Power Restored in Fontana, Huntington Beach
Thousands of Southern California Edison customers celebrated Valentine's night in the dark
Cheryl Tivar
Electricity has been restored to Fontana and Huntington Beach after two unrelated power outages hit those areas.
Thousands of SoCal residents in Fontana and Huntington Beach celebrated Valentine’s Night in the dark.
A Mylar Valentine’s Day balloon was to be blame for an outage in Fontana, which at its peak left 15,099 customers in the dark. Power was restored to all Fontana customers shortly after 10 p.m.
The power company issued a statement earlier Tuesday warning of metallic balloons’ ability to cause power outages.
"Helium-filled metallic balloons can drift and come in contact with high-voltage lines where electricity can arc across the balloons, cause short circuits, burn wires and interrupt service," the statement read. "Resulting power outages may … lead to inoperable stoplights and possible traffic problems, and could even put a damper on Valentine's Day festivities."
As of 10:30 p.m, slightly more than 1,520 customers in Huntington Beach were still without power.
That was down from more than 21,200 Southern California Edison customers in Huntington Beach that experienced the black out, caused by a substation fire, according to SoCal Edison officials.
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