Lights out over Carpinteria

Residents, businesses wrestle with frequent power outages

CALIFORNIA – Citing health and safety dangers, frustration, and just plain inconvenience, many people who work and live in Carpinteria have expressed dismay over a recent string of blackouts in the last month and are putting the blame on electric company Southern California Edison.

Most recently, on March 27 and 28 portions of Carpinteria were without power after two blackouts, the first lasting for 10 minutes, the second for just under a minute. Steadily occurring since the new year, on Jan. 4, according to Carpinteria Public Works director Dale Lipp, parts of Carpinteria Avenue and Vallecito and Casitas Pass roads lost power, with the Shepard Place Apartment complex down for hours.

Nancy King, apartment manager, said the outage posed a health risk for some elderly tenants. One resident, she remembers, lost support of her oxygen tank but luckily relied on a backup generator to breathe.