Businesses Push Back Against Power Outages
REPOSTED ARTICLE
Written By: Cindy Bernard, Laura Hauther, and Kat Talley-Jones
We found it surprising that the Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday, February 4 was cancelled after Community Development Director Keith Gardner had confirmed the 2025 schedule at the December 17 meeting. When we asked what was up, Gardner said that the meeting was canceled due to planned Southern California Edison (SCE) power outages and sent a list of SCE maintenance outages for Twentynine Palms. Currently there are 13 outages scheduled for the Twentynine Palms area between February 4 and 14, several lasting 8-10 hours.
The importance of power line maintenance (and undergrounding) was recently highlighted when SCE shut off power to Malibu and other coastal areas in early January, implementing a plan for high wind areas full of flammable vegetation. Tragically, SCE did not take this action in Altadena, and hurricane-force winds sparked power lines in Eaton Canyon the evening of January 7.
SCE has been hit with multiple lawsuits for the Eaton fire, and it won’t be the first time utility companies have been sued for damages caused by wildfires their equipment ignited. In December 2019, Pacific Gas & Electric, which serves much of Northern and Central California, announced a $13.5 billion settlement for causing the Camp Fire and several other fires in Northern California.
Weekend Closures Mean Businesses Lose Customers
Against this backdrop, as the fires burned in Los Angeles and winds blew in the desert, SCE implemented a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) for parts of Morongo Valley. The shutdown, however, hit the entire basin, from Morongo Valley to Wonder Valley. Much of the area lost power for most of a day, and some Morongo Valley residents lacked power for nearly three days.
On January 9, City Manager Stone James made an inquiry to SCE, and Desert Trumpet has seen a copy of the explanation which indicated that a “main feed” coming out of the Coachella Valley was “locked out,” an incident that has multiple potential causes, including wind, lines touching, or debris coming into contact with the lines. Crews eventually resolved the issue and power was restored.
While that outage was not due to scheduled maintenance, local businesses would soon find that even scheduled outages were unpredictable.
An outage planned for Friday, January 24, was supposed to end at 8 am, but when power hadn’t been restored by 5 pm, some businesses in Twentynine Palms shut down for the day, losing customers when visitors and locals looked for other places to eat.
Residents and businesses in Twentynine Palms were frustrated to learn of more day-long shutoffs scheduled for the end of January through the first week of February. Flamingo Heights, Joshua Tree and Yucca valley have one each in the coming weeks, while Twentynine Palms has twelve scheduled in the area where many businesses are clustered. The outages are spread over the end of January until about mid-February.
The Desert Trumpet contacted SCE spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas, who said these current outages are all regular planned maintenance outages, unlike the PSPS that had parts of Morongo Valley in the dark for days.
“Maintenance is an important part of keeping the power flowing,” Ornelas explained. Crews switched out weathered power poles and replace buried lines or overhead conductors to reduce the chance of power failures.
When businesses and residents in Twentynine Palms were recently notified of these outages, they decided to push back.
Mike Usher, President of Rediscover29 business association and owner of GRND SQRL and the 29 Palms Beer Co, reached out on behalf of Rediscover29 to City Manager Stone James for help. James contacted SCE and successfully negotiated a postponement for the January 27 outage.
While Usher found this show of support from the city encouraging, he’s worried about the future of small businesses in 29.
When asked if the number of shutoffs in recent months is higher than usual, Usher responded, “It definitely feels that way. The combination of the scheduled and unscheduled outages, the nonscheduled ones around the LA fires, as well as the unscheduled one in November have made it seem…like a lot.”
”If we don’t have power, most of us will have to close.”
Are you are affected by upcoming scheduled outages? Double check by entering your address at the SCE outage status portal. Entering “Twentynine Palms” will produce a map of scheduled outages for the City.