Another dark taste of things to come

Deepa Bharath and Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- The city got another taste of what’s to come this

summer when two rounds of rolling blackouts left thousands of residents

without power for an hour Tuesday afternoon.

The first outage lasted from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m. south of Jamboree Road,

and the second lasted from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. in areas north of Jamboree

and the Corona del Mar Freeway.

Included in the blackouts were Corona del Mar High School, and

Eastbluff and Harbor View elementary schools, which were hit after

classes had ended.

Short power supplies across the state triggered outages for the second

consecutive day in Newport Beach, officials said.

Traffic lights were off at some major intersections. Officers on

motorbikes and patrol cars with flashing lights manned most of those

intersections.

During the outages, they also created impromptu four-way stop signs in

such key intersections as Bristol Street and Jamboree Road, Jamboree and

Eastbluff Drive, and MacArthur Boulevard and Jamboree.

There were no major incidents, although there were a few minor traffic

collisions, said Newport Beach Police Lt. John Klein.

“The biggest problem is the traffic backing up,” he said. “It’s really

bad this time of day. We’re talking about some of the most heavily

traveled intersections in our city.”

About 70,000 vehicles pass through Jamboree and MacArthur every day,

Klein said.

During the first round of blackouts, 70,848 of Edison’s 11 million

customers lost power, said Kim Scherer, spokeswoman for Southern

California Edison. The second round blacked out 56,718 users.

Scherer said high temperatures, which triggered increased power usage,

caused the blackouts.

“But [today] is supposed to be cooler,” she said. “So with some luck,

we could skate by without the rotating outages.”

She said Costa Mesa was on the list of cities to be affected by the

blackouts, but only small areas on the border of Santa Ana and Irvine,

such as Red Hill Avenue, experienced the outages.

Some residents who were affected by the outages said they are not too

bothered as long as the shutdown does not last more than an hour.

Irene Wright held a piece of ham on rye, which was all she could eat

for lunch because all of the appliances in her home are electric.

“I guess I need to get a grill that I can put on my patio,” she said.

“That way I can solve my cooking problem.”

For Madeline Clark, the frustrating part is resetting her clocks.

“I just got out of the tub, and I realized I couldn’t brush my teeth

because I have an electric toothbrush,” she said. “I picked up the phone,

couldn’t make a call. You just realize it’s not just the lights, but so

many other things that you use every day.”

Ruthie Maron, an apartment complex manager, said she is not too

worried about the state’s power crisis and the threat of more blackouts

to come.

“Life’s too short to complain about this,” she said. “I’m fine. I’ve

got candles and flashlights. My only worry is traffic lights that don’t

work.”

The three schools hit by the blackouts escaped major difficulty

because students had already left. But it could have posed problems if it

had happened during school hours, said Corona del Mar High’s assistant

principal Robert Cunard.

“Some of our classrooms don’t have windows,” he said. “But most

classes would have continued. Fortunately these outages last only an

hour.”