With the strong Santa Ana winds that have fueled the major fires in Los Angeles County expected to continue through Friday, power remains temporarily shut off for thousands of people across Southern California.
Southern California Edison reported Wednesday night that about 414,000 of its estimated 5 million customers across the region were without power.
A little less than half of those were without power because of public safety shutoffs — the temporary power shutoffs that are implemented to prevent from power infrastructure from sparking fires in periods and places where fire danger is particularly acute — while the other half lost power because of impacts from the windstorm itself.
Another 453,000 people were under a “public safety power shutoff watch” which means that a shutoff is being considered but power remains on.
While the major fire activity has so far been in Los Angeles County, the shutoffs have been occurring throughout a six-county area with Riverside County actually currently having the most customers both without power and under risk of losing it of any county in the region.
Want to know the latest on who has power or if you might lose it? Southern California Edison publishes a searchable online map with information about power shutoffs on its website at ww.sce.com /check-outage-status.
Here is a broad look at the situation in the Coachella Valley and surrounding desert and mountain areas as of 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Coachella Valley: Both Edison and Imperial Irrigation District, which provides power to eastern portions of the valley, are not currently reporting implementing or considering any power shut offs in the Coachella Valley. The outage map does show a few scheduled outages but they are generally isolated to single structures and do not appear to be related to the storm.
San Gorgonio Pass: Much of the pass is listed as either currently under a power shut off or shut off watch. Power is shown as currently shut off in much of Cabazon while much of Beaumont is listed as being “under public safety power shutoff consideration.”
The exception is most of Banning where neither shut off or shut off watches have so far been put in place, with the exception of a small area on the southeast side of the city where the map shows power has been shut off. The estimated duration of the shutoffs and watch varies across the pass: some could be lifted in some areas later today while others could see their shutoffs persist through Sunday.
Idyllwild: The map shows that power has been shut off to much of Idyllwild, Mountain Center and surrounding areas. It states that shutoffs in this area are expected to continue until noon on Thursday.
High desert: Power has been shut off in much of Morongo Valley while other portions of the city are currently under a shut off watch. There do not appear to be any outages in Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree, apart from scheduled outages that are unrelated to wind conditions. The map states that it is unknown how long outages will continue in Morongo Valley.
Inland Empire: Many areas in or adjacent to the mountains are impacted by shutoffs or shutoff watches. Check the map for a more specific breakdown by area.