Over 3,000 households in Central Long Beach were left without power Saturday evening.
The power outage spanned from Anaheim Street to Hill Street and from Linden Avenue to Magnolia Avenue, according to a power outage map from Southern California Edison. Long Beach fire crews reported to a major incident regarding downed wires, Long Beach fire spokesman Brian Fisk said.
Arcing wires were touching down on some parked vehicles, and Southern California Edison crews were on route to de-energize the power cables, Fisk said. It was not immediately clear when power would be restored.
SCE said a windstorm blowing through Long Beach had prompted some power outages throughout the city. Jeff Monford, SCE spokesman, said crews were working on eight different outages in the city on Saturday.
“The grid operating center is very pressed handling outages in the Long Beach area,” Monford said.
Details on what prompted a larger power outage on Earl Avenue were not readily available. Monford said crews quickly got to work on restoring the power that they did not have time to report on what caused the issue. Monford could not say when power would be restored, but the SCE website showed an estimated time of 6 a.m. Sunday.
The PulsePoint emergency activity tracking app showed the Long Beach Fire Department responding to at least seven reports of electrical wires down in different parts of the city since early Saturday afternoon.
Fisk said that he could not confirm if the strong winds caused the power lines to come down, but that it was common for wires to be damaged on windy days. A wind advisory is in effect from 3 p.m. today until Sunday afternoon in coastal communities across Los Angeles County, including Long Beach.
Gusts of up to 35 miles an hour are expected in the Los Angeles basin, peaking to 45 miles an hour in the valleys and 55 miles an hour in the mountains.
Smaller outages impacting about three dozen homes were also reported near Coolidge Park in North Long Beach and near Heartwell Park on Los Coyotes Diagonal in East Long Beach.
Fisk said there was also a large amount of dead birds spread across the 100 block of 21st Street that seemed to have been electrocuted to death. Fisk said that Animal Control crews were going to pick them up.
Editor’s note: Information on the power outages from Southern California Edison was added to this story.