(Feb. 10, 2007) -- On Friday Feb. 9, a power outage wound up closing LB's Health Dept. HQ (Grand Ave. south of Willow St.) for much of the day...and (SCE says) initially affected 1,129 customers in an area area bounded roughly by Kilroy Airport Way on the north, PCH on the south, Temple on the west and Lakewood Blvd. on the east on Friday.

The surrounding area eventually shrank considerably, but LB's Health Dept. HQ remained affected for much of the day. LB HHS Director Ron Arias told LBReport.com [and we posted an advisory on our front page] that power went out in the early morning, resumed briefly at midmorning...and SCE then indicated power would be off from roughly 11 a.m. until about midnight.

The Health Dept. building used back-up emergency power for vaccines, previously made time-critical medical appointments, etc...but with lights dim, many non-time-critical users were asked to return on Monday Feb. 12.

City Hall Public Information Officer Kathy Parsons said in an email that during the outage, the main Health Dept. building remained open but computers and phones weren't working and due to the poor lighting and inability to conduct procedures, most clinical services were cancelled. Field activities and other Health Department sites continued to operate on regular schedule.

The U.S. Postal Service facility on Redondo Ave. was also affected for a period of time. Richard Mahrer with USPS says their power was out from 6:10 a.m. until about 8 a.m.; he says mail carriers got out a little late, but that all of the day's first class mail would be delivered,

SCE's Gil Alexander says the outage was caused by a failed switch in the distribution grid. By 3:45 p.m., the Health Department bldg. was the only customer still without service...which SCE said it was working to restore by midnight.