The power is back on, but the investigations are just starting. Late last month, hurricane winds hit the San Gabriel Valley and the Foothill communities. Some 400,000 Southern California Edison customers were without power for days. Southern California Edison President Ronald Litzinger talks about what went wrong and the lessons learned from this historic event.
Utility crews were out Friday, still working after last week's powerful windstorms, which have caused at least $40 million in damage.
Hurricane-force winds in excess of 100 mph swept through the Southland more than a week ago. But Southern California Edison was not able to restore power to all of its customers until Thursday, prompting an investigation.
"We went absolutely as fast as we could, it took much longer than we expected," said SCE President Ronald Litzinger.
SCE is responsible for providing electricity to 14 million people, and has been soundly criticized for its efforts at turning the lights back on, with many not having power for a full week.
Litzinger, who was appointed president of the utility company in January, said he understands why many were upset with the response and lack of communication.
"We really were struggling to come up with an accurate restoration time," Litzinger said. "We thought that we could get finished with most of the customers by Sunday evening. We ended up getting 95 percent of the customers restored, but 5 percent of 430,000 is a big number."
As the days went on, crews were restoring customers block by block, one to 10 at a time, which took much longer than expected, Lutzinger said.
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"We've got to figure out a way of communicating that better to our customers in the future," he said.
The California Public Utilities Commission announced it will investigate what happened following the massive windstorm last month. And if Edison violated any procedures, it could face fines of up to $50,000 a day.
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