Edison shines light on blackout targets

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT-MESA -- To help residents brace for rolling blackouts,

Southern California Edison is implementing a public notification program

that will dispel the mystery about which neighborhoods will be hit.

Edison unveiled the plan, which includes a revamped Web site, on

Thursday. Edison customers, a group that includes most of Southern

California, can check which specific neighborhoods are set to be blacked

out via the Edison Web site (https://www.sce.com).

In addition, the utility instituted an e-mail and paging notification

system for cities and other public agencies.

“This is a big step in the right direction, toward making the public

and public agencies aware of the situation,” Newport Beach City Manager

Homer Bludau said Friday. “They’re being pushed into it by state

government. We weren’t very pleased by the lack of notice” earlier in the

year.

On the Web site, Edison lists the circuits, on the statewide power

grid, that are next in line for blackouts. By clicking on the circuit, an

A or M followed by three numbers, anyone can view the cities affected, as

well as a map of the affected neighborhood.

On the maps, the circuit is shown overlaid on a Thomas Bros. map.

Edison customers can also find their circuit number in the

upper-left-hand corner of their utility bill.

Three circuits each in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are on the list.

“Both the legislature and [the Public Utilities Commission] felt that

the more info people have, the better prepared they can be when the

blackouts happen,” Southern California Edison region manager Kim Scherer

said.

Customers can also get information from Edison’s newly installed

outage hotline at (800) 611-1911.

Widespread outages have yet to hit the state this summer, due to the

mild weather. Officials in Newport-Mesa are hopeful that trend continues.