Calabasas and Malibu Residents Say Three Days of Fire-Safety Shutoffs Left Them Unable to Call 911
CALABASAS and MALIBU, California — Residents of Calabasas and Malibu in Los Angeles County, California, say power shutoffs intended to prevent wildfires left them without the ability to call 911 or receive emergency notifications, CBS Los Angeles reported. Residents voiced their frustrations at a Calabasas City Council meeting.
Customers of the electric utility in both communities experienced three days of shutoffs in October as strong Santa Ana winds drove Malibu's Bryson Fire. The utility cut electricity under a public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, to keep its equipment from starting a fire in the high winds.
"No service whatsoever," Jamie Camp said at the council meeting, according to CBS Los Angeles. "Cellphone, phone, internet. Everything." Residents said the recurring nature of the outages was a key source of frustration, with shutoffs throughout the year. One person said the threshold for a PSPS had been lowered over time: "Once upon a time, the threshold was 40 mph gusts … then it became 30, then it became 20," according to CBS Los Angeles.
Alicia Weintraub, a Calabasas city council member who has been mobilising the community to speak out against the outages, said frequent power shutoffs are unsustainable. Southern California Edison said the intentional outages minimise risk in the fire-prone area, and pointed to work in Calabasas to install covered conductors and place power lines underground.
Sources: CBS Los Angeles reporting; Southern California Edison response, as reported in the same account.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：南加州爱迪生公司输电设施（资料图）。来源：Wikimedia Commons（Southern California Edison，公共领域）
