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More than 20,000 homes and businesses lose power after electrical vault fire in Long Beach
The Southern California Edison Long Beach Service Center Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.
(
Brandon Richardson
/
Long Beach Post
)
This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.
Tens of thousands of households lost power Sunday night in and around Long Beach’s coastal neighborhoods, including Bluff Park, Alamitos Beach and Belmont Shore. Crews were still trying to restore power to many of them on Monday morning.
The outage began at about 6:40 p.m. when an underground electrical vault caught fire near the Bluff Heights neighborhood.
Firefighters extinguished the vault on Broadway near Newport Avenue, said Long Beach Fire Department spokesperson Brian Fisk, and SCE crews de-energized the line.
The blackout initially affected 26,626 customers, according to the Southern California Edison outage map.
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The boundaries of the outage were:
- West of Quincy Avenue
- East of Alamitos Avenue
- North of East Ocean Boulevard
- South of East 7th Street
As of 6 a.m. Monday, power had been restored to several thousand customers, but 16,456 households remained out, according to the outage map.
SoCal Edison estimated power would be restored by noon Monday.
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The blackout occurred as much of the region remained under a high heat advisory. Temperatures in Long Beach were expected to be in the 80s by noon with high humidity.
Where you can go to cool down
The Long Beach Senior Center (1150 E 4th St.) has electricity and is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays.
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