All commercial flights into John Wayne Airport were diverted Friday evening and outbound flights canceled due to a power outage.
The outage was reported just after 7 p.m. at the airport in an unincorporated area of Orange County surrounded by Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa off the San Diego (405) Freeway.
The airport tweeted 9 p.m. that “All Terminal power slowly coming back online. General Aviation flights unaffected and Air Traffic Control Tower is open. The full operational stop is in effect until 7 a.m. For flights departing tomorrow, please check with your airline for more information.”
Southern California Edison indicated on its web site that 28,028 customers in Irvine and surrounding areas were affected by the outage. It estimated most power would be restored by 6 a.m. Saturday.
The cause of the outage was a substation fire the forced it to be de-energized, according to Lois Pitter Bruce of Southern California Edison. No injuries were reported. Irvine and Newport Beach were most impacted by the outage, she said.
The Orange County Fire Authority tweeted that the vault fire was near Jamboree Road and Michaelson Drive.
Irvine City Councilman Anthony Kuo tweeted that about 100 residents from an apartment on Palatine were temporarily evacuated due to smoke.