The Arcadia City Council has scheduled a special study session for tonight at 5 p.m. in which the public is invited to come and offer input about how response to last week’s wind storm was handled.
by Scott Hettrick
Of course, there are always misunderstandings and media misinformation in these situations, such as KABC channel 7‘s broadcast Sunday of one or two Arcadia residents complaining that the Santa Anita golf course was being cleaned up before power was restored to residential areas where elderly had been living in without heat in their homes for four or five days. The easy answer to that is that the golf course and crews working there have nothing to do with and are not controlled by the City of Arcadia since that is County property.
But there are real issues to be discussed. Arcadians were remarkably patient with Southern California Edison following the Great Wind Storm of 2011, but the utility company should answer to their customers for a concerning lack of communication regarding timely estimates of restoration of power. Arcadia residents and officials were largely left in the dark for days (pun intended). Also a little surprising, the Arcadia Chapter of the American Red Cross did not provide any shelter or supplies at the Arcadia office or anywhere in town. Callers were referred to a shelter set up for a couple days in Pasadena.
In the aftermath of the storm, we can look back and realize that despite the hundreds of downed trees and damage to some buildings, sidewalks, and vehicles, and the inconveniences of power outages, we must be grateful that it wasn’t much worse.
It could have been devastating if all those trees didn’t remarkably fall on streets and sidewalks for the most part, instead of homes, buildings, and cars so close by, or if the wind storm had happened during the day instead of in the wee hours of the morning when people and cars were mostly at rest. And unlike ice storms in the East and Midwest that cause similar tree damage and power outages, we did not have to suffer sub-freezing temperatures, ice and snow in the hours and days of recovery.
But there are many lessons we should learn and we should use this opportunity to find ways to improve on our response to disasters like this. For instance, why couldn’t SCE provide daily and more frequent updates to City officials and on its web site about the status of the power outages – how many customers affected in Arcadia (as opposed to the entire San Gabriel Valley), how many lines were down, and estimates of when power would be restored in specific areas. There was also little explanation or signs provided by anyone about why a handful of streets remained blocked for days by trees that had fallen days earlier.
In the scheme of things, a wind storm is not the biggest of disasters we face compared to fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or terrorist attacks. But we found out that our new technology has its downfalls when the power goes out. Cordless phones don’t work; tank-less hot water heaters don’t work; Internet and e-mail access is limited to smart phones, and many smart phones didn’t work as well during the hours and days after the storm – perhaps slowed by a sudden increase in usage. In some cases the back-up power supplies of cell towers went dead. Even those with cell phones to receive e-mails and texts were challenged to keep their phones charged. For those who could access e-mail, the Internet, and receive text messages and phone calls, the City of Arcadia and the police department provided twice-daily comprehensive updates and intermittent bulletins that were extremely valuable and helpful, and the school district delivered multiple automated phone blast calls.
But I didn’t see SCE providing any of that kind of communication. And City updates consistently had the same message about SCE – that the utility had provided no information to them either. That’s worth discussing — bring your comments to City Hall tonight, and/or type them here below so Councilmen know how you feel.
— By Scott Hettrick
(Hettrick’s opinions and comments on ArcadiasBest.com are not intended to reflect any official of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, where Hettrick is Executive Director.)