Thousands without power in Mesa as temperatures expected to reach 117 degrees - The Arizona Republic

Thousands without power in Mesa as temperatures climb to 117 degrees

Thousands without power in Mesa as temperatures expected to reach 117 degrees
Fernando Cervantes Jr.

Thousands of people are without power in Mesa on Wednesday, amid a record heat wave hitting the area.

At least 4,000 people were without power in the Signal Butte Ranch area of Mesa earlier in the day. But as of 3 p.m. on Wednesday, that number had lowered to about 2,000 people with crews from the Salt River Project working to get power reestablished.

Patty Likens, a spokesperson for SRP, said this outage was caused by a truck accident near 102nd Street and Quarterline Road.

According to the SRP’s outage map, they expect to get power back to customers at around 1:45 p.m. Temperatures are expected to reach 117 degrees on Wednesday afternoon.

Weather: Our tally of all the records broken during the heat wave

Officials say that Rural Metro Fire extinguished small brush fires caused by the accident and subsequent downed power lines. According to Rural Metro spokesperson Shawn Gilleland, a cooling station was set up on 102nd Street and East Quarterline Road while power is restored.

Recently, SRP set new records for electricity demand during the summer. Likens said Tuesday saw a peak demand of 8,163 megawatts.

“SRP is prepared to meet increased electricity demand during this week’s high temperatures. SRP conducts careful planning to ensure we have enough generation capacity to meet our customers’ peak energy needs,” Likens said.

More: Arizona heat wave causes utilities APS, SRP to break electricity use records — twice