Wind Power Outage Expected To Continue For Salton Sea Customers

“The wind was really bad and we experienced in the middle of the night, all these boom, boom, boom!” said Kimberly Johnson, a Salton Sea resident. “Nothing but darkness in the house.”

Across the Coachella Valley and Imperial County, many residents are left in the dark following an overnight power outage due to strong, gusty winds. 

“Right now, 1,900 customers are without power since 11:30 last night because the storm pulled down 76 power poles,” said Robert Schettler, Public Information Officer for Imperial Irrigation District. “35 of those were north of North Shore, another 41 were south of North Shore” 

A video posted to social media shows a fallen tree crushing a vehicle in Coachella overnight – just some of the damage spread out across the region. 171 customers in the Coachella Valley remain without power.  

“We have crews there that are looking at all of it,” said Schettler. “We’re installing temporary power poles when we can and making other adjustments rerouting power through different circuits to serve as many people as we can.”

Some Salton Sea customers can expect to be without power for more than 24 hours.  

“Most everybody is back on now, however we still have a few out in the Coachella Valley and in Imperial County, and a pretty big (outage) in the Salton Sea area,” said Schettler. “We’re basically asking customers to be as patient as you can. We’re hoping within the next 24 hours we can at least get 800 or half of them back.”

IID is working with CAOES (Office Of Emergency Services) and Imperial County staff to set up temporary assistance until electric service is restored. The company’s board of directors is expected to declare a local emergency.