More Than 3,330 Customers Lose Power

More than 3,330 customers of Southern California Edison who live in Rancho Santa Margarita experienced a power outage Wednesday afternoon after an equipment failure near Santa Margarita Parkway and SR-241.

The outage, which was first reported to SCE at 1:39 p.m., caused traffic lights to fail and eventually forced the shutdown of Santa Margarita Parkway, the city's main east-west thoroughfare.

It has since been reopened.

According to SCE spokesperson Lois Pitter Bruce, there were 3,339 customers who were affected. By 5:30 p.m., all but eight customers had power restored.

There were two circuits affected, one of them at the at 30114 Santa Margarita Pkwy., where a utility box reportedly began smoking. Another one was believed to be in Coto de Caza.

At City Hall, the power surged three times but didn't go out.

The boundary of customers impacted were El Camino Montana to the north, Shire to the south, Line Ridge Road to the east and Plano Spur to the west.

Southern California Edison crews responded to the sites and are expected to work through the night to resolve the problems.

"As I understand it, there are only a handful of lights that are still down, and Edison is working to get those back up," city traffic engineer Bill Lawson said at 4:45 p.m.