SAN DIEGO, May 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) crews worked throughout the past week making repairs to the electrical system and restoring service to customers affected by the recent wildfire devastation in San Diego County. As of yesterday, all power has been restored to all customers.
"I am proud of the work SDG&E crews have done to assist with power restoration and fire coordination during this past week," said David L. Geier, vice president of transmission and system engineering for SDG&E. "To ensure public safety remained a top priority, crews spent day and night observing weather conditions, replacing damaged infrastructure and even worked alongside firefighters to make sure those on the front lines remained safe as well from electrical hazards."
Early last week, record wind gusts hit the county knocking out power to more than 5,000 customers at times. At the height of the wind event, nearly 6,500 customers were affected by outages scattered around the service area. While all power has been restored, SDG&E continues to assess damage to the electrical system. SDG&E has enlisted all available crews and several contract crews to help replace more than 85 poles in the damaged communities. SDG&E will replace damaged wooden poles with steel poles that are more fire-resistant and resilient in high winds, as appropriate.
"This has been a trying time for all San Diegans and I would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding while we worked to restore power as safely and quickly as possible," said Caroline Winn, vice president of customer service for SDG&E. "I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to the true heroes, our first responders, who worked day and night to battle the fires affecting our communities – their hard work and dedication is commendable."
Some of the areas that SDG&E's system saw some of the most damage include communities in the Camp Pendleton, San Marcos, Pala, Escondido and Carlsbad areas.
For more information on SDG&E outages, please check our website for real-time information on the status of any outage at sdge.com/outages. Customers can also connect to the outage website via mobile devices, even if computers or phones are down. SDG&E outage updates are also available on Twitter, @SDGE.
SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and 861,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility's area spans 4,100 square miles. SDG&E is committed to creating ways to help customers save energy and money every day. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. Connect with SDG&E's Customer Contact Center at 800-411-7343, on Twitter (@SDGE) and Facebook.
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SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)