Dangerous winds pummel California. Could power shutoffs affect voting across the state?
Power shutoffs amid dangerous winds could affect almost 240,000 across California this week, but officials say there should be no voting disruptions, even if some polling locations lose electricity.
Outages in both Northern and Southern California are possible through Thursday. The goal is to reduce the risk of downed or damaged power lines sparking fires as high winds pick up across the state.
Two back-to-back offshore wind events have prompted widespread red flag and fire weather warnings from Orange County up to the Napa region. Those warnings will be in effect in different areas for different time periods through Thursday.
For much of Monday, only 36 customers in Los Angeles County experienced shutoffs “due to heightened wildfire risk,” Southern California Edison reported.
But that’s just the start. More than 200,000 customers across the Southland — about 47,000 in Los Angeles County, 59,000 in Riverside County, 40,000 in Ventura County, 8,000 in Orange County and 63,000 in San Bernardino County — could see shutoffs Wednesday and Thursday, according to David Eisenhauer, an SCE spokesperson.
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In Northern California, Pacific Gas & Electric is considering power shutoffs for about 20,000 customers across 17 counties Tuesday through Thursday, the majority located in Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Tehama counties, said Jeff Smith, a spokesperson for the utility. The outages were considered likely due to “high winds and dry conditions,” PG&E reported.
Early voting continued Monday at voting centers throughout the state, and on Tuesday, voters can cast their ballots in person at hundreds of polling locations. Verifying and counting ballots is expected to take at least a few days, if not weeks.
Six early voting locations in Southern California were under consideration for outages Monday, Eisenhauer said, but none ended up seeing interruptions.
“We know how important it is that our communities exercise their right to vote,” Eisenhauer said. “We’ve worked with county governments to address any potential [shutoffs] using the county backup plans. ... We have additional generators on standby if they need them.”
The utility has no outages planned for Tuesday, when there is expected to be a break in winds for the Southland, Eisenhauer said. He said no ballot processing centers were expected to be affected later in the week, when more outages would be possible. However, he noted that “weather conditions can change.”
Election officials reached Monday by The Times in Riverside and Ventura counties said they were prepared with backup power if any blackouts are implemented. But none were expected to affect ballot processing centers, given their locations and SCE’s current plans.
“We are keeping a close eye on that,” said Elizabeth Florer, a spokesperson for Riverside County’s registrar of voters. “We have a plan in place.”
In Northern California, five polling centers — one each in Lake and Santa Clara counties and three in Solano County — are in the zone under consideration for shutoffs Tuesday, Smith said, but power is not expected to be cut until after polls close. Regardless, he said, the utility is working to ensure backup power generation is available for all the polling locations that could lose power as wind conditions and plans are always subject to change.
“We’ll continue to monitor as long as the weather is there,” Smith said. He said the utility is in constant communication with election officials and the two locations that could see outages.
No ballot-processing centers were located in PG&E’s area for potential outages, Smith said.
As of Tuesday, less than 1 million L.A. County residents have cast ballots, a rate far less than in 2020. With the contentious election less than a week away, election officials are on high alert for threats on poll workers, intimidation and vote tampering.
On Monday, much of the Los Angeles and Ventura county mountains remained under a red flag warning — an alert for extreme fire weather — because of strong Santa Ana winds and low humidity. North and northeast winds were forecast to reach up to 50 mph, with the strongest gusts in the higher elevations of the Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley.
Areas covered by the red flag warning “will be at greater risk for rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior if ignitions were to occur,” the National Weather Service warning said.
By late Monday into Tuesday, the winds are expected to die down across the Southland before forecasters are calling for a second wind event, which is expected to hit Northern California first.
Across the Bay Area and Central Coast, a red flag warning will be in effect Tuesday through Thursday, with gusts averaging from 25 to 50 mph. National Weather Service forecasters said that this is expected to be a “long-duration offshore flow event” that will cause the “rapid curing” of brush and plants in the area, making them ripe for fire despite recent rainfall.
By Wednesday and Thursday, those winds are expected to expand into much of Southern California, with a fire weather watch issued for the San Bernardino County mountains, the Inland Empire and inland Orange County on Tuesday night through Thursday. Much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties are under a similar warning Wednesday and Thursday.
“If fire ignition occurs, conditions are favorable for rapid fire spread and extreme fire behavior which would threaten life and property,” the National Weather Service said, warning that the winds Wednesday and Thursday could be more dangerous than earlier in the week, forecasting “even stronger Santa Ana winds and drier fuels.”
The interior mountains and foothills in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties will be under a red flag warning Tuesday evening through Wednesday.
San Diego Gas & Electric has not reported any areas in its region that may see preemptive power shutoffs.
After downed power lines were found to have started some of California’s deadliest and most destructive fires, the state’s three largest utilities have adopted a preventive strategy to try to avoid sparking fires during powerful wind events. The utilities proactively de-energize sections of their networks, a process known as public safety power shutoffs, in areas that officials have determined are at the highest risk for fire starts.
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