The city of Long Beach experienced a major power outage on July 15, and in an effort to restore power, Long Beach worked closely with Southern California Edison in a proposed repair that involves switching the electrical grid off for an unknown period of time, according to officials.
The Signal Hill Police Department (SHPD) was in contact with the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) to prepare for the outage, with LBPD believing the outage would involve parts of Signal Hill, specifically areas south of E. Willow Street at around 10am on July 16 for an unknown duration of time.
On July 15 at 3:38pm, the LBPD had officers in the area of 3rd Street and Chestnut Avenue, and they reported smoke coming from vents that lined 3rd Street. Officers requested that the Long Beach Fire Department (LBFD) respond and assist.
Fire units found pressurized smoke coming from two different vents that involved an underground electrical vault between Magnolia Avenue and Chestnut Avenue on 3rd Street and began suppression activities, extinguished the fire and supported Southern California Edison (SCE) with ventilation operations in an attempt to access and identify the cause of the fire and power outage.
SCE units continued to ventilate the involved underground electrical vault, where at one point, the fire re-ignited, along with two electrical vaults that caught fire, as well, and required additional fire suppression operations. All three fires were extinguished, and at press time there were no active fires, no smoking vents and no reports of injury.
At press time, the power was out for an unknown amount of time from 10th Street to Ocean Avenue and from Magnolia Avenue to Alamitos Avenue. SCE continues to work on identifying the problem and is taking action to restore services, but for now, there are about 4,800 customers without power in the affected areas throughout downtown Long Beach.
Fire department units were requested to support the impacted areas, and the Long Beach Community Emergency Response Team, Long Beach Search and Rescue program and SHPD Emergency Operations Center were also activated to support community notification and outreach efforts.
Police operations will commence as normal, and both SHPD and LBPD will continue to disseminate information as it becomes available, according to police.
