Utility’s 101,000 customers may have experienced momentary outages when tree limbs sagged against power lines; fewer than 200 had sustained power outages.

The Wood Streets area was particularly hard hit, said Steve Badgett, assistant director for energy delivery for the utility.

“We recorded a gust measuring 49 mph at around 10 a.m.,” Badgett said.