Canoga Park residents frustrated over 2nd power outage in days

Leanne Suter Image
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Canoga Park residents frustrated over 2nd power outage in days
For the second time in just a few days, an entire senior citizen mobile home park in Canoga Park lost power for hours during the sweltering heat.

CANOGA PARK, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- For the second time in just a few days, an entire senior citizen mobile home park in Canoga Park lost power for hours during the sweltering heat.

Crews worked into the night Monday to restore power at the Eton Mobile Home Park, located in the 8900 block of N. Eton Avenue, where most residents are seniors - some with serious health issues.

Jenny Maman is on oxygen, and she said the only place she has to charge her device at the moment is in her car.

Flames erupted in a generator running one of the replacement transformers, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said.

Residents were grateful no homes were damaged but said they know with this heat, their power could go at any time.

Power was restored by the end of the night, and the LADWP was working to make sure an outage in the area doesn't happened again. Monday's incident was the second time in as many days that residents at the mobile home park lost power.

Saturday afternoon, during the height of the triple-digit temperatures in Canoga Park, one of the transformers serving the 111 mobile homes in the park blew.

"Everybody was powered up because of the heat. It was probably overloaded because it's old equipment and it couldn't accommodate it. Then, they brought another temporary one. I guess that couldn't accommodate it either," explained Jan Hollander, manager of the mobile home park.

As they waited for power to be restored, residents watched as much of the Valley went dark due to a massive electrical fire in Northridge.

"It was so weird because we were standing here - no power, no nothing - watching the fire," resident Elizabeth Mull said.