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Much of the city of San Diego is still dark, but some areas — including the south end of Orange County and the desert cities of the Coachella Valley — are gradually getting power back. Some locales, however, won't see the lights come on until Saturday, SDG&E says. That's because 115 power substations have to be rebooted one by one and the San Onofre nuclear power station has to ramp back up. All San Diego County public schools and those in some other areas will be closed on Friday.
In all, something like five million people have been affected by the blackout that began about 3:38 this afternoon when a high-voltage line from Arizona failed, triggering a cascade of electricity system collapses and San Onofre to shut down. From SignOnSanDiego:
The cause of the power failure had yet to be determined late Thursday although the Arizona Public Service utility company said the outage occurred after one of its employees performed a procedure on the North Gila-Hassayampa transmission line near Yuma, Arizona.
SignonSanDiego.com photo: Sean M. Haffey