Krekorian Wants DWP to Review Communication Strategy in Wake of Wind Storm

Over 200,000 Department of Water and Power customers were left without power for a period of time after last week's windstorms.

Most of the power was quickly restored, but some customers were without power for up to 80 hours, and at least 1,600 were without power.

Councilmember Paul Krekorian introduced a motion Friday that asks the L.A. Department of Water and Power to improve its communications strategies and outreach methods to customers during weather-related emergencies. Krekorian is vice-chairman of the Energy & Environment Committee.

“For the most part, the city’s response to the weather emergency has been orderly, swift and appropriate,” Councilmember Krekorian wrote in his motion. “Although the damages caused by the weather event were significant, the storm provides an opportunity to evaluate the city’s emergency response performance and find ways to improve, before a more significant crisis occurs, and ensure residents are kept informed.”

The DWP has generally received good praise in its response to the outages compares to Southern California Edison, which serves areas outside the city of Los Angeles. This week, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced it is conducting an investigation into prolonged power outages which left tens of thousands of customers in the county without power for days.

"Our enforcement staff is looking into why the outages occurred and why it is taking so long for power to be restored," CPUC Executive Director Paul Clanon wrote in a press release posted on the commission's website.