Outage caused by driver hitting electrical switch on Camino De Los Mares
A car is motionless after a driver crashed it into an electrical box Friday afternoon on Camino De Los Mares across from Ocean View Plaza shopping center in Capistrano Beach. Photo: Eric Heinz
By Eric Heinz
A car that crashed into an electric switch caused San Diego Gas & Electric customers in the immediate area of Camino De Los Mares between Camino Agua and Camino Molino to be without power for a few hours Friday afternoon—and some will be without power until 5 a.m on Saturday.
Hanan Eisenman, a spokesperson for SDG&E, said crews are in the area working on the problem, but in order to restore the electric switch it is going to take them into early Saturday morning.
Saddleback Memorial Health Center was affected by the outage, but Eisenman said the hospital is running on backup generators. He said SDG&E is working to restore power going to the hospital by 6 p.m today, Friday, Sept. 25.
“The outage started at 1:50 p.m. (Friday), and initially 1,950 customers were affected,” Eisenman said. “We were able to restore power to all but 398 customers, and for the remainder of customers we expect to have restoration of power by 5 a.m.”
The driver, who was standing next to the curb of the compact vehicle that took out the transformer, appeared to be uninjured.
Businesses in the Ocean View Plaza shopping center were affected by the outage and as of 5:30 p.m. did not have power restored.
San Clemente Times will update information on the situation when it becomes available.
More information can be found at www.sdge.com.
A grocer walks with a flashlight Friday afternoon through Stater Bros. in Capistrano Beach in the Ocean View Plaza. Photo: Eric Heinz