SDG&E Announces Two More Planned Outages in La Mesa, Starting Saturday

La Mesans have become frustrated over a series of continued power outages in recent weeks and months, and many have been left in the dark, literally and figuratively, as to why the problems persist.

It looks like they will have to deal with two more very soon.

On Monday, San Diego Gas & Electric sent out an alert saying that there were going to be two planned outages in the La Mesa area on consecutive Saturdays, each lasting four or more hours. The first outage will be on July 28, at 3 a.m. The second outage will be on Aug. 4, at 2:30 a.m.

The planned outages are being conducted in an effort to fix a problematic mainline underground connector, according to officials from the power agency. The following streets  (alphabetical) will be affected:

Annapolis Avenue, Apore Street, W. Arrieta Circle, Arrieta Circle, Avon Drive, Berkeley Drive, Boston Court, Brooke Court, Chicago Drive, Cinnabar Drive, Cinthia Street, Cobalt Drive, Corolyn Drive, Dale Avenue, Denver Drive, Eastridge Drive, Garnet Court, Harbinson Avenue, Hartford Court, Harvard Avenue, Highwood Avenue, Hurley Drive, Kemper Street, Lava Court, Lowell Street, Maple Avenue, Massachusetts Avenue, Milwakee Court, Muriel Place, Murray Hill Road, Normal Avenue, Olive Avenue, Orien Avenue, Ouro Place, Oxford Street, Parks Avenue, Phoenix Drive, Pomona Avenue, Princeton Avenue, Purdue Avenue, Rosarita Drive, Rosebud Lane, Sacramento Drive, Schoolride Lane, Seattle Drive, Shadow Hill Drive, Sono Place, Stanford Avenue, Sturgess Avenue, Summitt Drive, Topaz Court, University Avenue, Valley View Circle, West Point Avenue, Wetherley Street, Yale Avenue.

Traffic signals at University Avenue and Lowell Street and University and Parks avenues will be affected. Please observe red-flash stop signs at these intersections.

Despite the agency’s moves at trying to improving service, customers are still frustrated, and confused as to the nature of some of the past outages.

After further investigation, it looks now as if the failure of an underground cable may have been the culprit in a June 23 outage that knocked out power to more than 3,000 La Mesans for more than 12 hours.

The June 23 outage was the third such electrical failure to that particular circuit, located on University Avenue, in a little more than a month.

“There was an outage [on June 23] that was due to the failure of a mainline underground cable – the thicker cable that impacted the same circuit,” said Erin Koch, spokesman for SDG&E. “The outage you are referring to that lasted over 12 hours – there was a section of the cable that had to be replaced that was 650 feet long, which is why it took so long.”

That same circuit experienced an outage on May 28 that was caused by a faulty underground connector. Crews were able to isolate the faulty connector and then restore power as kind of a temporary fix by feeding power to either side of the faulty connecter by different sources, Koch said.

On June 10, mylar balloons got up into the lines and the metallic material of the balloons caused another failure.

“First of all, we recognize that to our customers that any outage is a big deal. We try to restore the power as quickly and safely as possible,” he said. “[Crews] recognize that it’s a significant problem and they want to find a solution relatively quickly.”

When asked if he would classify that particular circuit as “troublesome,” Koch didn’t say yes, but said that they do recognize that service in that particular circuit needs to be improved.

So what is the likelihood that until a more permanent solution is found, it could happen again?

“It’s hard to answer, not just for [La Mesa] but for any location in our service area. Outages can be caused by a number of things – equipment failures, natural disasters, human error,” said Koch. “No system is 100 percent reliable and we recommend that folks should have an emergency preparedness plan for when electrical is not available, so they can be prepared. We absolutely recognize that this is a frustrating situation.”

Frustrating for residents, yes. But the power outages are also having a negative impact on local businesses.

Sam Chammas, owner of the Riviera Supper Club on University Avenue, said that twice in the last few months he has had a full house at his restaurant, and had to clear the place when the lights went out.

On June 23, the date of the 12-hour unexpected outage, Chammas said that a 30-person film crew that just completed a national Harley Davidson shoot in front of Riviera,. Beers had just been poured, and a band  was about to take the stage at 9:30 p.m. when he had to clear his establishment.

In March, Chammas another "scheduled outage" cost Chammas' a weekend night's worth of business as well, as he said . He filed a claim with the utility company to compensate for his losses.

Koch said that he understands the customer frustration, and that a thorough investigation is ongoing for that particular circuit to try and come up with options to improve reliability, though he did not know what some of the specific technical improvement options were.

He said the planned outages, starting on Saturday, in which SDG&E crews will be installing a switch to the affected area, “will allow us to limit the number of customers affected and isolate the problem more quickly, leading to a potentially faster restoration time.”