While emergency crews battled a brushfire in the Otay Wilderness Area, high wind conditions in other parts of San Diego County improved enough Friday so that San Diego Gas & Electric crews restored power all customers who started the day without electricity.
Overnight, as many as 20,000 customers living primarily in rural and backcountry communities east of Interstate 15 had their lights turned out as a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of fierce Santa Ana winds knocking overhead power lines down and possibly igniting a wildfire.
But at 11 a.m., the number without power had been cut in half and by 4:16 p.m., the figure dropped to zero, after SDG&E workers on the ground and in the air patrolled areas spent the day checking on the condition of utility equipment, such as power lines and transformers.
“We’re very grateful to the community for their patience,” said SDG&E’s vice president of wildfire and climate science, Brian D’Agostino.
Utility crews moved into affected areas at the same time the National Weather Service lifted a red flag warning at 10 a.m. Friday.
One day earlier, strong Santa Anas blew through canyons in and around the Cleveland National Forest, leading to shutoffs in communities such as Alpine, Valley Center, Julian and Fallbrook.
SDG&E weather stations on Thursday recorded winds as high as 97 miles per hour on Sill Hill in the Cuyamaca Mountains — just 8 miles an hour shy of Sill Hill’s record of 105 mph.
But by early afternoon Friday, the highest gusts had eased into the 20 mph range in the backcountry.
“I’m glad to that I’m not seeing anything coming behind this” latest spate of power outages, D’Agostino said. “I think what we’re finishing up today (Friday) looks to be the end of this long series that we’ve had.”
Since Jan. 7, a series of Santa Ana wind storms have come in multiple waves, leading to a slew of power shutoffs.
“This is truly unprecedented,” D’Agostino said.
While high winds in the San Diego area have sometimes persisted for as long as two weeks — such as in 2017 and 2020 — D’Agostino said he does not recall a streak of Santa Anas as prolonged as this one.
“We’ve never seen it go on for three weeks,” he said.
Forecasters expect rain and even snow to fall in high elevations across the county this weekend, giving parched vegetation some much-needed moisture.
