Community Corner

Big Power Outage Hits Area

SDG&E says the blackout affected 7,840 customer accounts in the San Juan Capistrano area. Electricity has been restored.

Nearly 8,000 customers in the San Juan Capistrano area lost power Friday morning.

"We do have a big outage that occurred at the substation at Capistrano," said San Diego Gas and Electric spokesman Duane Cave.

The outage occurred at 8:40 a.m., and ended in most areas before 10:30 a.m.

Find out what's happening in San Juan Capistranowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Utility crews were at the Camino Capistrano substation shortly after 9 a.m. to repair four circuits that went out, Cave said.

A "suspected problem in the overhead electrical system" caused the outage.

Find out what's happening in San Juan Capistranowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We believe it was a flashover of a switch," Cave said, adding that it likely was not related to the storm that rolled into Orange County Friday morning.

The lights were out at the at about 8:40 a.m. The Capistrano Dispatch's weekly community coffee chat met there by candlelight.

At , students held their homecoming pep rally in the dark. "Thank goodness the gym has windows!" the school tweeted.

The outage also affected customers in Ladera Ranch and Laguna Niguel.

-- Patch staff writer Sarah de Crescenzo contributed to this story.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here