Power Outage Hits Beach Cities

A power outage affecting at least 700 Southern California Edison customers hit Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach at about 1:40 p.m. Wednesday, but crews expected all power to be restored by early Thursday morning, an SCE spokesman told Patch on Wednesday night.

About 85 customers on Catalina Avenue in South Redondo Beach remained without power Wednesday evening after three transformers went out, SCE media relations manager Dan Chung said.

"(Crews) should have everybody back up sometime in the middle of the night," Chung said.

SCE "trouble men" restored power to more than 600 customers in Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach shortly before 3:45 p.m., according to spokesman David J. Song. Trouble men are SCE's initial responders to blackouts; the workers try to isolate the outage and diagnose the cause.

The boundaries of the outage at one point were Spreckles Lane to the north, Rindge Lane to the east, Avenue A in Redondo Beach to the south and Hopkins Avenue in Hermosa Beach to the west, Song said.

The initial area affected also included several blocks of Catalina Avenue, the and the International Boardwalk, according to Patch associate local editor John Schreiber, who was in the area.

Sgt. Shawn Freeman of the said the power went out briefly at the police station and city hall, but the city's backup generators kicked in after a few seconds.

Because of the power outage, officers directed traffic at the intersection of Catalina Avenue and Torrance Boulevard and the intersection of Catalina Avenue and Garnet Street, Freeman said.

"We were able to get parking enforcement people out there with stop signs," Freeman said.

John Schreiber contributed to this report.