By Daily Press Staff
DOWNTOWN SM Areas of downtown were without power for nearly 10 hours Tuesday night, as part of a planned outage by Southern California Edison to give the utility an opportunity to replace an inadequate high-voltage circuit.
Mark Olsen, a spokesman for Edison, said the work is part of an overall effort to upgrade the aging power grid in the downtown area, which has experienced several outages over the past few years, leaving businesses on the Third Street Promenade and surrounding streets without electricity for days during the hot summer months at times.
Power was cut Monday to those businesses located in between Broadway and Santa Monica Boulevard from Third to Fourth streets as well as Colorado Avenue to Broadway from Second to Fourth streets. Olsen said letters were mailed out to Edison customers informing them about the outage in advance of the interruption.
The circuit was replaced ahead of scheduled and the power was restored around 6:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Olsen said.
“Probably 90 percent of that downtown circuit has been upgraded and we will continue to do so as needed,” Olsen said. “We hope to have the full upgrade completed by the middle of next year.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.