Mathis Winkler and Jennifer Kho
NEWPORT MESA -- With the state's energy crisis so bad that the federal
government has had to step in and force power producers to sell
electricity to California, officials said Thursday that it's not really a
question whether blackouts will happen in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa,
but when.
"I think more than anything else, [residents] need to get used to the
idea that it is going to occur," said Newport Beach City Manager Homer
Bludau, adding that if nowhere else, possible power outages would affect
people driving on the city's streets.
While crucial organizations -- such as police and fire departments, as
well as hospitals and jails -- would be exempt from an outage, traffic
lights would not, Bludau said.
"What we would see immediately would be traffic and intersections
totally congested," Bludau said.
Costa Mesa Councilman Gary Monahan said his city is in the same
situation.
"I know that about a year ago we bought all new generator equipment
because of Y2K," Monahan said. "If the power goes out, City Hall goes on.
Emergency services are on schedule because Y2K got us prepared for
anything to happen. But traffic lights are a problem because there are so
many of them."
Southern California Edison officials said that while a blackout was
unlikely in the immediate future, the California Independent Systems
Operator, which decides whether to call for blackouts, could do so at any
time.
A blackout could occur when the operator calls for a Stage 3 emergency
after power reserves drop below 1.5%. A Stage 2 emergency was in place
Thursday and was expected to last until about 10 p.m.
At the request of the California Independent Systems Operator,
Southern California Edison could interrupt service for those customers at
Stage 2, but did not expect to Thursday, said Steve Hansen, Edison's
spokesman.
Edison declared a Stage 3 warning briefly Dec. 7, but did not have to
interrupt service, he said.
"We could have as few as 10 minutes" before getting the notice to
initiate blackouts, said Kim Scherer, a region manager for the company
who oversees operations in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. "It really
depends on what's going on in the system at any particular point in
time."
Scherer added that a combination of power plants turned off for
maintenance, cold weather in the Northwest and increased power demand due
to holiday lights had led to the shortage.
She said the rolling blackouts probably would last an hour. Blackouts
