Powerful winds topple trees and leave thousands without power in L.A. County

Powerful winds stoked a house fire, toppled trees and knocked out power to thousands of Los Angeles County residents overnight as forecasters warned gusts would continue Friday.

Wild winds caused havoc across Los Angeles and fueled a blaze that erupted just after 2:30 a.m. inside a converted garage in Exposition Park. More than 90 firefighters tackled the wind-driven fire as flames spread to a neighboring home, causing significant damage.

According to the National Weather Service, winds ranged from 15 to 55 mph throughout Los Angeles County overnight. The strongest wind gust was measured at 71 mph at Whitaker Peak at an elevation of 4,120 feet, the weather service said.

Gusts reached 51 mph at the Palmdale Regional Airport; 49 mph in Santa Monica; 43 mph in Beverly Hills; 40 mph in Inglewood and 35 mph in downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park.

Strong winds will continue to blow across Southern California on Friday and Saturday, forecasters said. Gusts could range from 45 to 65 mph in the Antelope Valley and Los Angeles County mountains.

“The gusts across most coastal and valley areas will be 35 to 50 mph,” the weather service said. “This will result in difficult driving conditions due to strong cross winds and blowing dust.”

Forecasters warned strong winds could knock down more power lines and trees across the Southland.

In Los Angeles, more than 13,000 Department of Water and Power customers were still experiencing outages Friday as crews worked to remove fallen tree branches and palm fronds from power lines, according to Carol Tucker, a spokeswoman for the utility.

Outages were spread across the city but particularly focused in Exposition Park near USC, Los Feliz, Hollywood, Echo Park, Eagle Rock, the Harbor Gateway area, Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights, Tucker said.

There was no timetable for when power would be restored, the DWP said.

In Pasadena, more than 480 customers lost power in the neighborhood south of the 134 Freeway and west of the Arroyo Seco, according to the city utility’s outage map. By 5:30 a.m. Friday, power was restored to all but nine customers.

At the peak of the windstorm, more than 5,600 customers in L.A. County communities served by Southern California Edison experienced outages. By Friday morning, more than 1,800 customers were still without power due to wind storm-related damages. Of those, more than half were customers residing in East Los Angeles and Whittier, according to the utility’s outage map.

Across Southern California Edison’s service area — which includes parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and Santa Barbara counties — nearly 10,000 customers were without power. A spokeswoman cautioned that several outages were unrelated to the winds, such as the 3,600 customers who lost power in San Bernardino as a result of equipment upgrades.

Several trees had fallen late in the evening, crushing cars and damaging property. A tree fell in the 11100 block of Freeman Avenue in Inglewood, and KABC-TV reported that the tree had appeared to hit a parked car.

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In Hawthorne, a tree fell on two cars near Hawthorne Boulevard and 118th Street, KTLA-TV reported.

Fallen trees in Glendale caused power outages in north Glendale and for those near Rossmoyne Avenue and Bel Aire Drive, according to Glendale Water and Power.

In La Habra, powerful winds knocked down a tree that toppled onto a town home Friday in the 1500 block of West Lambert Road.

A wind advisory was issued by the National Weather Service for the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita and Santa Monica Mountains Recreational Area, with gusts reaching 50 mph or more.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno

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UPDATES:

7:50 a.m.: This article was updated with details of a wind-driven fire.

6:40 a.m. April 28: This article was updated with details on wind speeds and more current outage numbers from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Pasadena Water and Power, Southern California Edison.

11:15 p.m.: This article was updated with more current outage numbers from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

10:55 p.m. April 27: This article was updated with details on outages in Pasadena and additional details about Southern California Edison’s outages.

This article was originally published at 10:10 p.m. on April 27.