Power outages affecting mountain communities after Red Flag warnings

CRESTLINE, Calif. (KABC) -- People living in the mountain community of Crestline in San Bernardino County went days without power due to outages implemented by Southern California Edison.

"We did four days last week without power and then they turned it on for two days and then we went three days without power," Dustin Hake said. "It just came on last night and before that the weather wasn't that bad."

Kimberly Elliott added, "Tuesday it went out Tuesday night and it didn't come back on until almost 6 o'clock yesterday."

Gabriela Ornelas, spokesperson for SCE said, the outages help protect the public during Red Flag warnings.

"Public Safety Power Shutoffs, or PSPS for short, they are a tool of last resort that we use in areas that are seeing the most impact from wind conditions and other factors."

Power has been restored to all customers.

The Public Safety Power Shutoffs are directed at circuits made up of homes and businesses where there's an increased fire risk.

"A neighborhood may not be experiencing very strong winds, but in another area of the circuit that they're on there are strong winds," Ornelas said. "When that's the case, when there are strong winds we use public safety power shutoffs for that circuit."

Even after conditions improve people may be temporarily left in the dark.

She said, "Our crews have to wait for conditions to be safe so that we can inspect power lines, poles, transformers; every piece of our equipment."

The outages are frustrating, especially with freezing overnight temperatures, but some residents understand why SCE issues them.

Hake said, "I'm glad they're taking it into consideration but at least give us a couple hours a day."

"If a fire breaks out and it's not windy it could really be devastating so it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing. It's a Catch-22," Elliott said.

Southern California Edison said it tries to notify customers up to 48 hours in advance of a Public Safety Power Shutoff but sometimes an outage is needed quickly and they don't get a chance to let customers know.

People in mountain communities hope the power company can finds different ways to keep the lights on.