WINDSTORM FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When will the power to my home or business be restored?
We are very sorry that we cannot accurately predict restoration time for any specific location. We have crews working night and day to safely restore power and as of 10 am Friday, power had been restored to 145,000 customers, with 67,000 still without power. If you are not on our email distribution list, please add yourself to the mailing list at www.ladwpnews.com. This will provide you direct access by email to the best information we have available.
What do I do about the food in my fridge or freezer?
The Los Angeles Emergency Management Department has issued food safety guidelines as follows: following a power outage, steps should be taken to determine which food from the refrigerator or freezer is safe to keep or must be discarded. Follow these recommendations to avoid food borne illness. Generally, food in the refrigerator is safe as long as the power outage is short. Food can be held in the fridge for a few hours if, while the power is out, the doors to the fridge and freezer are kept closed to maintain coldest possible temperatures. If a power outage lasts several hours, it is best to throw away perishable food items such as meat, dairy products and eggs. Items that have defrosted in the freezer should be thrown away. Do not re-freeze thawed food. All other food items should be inspected to ensure safety. If in doubt, throw it out.
We have also published a more detailed guideline to food safety in a power outage prepared by the Red Cross. You can find that on www.ladwpnews.com under “Fact Sheets.”
Will DWP reimburse us for our losses during this outage?
Regarding reimbursement for any damages you incur from this major storm, you may file a claim using the claim form that is published on the ladwpnews.com website under "Hot Topics" on the upper right portion of the page. You should use this claim form when you believe LADWP is liable for the damages you have incurred. As you will certainly understand, LADWP is not liable for circumstances beyond our control, including natural disasters. You may be able to receive reimbursement under your homeowner's or renter's insurance policies however.
While we work very hard to eliminate all power outages, as our General Manager Ron Nichols stated at the press conference on Thursday, December 1, it is not possible nor affordable to design a power system that can withstand a storm of this magnitude. We regret the inconvenience you are experiencing and want to insure you our crews are working night and day to safely restore power to our valued customers. As of 10 am Friday morning power had been restored to 145,000 customers, with more restorations in progress.
Why are there so many outages? Shouldn't more be done to prepare for wind storms?
Providing safe, reliable power is a primary part of our mission and we work hard to continually improve the reliability of our power system. However, as our General Manager Ron Nichols said at the press conference on Thursday, December 1, it is neither possible nor affordable to design a system that can withstand the wind force that we experienced in this event. We will continue to evaluate where these outages occur and it will help guide us in our continuing effort to improve reliability.
When you have so many outages, how do you determine which areas or customers are a priority? Is there preferential treatment?
1. Our priority is first to restore power to those facilities or equipment that are posing an immediate threat to public safety, such as live wires down on an occupied vehicle.
2. The next priority is facilities affecting life and health of the public, such as hospitals, nursing homes, water and natural gas pumps and the like (many of these facilities have active back-up generation.
3. The next levels of restoration activity are dispatched to large area outages, such as a high voltage station or line impacting several thousand customers.
4. Beyond that, the response plan is based on efficiency--where can we assign our limited crews so that it can help the most people in the least amount of time.
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