South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa regains power after 2-hour partial outage
Shoppers at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa were temporarily blocked from some stores by a two-hour, partial power outage Friday afternoon, Nov. 29, authorities said.
About 2 p.m. Southern California Edison officials received a call from Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue concerning the outage after firefighters responded to a report of an electrical-vault explosion.
No injuries were reported.
Some stores shut down during the outage, which affected just part of the mall. No other Edison customer was affected by the power outage, an SCE representative said.
#CMFR responded to South Coast Plaza just before 2:00pm for a reported electrical vault explosion. @SCE is on scene working to fix the issue. No injuries reported & CMFR has cleared the scene.
— Costa Mesa FD (@CMFD_PIO) November 29, 2019
By 4 p.m., all of South Coast’s stores were back up and running, said Debra Gunn Downing, a mall spokeswoman.
The outage’s cause was a vault fire and crews likely rerouted power through another circuit to get it to the mall while repairs were being made, SCE spokesman David Song said.
“Although this was a disruptive incident, we’re happy we were able to respond in a timely manner so folks can get back to holiday shopping and those working can get back to work for the day,” Song said.
How the vault fire occurred was not immediately known.
Escalators now working and Merry go round. But most shops still dark. Hundreds wandering corridors or sitting on floor waiting for fave shops to reopen. Diners at Restaurants finishing meals but can’t pay check. Not even darkness Will scare away crowds at @southcoastplaza pic.twitter.com/1mkMl6q9WG
— FastFoodMaven (@FastFoodMaven) November 29, 2019
“We are thankful to Southern California Edison for their speedy and efficient work on the issue and to the Costa Mesa fire and police departments for their assistance,” Downing said.
Shopper Melina Keshishian, who drove to shop at the mall from Woodland Hills, was shopping at Bloomingdale’s when the power went out.
She wasn’t aware of the outage until she left the store to go into the rest of the mall because Bloomingdale’s didn’t appear to be affected, she said.
Most shoppers, except some families with young children, appeared to be unfazed by the outage, said Keshishian, 45.
But security guards and some workers at jewelry stores appeared to be nervous.“You could tell there was panic in security,” Keshishian said, adding that she saw jewelers putting quickly away displays jewelry.