Overview
- An underground electrical vault near Bluff Heights caught fire at about 6:40 p.m. on Sunday and Long Beach firefighters extinguished the blaze before Southern California Edison de-energized the equipment for safety.
- The outage initially affected roughly 26,626 customers in a zone bounded by Quincy Avenue, Alamitos Avenue, East Ocean Boulevard and East 7th Street, covering coastal neighborhoods such as Bluff Park, Alamitos Beach and Belmont Shore.
- Crews restored power to several thousand customers overnight but about 16,456 households remained without service as of 6 a.m. Monday and SCE estimated full restoration by noon Monday.
- Residents reported some loss of cell connectivity early in the outage because cell towers rely on commercial power and not all towers have backup fuel, and local sites such as the Long Beach Senior Center were opened as cooling locations.
- Utility officials said they are investigating the equipment failure in the vault while repair teams work on de-energized lines, and the outage highlights how underground vault fires require extended outages to ensure worker and public safety during repairs.