Beach and tapwater restrictions still in effect after outage - SignOnSanDiego.com
The weekend after Southern California's worst-ever power outage, broad swathes of beaches remained closed in San Diego County and some residents were still being asked to boil their water.
But that could change as early as Sunday pending tests by San Diego's water quality service.
As of Saturday afternoon, all beaches from Solana Beach to Scripps Pier, as well as Bayside Park in Chula Vista and the inland side of the Silver Strand, remained closed because of sewage spills that occurred when pump stations failed during the blackout.
Lifeguards said they were waiting to hear from the county health department on when the beaches would reopen. John Everhart, a lieutenant with the San Diego lifeguard service, said that most swimmers and surfers heeded the signs warning of potential contamination, "but you always get a small percentage who read the signs and decide the risk isn't too great and go into the water anyway. But when we ask them to get out, they're very cooperative."
In addition, residents of the following areas were asked to either boil their water or use bottled water pending further notice:
- Carmel Mountain Ranch
- College Area/College Grove
- La Jolla
- North City/Flower
- Otay Mesa
- Rancho Bernardo
- San Carlos
- Scripps Ranch/Stonebridge
- Tierrasanta
For maps of the affected areas in those neighborhoods, click HERE.
In the meantime, the California Independent System Operator – which oversees the state's energy grid - described the electric system status in Southern California as "normal" on Saturday, although "normal" includes occasional short-lived localized power outages.
Within a single hour on Saturday afternoon, for instance, there were power outages at Fashion Valley because of a tripped current as well as Laguna, when a car crashed into power equipment.
"At any given point of time, that kind of thing can happen," said SDG&E spokeswoman Joyce Truban Curry. "It isn't really unusual."
The twin nuclear reactors at San Onofre remain closed, after shutting down in a self-protective reaction to a power disruption Thursday afternoon that began at an energy substation near Yuma.
"We're still in the process of going through the checklist that we need to go through after any shutdown, kind of like the checklist on a 747 when it's about to take off," said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for Southern California Edison, which runs the plant. ""But this is just routine. The outage did no damage to the plant."
He said the firm cannot give a specific time for when it expects San Onofre to come back online, but stressed that it would be "soon."
About 7 million people were affected by Thursday's outage. Because of food spoilage due to refrigeration shutdowns, many stores and restaurants shut down throughout the county, including an estimated 800 that were ordered closed because of concerns over water quality. It is not known how many remained closed on Saturday.
To file claims on outage-related damages, call SDG&E at (800) 411-7343.
For information on how to plan for the next time an event like the outage occurs, click HERE for Red Cross emergency preparedness suggestions or HERE for San Diego County's emergency homepage.
11 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNH0O1Gk06nHeIcrcEGaeoxZc7jP7w&url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/10/beach-and-tapwater-restrictions-still-effect-after/
~
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com
