Southern California Edison Discusses Energy Concerns With Palm Springs Residents

During the summer months, we’re all asked to conserve energy, utility companies are trying to avoid a disaster with the power grid. However, it leads to plenty of questions from residents. Palm Springs residents got the chance to speak directly with Southern California Edison representatives, Tuesday evening, discussing issues from multi-hour long power outages, to solar power. "You know how hard it is to get a hold of somebody on the phone or internet chat these days, so when an executive does show up at an event like this well I want to be here." David Birch-Jones, one Palm Springs resident who attended the talk says. During Palm Springs City Council’s Tuesday evening, Power Talk, many residents had questions, for Southern California Edison. "I hope to find out first of all, what the real schedule is going forward for any other further disruptions in power for the structure upgrades." Dan Gonnella, another Palm Springs resident says. The residents, all had similar concerns, dealing specifically with the several hour long routine power outages, in the middle of summer. "We had I think five of them scheduled over an eight day period and actually the worst one, 16 hours, the best one was about four and a half hours. When it goes 16 hours it’s kind of tough in triple digit temperatures." Gonnella says. With many customers not receiving any notifications on when these power outages might happen, SCE reps say, many of those customers are not signed up to receive digital notifications, and can do so by contacting the utility company. "Set up digital applications. A digital application may include an email, a text or voice message for us. If there’s something happening in the field, crews will update whatever’s happening in the field with some information." says Luis Lara, the Outage Communications Director for Southern California Edison. SCE provided multiple different online resources for their customers. "When you go on sce.com under outages, there’s a new map there. This map will reflect everything from future maintenance outages, to active unplanned repair outlets, including ps events, and also rotating outage events, so the whole point is so you have a one stop shop for any information or any outage related information that you may need." As for the City of Palm Springs, Mayor Grace Garner did add that there would be another meeting similar to this Power Talk, in the fall, to discuss any further questions or concerns.