Southern California battered by powerful winds leaving thousands of residents without power

MONROVIA, Calif. (KABC) -- Clean-up continues and thousands of homes remain without power across Southern California after strong winds wreaked havoc over the weekend.

Southern California Edison customers in Monrovia are still dealing with power outages. Other Edison areas, as well as more than 8,000 customers, remain without power Monday morning.

The powerful winds took out trees, and took out the power as well. The Claremont Unified School District was forced to cancel all classes at all CUSD schools Monday after two of their schools, Mountain View and El Roble, were left without power.

"El Roble is the site of our Central Kitchen, which is responsible for meals at all school sites," said CUSD Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Jeff Wilson. "CUSD will be unable to serve breakfast or lunch."

A statement from Claremont Unified School District reads in part:

"It has been a difficult weekend for all Claremont residents. The windstorms created havoc, left many residents with no power for days, and in some cases, caused major damage to family's homes. We have had District staff and contractors at all sites over the weekend and have been able to assess, and initially respond to, only immediate dangers at our school sites. A full assessment of our campus' safety is needed...The safety of our staff and students is our utmost priority."

Crews arrived Monday morning at a house on the 300 block of Heather Heights Court in Monrovia to finish up removing the tree that toppled over a house Friday night.

The home has been red-tagged. The owner told Eyewitness News that the damage is pretty extensive to the exterior and interior of the house.

Along with trees and branches lining the streets, Southern California Edison customers were left in the dark due to the powerful Santa Ana winds.

Thousands of Edison customers lost their power. Many spent the weekend without electricity as Edison crews worked to get the power back online. Currently, Edison says they're working on about 100 outages affecting approximately 8,400 Southern California customers.

In Monrovia, with the damage caused by the powerful winds, residents are grateful that no one got hurt.

"Saturday in the daylight is when we got here. It was just as devastating, but you know what, everybody's OK," said Joan Brooks. "And as long as everybody's OK, that's the main thing. The house can be rebuilt."

"It was a powerful event. We were lucky in that we didn't lose power, but we had several neighbors across the street that lost power, and had only regained it this morning," Jim Tranquada said.

Some of those who lost power said the outage for them lasted from a few minutes to a few hours.