Many residents of the Inland Empire are on edge due to the combination of strong winds and possible power disruptions, especially after seeing the intensity of the two destructive wildfires that are still raging in Los Angeles County to the north.
A week after the Palisades and Eaton Fires started, driven by the strong winds, another Santa Ana wind pattern is currently affecting a large portion of Southern California, posing another “Particularly Dangerous Situation” for LA.
The symphony of generators was the only sound louder than the gusts further south in San Bernardino. With the winds predicted, Southern California Edison turned off electricity to over 50,000 homes and businesses on Wednesday in an effort to prevent any brushfires from being started by downed equipment.
“It’s like a psychological-emotional rollercoaster,” Chanaa Smith, a resident of San Bernardino, described the situation. She and her neighbors have experienced multiple power outages in the past week.
The wind, which isn’t expected to completely stop until Friday morning, has also caused more than 480,000 additional people on a watchlist to lose their services.
“I think they’re afraid of being sued again,” said another San Bernardino resident, Donald Ballard. “All our power lines are underground.”
He is among the many who have generators, but Smith claims that since everyone adopted the practice when power shortages began last week, she hasn’t been able to locate one.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department claims that they are already searching for suspects in several generator thefts since they have become so well-liked.