Many Kern County residents avoid public safety power shut-offs

With much of the state facing a red flag warning that meant the major potential for wildfires.

Nearly 200,000 customers across the state were facing the possibility of not having power as electric companies power down to prevent wildfires from happening.

Between 7 and 8 p.m. Tuesday night PG&E officials shut off power with the majority of those impacted in the Lebec area. It was a concern for one woman 23ABC talked to earlier who was in the area visiting family.

"Where they live in Los Padres," said Lindsey Taylor. "It's only one way in and one way out, so if there was an emergency, it would be gridlock."
Betsy Reyes also lives in Lebec. She said when they heard of the expected shutoffs they were proactive.

"We went to buy a generator, and that's why right now we have a piece of mind."

23ABC spoke to a lot of residents in Lebec who don't have generators. Lucky for them they live right next to the community resource center where they can go to charge their electronic devices, get water, food, and additional information they need about the shutoff.

Meanwhile, in Tehachapi the power remains on. Southern California Edison sent an alert to customers just after 8 p.m. Tuesday night saying a shut off was no longer anticipated.

Community outreach centers will be available throughout the county to help those who have been affected by these outages. Community members can cool off and grab drinks or snacks to go.

If you look at the area for Kern County you can see the upside-down purple triangles. Those indicate areas that are without power because of the public safety power shut off.

You can visit the PG&E website for a complete interactive map of the power outages.