By SCE Newsroom Staff
SCE crews help restore power to downtown Long Beach. Photo: Ernesto Sanchez/SCE
Southern California Edison (SCE) crews have restored service to all customers affected by the Long Beach outage. Some customers who had been on SCE-provided generators have had their power transferred back from the generator to the SCE system. Additional outages may occur as a result of the current rain storm.
If you are still without power, please reset your circuit breakers. If your power remains off, call SCE Customer Service at 1-800-655-4555. Representatives can help walk you through the circuit breaker procedure or identify if another issue exists.
Once power is fully restored to the area, final repairs on the system will continue for the near future until the system is returned to its full operational capacity, so residents may continue to see SCE crews working in the area.
SCE thanks the city of Long Beach, and its dedicated staff, for its cooperation during this incident, and for the especially important safety efforts of first responders in the Long Beach Fire and Police departments.
The outages began at 3:08 p.m. Wednesday. They appear to be the result of failure of equipment in the underground system in the downtown area where several underground vaults were damaged. Underground systems are more difficult to evaluate, test and repair than overhead wires and work is progressing as quickly and as safely as possible.
Customers may inquire about outages at 1-800-611-1911 and get the latest information from the outage page at www.sce.com/outages or by downloading the SCE outages app on their smartphones. While the cause of the outage is yet to be determined, customers who want to file a claim may do so at www.sce.com/claims. Updates also are shared via Twitter.
SCE also reminds customers to stay safe with the heavy rain forecast and the possibility of mudslides and flooding in some areas. If you see a downed power line or dangling wire – even if it appears not to be live – don’t touch or approach it or anything that is in contact with it, and call 911 immediately.
Here are some additional important tips to remember.
Watch for traffic signals that may be out. Approach those intersections as four-way stops.
Make sure you have a battery-operated radio and flashlights. Check the batteries to make sure they’re fresh. Use flashlights for lighting during a power outage. Do not use candles because they pose a significant fire hazard.
If you use a generator, place it outdoors and plug individual appliances directly into the generator, using a heavy-duty extension cord. Connecting generators directly to household circuits creates “backfeed,” which is dangerous to repair crews.
Get the latest information using the SCE outages app at on.sce.com/staysafe, or at the SCE website, Twitter and Facebook pages.