SAN DIEGO (CBS 8/CNS) - Power is back on for 90,000 San Diego Gas & Electric customers. For about a four hour period Sunday customers in Fallbrook, Escondido, Encinitas and Clairemont had to spend the hot day without power.
A fluctuation in the statewide power grid resulted in an order to San Diego's electric utility to reduce power consumption and that resulted in up to 90,000 SDG&E customers losing power.
The utility said on its Twitter feed that it had been ordered to "shed load" by the statewide power authority, and reduce demand for power by 150 megawatts.
https://twitter.com/SDGE/status/645704675858059264
Officials at the California Independent Systems Organization near Sacramento said they were aware of the SDGE report, but they were still assessing the situation.
At 2:45 p.m., SDGE said it had cut power to 3,140 accounts in Clairemont, 2,154 accounts on the south and east sides of Escondido, and 1,586 in the Fallbrook and Bonsall areas.
Most of the other areas affected were in Encinitas and Escondido. Other outages were near Fallbrook.
On its Twitter feed, the utility said its call center was getting large numbers of calls. But phones were unanswered at the SDGE media office, and other than the Tweet there was no official reports of unusual problems.
https://twitter.com/SDGE/status/645702330915012608
California Highway Patrol officers said vehicles were speeding through intersections with disabled signals in the eastern part of Oceanside.
In Claremont, a movie theater was blacked out and evacuated.
A spokeswoman for Southern California Edison said its systems in Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties was not affected.