How prepared was DWP?

Well, that all depends on whether you lost power during last week's heat wave. Members of the L.A. City Council are dutifully asking the utility what went wrong and how it can be avoided in the future. At a news conference today, Wendy Greuel, Tom LaBonge and Jan Perry said they will demand monthly reports from the Department of Water and Power. They also want to see the staff beefed up, but they're a bit hazy on where the money will come from. The DWP has proposed a series of three rate hikes, beginning on Jan. 1, to pay for upgrading its aging infrastructure. That's what caused the outages. This is still a very old and rickety system. (LAT)