UPDATE: City Activates Emergency Operations Center After Winds Knock Out Power

The city partially activated its emergency operations center Thursday after powerful winds knocked out power to portions of the city and left trees and debris scattered throughout the city.

City spokesman Dan Bell said Thursday morning that Monrovia officials were operating inside a building next to the police station after power was lost at city hall. Though electricity is not yet restored, the city's phone lines are open, he said.

The has closed all city schools for the day, he said.

All wilderness access, including , is also closed, Bell said. The city is still assessing the damage caused by the wind and Bell did not know if anyone was injured as a result of it.

The tree in used for the city's annual lighting ceremony was knocked down by the wind, and the holiday parade set for Thursday may have to be postponed, according to the city's Facebook page.

"Unfortunately, our tree for tonight's tree lighting ceremony has been uprooted by last night's high winds. This event has been cancelled!," the page states.

About 13,000 customers in Monrovia were still without power Thursday morning after strong winds toppled trees and caused widespread damage to the city.

Bell said that the main functions of city hall were closed Thursday as authorities scramble to clear roads and assess damage caused by the unusually severe wind conditions that began Wednesday night.

There is no estimate for when power will be restored to the areas of Monrovia experiencing outages, according to Southern California Edison's website.

The main thoroughfares in Monrovia--Huntington Drive, Foothill Boulevard, Myrtle Avenue and Duarte Road--have been cleared of large debris and are open to traffic, Bell said. The city's public works department is working to clear other streets in the city like Palm Avenue, when a palm tree was uprooted and fell across the street onto a parked car.

Bell said the city did not yet have a cost estimate for the damage that the winds caused. No injuries were reported as a result of the winds, he said.

Southern California Edison, which serves Southland customers outside Los Angeles, reported that a total of 211,300 of its customers lost power as a result of outages that began Wednesday night. SCE spokeswoman Vanessa McGrady said the hardest hit areas were generally near the Foothill (210) Freeway and included Pasadena, Monrovia, Arcadia, Altadena, Sierra Madre, San Gabriel and Alhambra.

The National Weather Service, citing the wind and low humidity, issued a red flag warning denoting wildfire conditions effective until Friday evening. In doing so, it warned of sustained winds in the 45-60-mph range, gusting to around 85 mph.

But the winds that kicked up beginning Wednesday night turned out to be even more powerful. Winds gusting at 97 mph were recorded in Whitaker Peak in the Los Angeles County portion of the San Gabriel Mountains, the weather service reported, adding that 67-mph gusts were monitored in Saugus while Malibu was being wracked by gusts of around 50 mph.

NWS meteorologists said the "very strong offshore wind event" affecting the region's mountain, forest, valley and coastal areas resulted from the alignment of two systems -- a cold low-pressure system that came down the Nevada-California state line to combine with a buildup of strong surface-high pressure in the Great Basin.

"Close all windows and secure all outdoor objects such as lawn furniture," an NWS advisory urged residents.

The risk of wildfire was considered so high that it prompted fire departments to take special precautions.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, extended its contract for two firefighting SuperScooper aircraft for another week. The aircraft are leased from the government of Quebec in Canada, said Tony Bell of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich's office.

The SuperScoopers can carry up to 1,620 gallons of water and take only 12 seconds to scoop up water from a lake and inject it with a fire-resistant foam -- a combination three times as effective as water alone, Bell said. The SuperScoopers can get airborne in as little as five minutes and fly three hours before they have to refuel.

City News Service contributed to this story.