Outage cuts power to about 11,000 in Glendale, prompting 25 elevator rescues

Outage cuts power to about 11,000 in Glendale, prompting 25 elevator rescues

by City News Service, Jonah Valdez

Power outages Wednesday affected thousands of utility customers in Glendale, trapping people inside elevators and causing traffic congestion as temperatures in the city soared toward 100 degrees.

According to Glendale Water & Power, a failure at an electrical substation at about 11 a.m. “caused multiple power outages” around the city.

Most customers had service restored by about 1:45 p.m., and by around 3:35 p.m. the rest were back online, officials said.

Another outage, this one affecting about 11,000 customers, was reported by the utility about 4:10 p.m. No estimated time of service restoration was made available.

The number of customers affected by the first outage was not immediately available, according to Eliza Papazian, the utility’s community relations coordinator.

During the outage, dozens of people, mostly office workers, were trapped inside elevators throughout the city, said Anita Shandi, spokewoman for the Glendale Fire Department.

“As soon as the power went out, we got a flood of elevator rescue calls,” Shandi said, noting that most were from high rises in the city, as well as some elevators in City Hall offices.

In all, fire crews were called to 25 elevator rescues, prying people out to safety, she said.

Police officers helped direct traffic at busy intersections throughout the city where traffic signal lights were off, said Glendale police Sgt. James Flores, such as Verdugo Road and Mountain Street near Glendale Community College.

No car accidents or injuries related to the outage were reported to authorities.

Cooling stations were also available during the outage at four community and recreation centers.

Crews were at work on restoration efforts, and in the meantime, cooling stations were available at four locations: Adult Recreation Center, 201 E. Colorado St.; Maple Park Community Center, 820 E. Maple St.; Pacific Community Center, 501 S. Pacific Ave.; and Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Way.

All credit goes to City News Service, Jonah Valdez
Originally published on https://www.dailynews.com