San Bernardino power outage temporarily darkens Inland Center mall just before Christmas - San Bernardino County Sun
San Bernardino power outage temporarily darkens Inland Center mall just before Christmas - San Bernardino Sun
On the next-to-last day for Christmas shopping, a Southern California Edison equipment failure plunged the Inland Center mall in San Bernardino and other area businesses into darkness on Saturday, Dec. 23.
The lights went out in the area of E Street and Orange Show Road shortly before 4 p.m. The electricity appeared to have been restored before 11:15 p.m., when it was no longer listed on Edison’s outage map.
Edison spokeswoman Gabriela Ornelas said Edison sent more crew members than usual to fix the problem and that Edison was switching customers to active equipment where it could because of the timing and location of the outage.
Ornelas said she didn’t know exactly what equipment failed or how.
Prior to the power being restored, she said 130 customers were without power as of 8:20 p.m. Saturday. Service to all customers was restored by 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
The San Bernardino Police Department said city crews set up temporary stop signs where traffic signals went out near the mall.
The news service Inland Wire reported restaurants and other stores were without power and that the Target store was operating on generator power.
Related Knowledge Center: Electrical grid reliability
With the need to reduce use of fossil fuels in transportation and other areas, demand is likely to increase for solutions that increase dependence on electricity and the electrical grid.