Strong winds topple trees, cut power to thousands of customers and ruin some Thanksgiving feasts

Santa Ana winds whipped crossed Southern California astatine speeds of implicit 70 mph overnight Wednesday, bringing down trees and powerfulness lines and prompting outages that near thousands of homes without powerfulness connected Thanksgiving morning.

Residents of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties shared photos connected societal media aboriginal Thursday, Nov. 25, of car hoods smashed by branches and signs toppled by almighty gusts. Winds overnight Wednesday peaked astatine 74 mph adjacent Irvine Regional Park, 76 mph astatine Arrowhead springs and 79 mph successful the mountains eastbound of Santa Clarita, according to the National Weather Service.

A histrion collapsed onto astatine slightest 1 location successful North Hollywood. Electrical poles were seen hanging sideways implicit a acceptable of bid tracks on Ball Road successful Anaheim, suspended lone by the powerlines attached to them. In Westminster, determination were reports of downed wires and embers that dispersed from burning cypress trees, which caused a shed to drawback occurrence adjacent the intersection of Emerald Avenue and Magnolia Street.

The anticipation that downed powerlines mightiness spark a wildfire amidst precocious winds led Southern California Edison to chopped energy to thousands of customers Thanksgiving greeting arsenic a precaution. There were 15,556 customers successful Los Angeles County, 4,127 successful Orange County. 20,322 successful Riverside County and 8,843 successful San Bernardino region who were without work arsenic of Thursday morning, according to the utility’s website.

Those outages could stay successful effect done Thursday day and into the evening – oregon until immoderate clip time – depending connected erstwhile winds statesman to settee down.

“It was truthful windy the gross to the backyard flew unfastened and my dog, Lila, got out,” Santa Ana nonmigratory Diana Sashenka SantaCruz said. “This was astir 1.30 am. Luckily a neighbour called maine to prime her up.”

In Redlands, firefighters responded to a study of a question trailer occurrence precocious Wednesday nighttime connected San Bernardino Avenue and Tennessee Street. Strong winds caused surrounding vegetation fires, the largest astir 10 acres. And successful Riverside, dispatchers received a ample magnitude of location alarm activation calls due to the fact that of the winds, said Officer Ryan Railsback, spokesperson for the Riverside Police Department.

“We kindly inquire those folks with location alarms systems that volition beryllium distant with household today, delight marque definite to reply the telephone erstwhile the alarm institution calls if your strategy was activated,” Railsback said.

Strong gusts volition persist amidst adust conditions done Thursday, according to forecasters. The operation of precocious winds and debased humidity prompted officials to contented red-flag warnings that volition stay successful effect until 6 p.m. Friday successful the hills, canyons and valleys of the Inland Empire and Los Angeles counties, according to the National Weather Service.