November 4, 2011 (San Diego’s East County) — Yesterday, ECM reported that some rural residents were left without power during a red flag alert, after receiving warnings from SDG&E that the utility might shut down power due to high fire-risk conditions.
Today, however, SDG&E has denied that power shut-offs impacting an esteimated 5,200 customers was intentional.
"SDG&E did not shut off the power," Stephanie Donovan, senior communications specialist, told ECM. "We were focused on restoring power to customers affected by the seven unplanned outages–three of which were weather-related, which could be the wind blowing a tree limb into a line, or simply slapping the lines together. The four outages that were not weather-related were due to a variety of things, including equipment problems, such as failure of an underground cable."