Southern California residents losing power amid summer heat wave

More than 10,000 Southern Californians were without power Monday morning as scorching temperatures continued to batter the area, knocking the power out at iconic landmarks such as the Hollywood Bowl and leaving residents in the dark and the heat.

Relief seemed possible though Monday. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said it had restored power to half the homes that were dark Sunday night and Southern California Edison said they were also working to restore energy services to residents, but warned people to limit their use of appliances to cause less strain on the power grid. The announcements came as a weeklong heat wave continued to scorch Southern California, causing “dangerously hot conditions” and temperatures that hovered around triple digits even late into the night.

Between the city department and the power company, just over 10,000 residents were without power in the latest tally, with the LADWP last updating its numbers at 8 a.m.

More than 7,800 LADWP customers were without power, while more than 2,300 SoCal Edison users were out, the two utilities said. The number was slashed in half from Sunday night, when many more customers were without power.

SoCal Edison advised people to set their thermostats to 78 degrees while they are at home and to 85 degrees when they are away — or even to turn off their air conditioning entirely when they are outside the house. The utility also called on residents not to use large appliances between the hours of 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

“Southern California Edison is urging customers to conserve energy where possible. By reducing energy consumption during these extreme weather conditions, we can collectively help to reduce strain on the grid,” the company said in a statement released Monday.

LADWP said that it was continuing to work to restore power for those experiencing outages. The utility noted that the 7,800 people with no power are just a fraction of the 1.5 million people who rely on LADWP for electricity.

“The number of customers without power in any given community remains relatively low,” the department said.

The department said Sunday night that power had been restored to the Hollywood Bowl, which had to cancel a performance of Vance Joy, Grouplove and Tiny Habits on Sunday night after power went out because of the heat wave.

Sydney Simmering was without power from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning as her house on the border of Silver Lake and Echo Park sweltered in the heat wave.

“We have a toddler and couldn’t be in the house. We just bailed and went to the beach both days and went home thinking it would be restored, and it wasn’t,” she said.

Power was also out at her child’s day care.

“I hate LADWP so much,” she said.