With residents near downtown Long Beach enduring another day without power following a series of underground vault fires, officials Friday began making resources available to those affected by the ongoing outages.
Long Beach officials said network retests conducted by Southern California Edison Thursday night and early Friday were unsuccessful, and gave no time for a likely restoration. About 2,700 customers were without power Friday afternoon, according to city spokeswoman Kerry Gerot.
Intermittent outages could be expected throughout the day, as crews worked to repair and test the lines, Edison spokesman Michael Padian said. At any given time, from 1,000 to 5,000 customers could be affected — some of them very briefly — during the testing and repair period, he said.
In the meantime, residents affected by the ongoing outage may pick up flashlights, ice and water at 730 Pacific Ave. in downtown Long Beach, Edison reported.
Food and water was available at 240 Chestnut Ave. and at 714 Pacific Avenue, according to Gerot.
“We will resupply until the outage is over,” Edison announced in a statement.
The outage also impacted freeway traffic, with northbound lanes of the Long Beach (710) Freeway closed at the Third Street onramp, and southbound off ramps closed at Broadway and Sixth Street.
The retests began late Thursday, and were ongoing, Edison said. Broadcast reports showed footage of smoke and steam rising through manhole vents at about 2 a.m.
The fires in three underground power vaults were reported about 3:40 p.m. Wednesday and initially cut power to around 4,800 customers, Edison officials said.
The vaults were beneath the 400 block of Third Street, and near the intersections of Pacific Avenue and Ninth Street and Pine Avenue and Nardo Way, Jake Heflin of the Long Beach Fire Department said.
No injuries were reported.
— Staff and wire reports