Tens of thousands of households lost power Sunday night in and around Long Beach’s coastal neighborhoods, including Bluff Park, Alamitos Beach and Belmont Shore. Crews were still trying to restore power to many of them on Monday morning.
The outage began at about 6:40 p.m. when an underground electrical vault caught fire near the Bluff Heights neighborhood.
Firefighters extinguished the vault on Broadway near Newport Avenue, said Long Beach Fire Department spokesperson Brian Fisk, and Southern California Edison crews de-energized the line.
Nobody was hurt in the fire, Fisk said. What ignited the blaze was unclear. Edison declined to provide more information other than to say they believed it was an equipment failure and that it was still under investigation.
The blackout initially affected 26,626 customers, according to the SoCal Edison outage map.
Power was restored to some people relatively quickly, but more than 16,456 households and businesses remained without electricity overnight.
By 9:15 a.m., Edison said it was back up and running for all but 2,570 customers. All but about 75 were restored by noon, according to the company.
How bad was it?
SoCal Edison said the boundaries of the outage originally stretched over a broad area:
- West of Quincy Avenue
- East of Alamitos Avenue
- North of E Ocean Blvd
- South of E 7th Street
By 9 a.m. Monday, most people had power back, but some streets remained dark.
Traffic lights at the intersection of Broadway and Temple Avenue were still out, and cars were blowing through without stopping. Officers had been doing traffic control overnight and were upping patrols in the area, LBPD spokesperson Allison Gallagher said.
Isham El Naggar, who has owned the gas station at that corner for more than 20 years, said his power had been out since 6:40 p.m. Sunday. He had to throw out all of his ice cream and turn away numerous customers looking to fill up on gas.
He said the fix has “taken way too long” and the loss of power will interrupt his cycle for ordering product.
Jug Band, a coffee shop near the intersection, was also closed Monday morning because of the outage.
Where you can go to cool down
The blackout occurred as much of the region remained under a high heat advisory. Temperatures in Long Beach were expected to reach the 80s by noon with high humidity.
- The Long Beach Senior Center (1150 E 4th St.) has electricity and is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays.
- Councilmember Kristina Duggan also offered to let people cool off in her field office conference room at 340 Nieto Ave. until 5 p.m.
The Alamitos Neighborhood Library, which typically serves as a cooling center, is not open on Mondays.