Electricity will remain off for more than 900 Imperial Irrigation District customers in the unincorporated community of North Shore near the Salton Sea until late Saturday as crews continue working to repair wind-damaged infrastructure in the region.
Gusty winds toppled 14 power poles near Bombay Beach in Imperial County about 4:20 a.m. Thursday, leaving about 3,400 Coachella Valley customers without power in and around the communities of Mecca and North Shore, IID officials said.
“It’s all hands on deck,” said Marilyn Del Bosque Gilbert, the utility’s energy manager. “We have all resources available out there now and we will continue to work as long as needed to restore power. We appreciate the patience of our customers during this unexpected outage.”
While crews were able to restore power to more than half of the households by early Thursday afternoon, IID officials said crews may need until “sometime late Saturday” to restore power to about 1,300 customers.
About 380 power customers in Mecca had their electricity temporarily turned back on Thursday night before it was shut off again on Friday morning so crews could continue working. That will happen again Friday night through Saturday morning, according to IID spokesman Robert Schettler.
About 900 affected customers in North Shore, however, were expected to remain without power until late Saturday. IID officials initially announced those customers would also have their power turned back on during the evening hours, but Schettler said that was no longer the case.
Schettler described it as a “load issue.”
Affected families can pick up free ice to help preserve perishable food at North Shore Community Park, located at 99-480 Avenue 70 in Mecca, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Friday and again between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Saturday.
Additionally, the nonprofit Galiliee Center in Mecca has offered to provide affected customers with water, showers, laundry services and overnight shelter throughout the duration of the outage.
Claudia Castorena, co-founder of the organization, said that they can house 25 people overnight due to space restrictions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. The Galiliee Center offers 10 washing machines and 10 dryers, she said. The nonprofit is located at 66-101 Hammond Road in Mecca.