The Sept 9 outages are in the overlapping areas of Bird Rock and La Jolla Heights/Hermosa, affecting about 852 customers and are likely due to the heat wave.

The current extreme heat in San Diego is the likely cause of two overlapping power outages in La Jolla; SDG&E crews are working to address the issues and restore operation.

The larger outage, affecting 840 customers in the La Jolla Heights, Hermosa and Bird Rock neighborhoods with a few streets in Windansea, began around 10:30 am.

The smaller outage is in the Bird Rock area, affecting 12 customers; both outages showed service restoration is expected by 3 pm.

Though smaller, the Bird Rock outage means many of the food service businesses are closed as of 11:35 am Sept 9, according to Beach Break Market owner Alec Hurley.

Most of the current SDG&E outages – around 29 reported in the last 24 hours – are due to a massive heat wave that’s prompted a National Weather Service extreme heat warning through 8 pm Sept 9 and a heat advisory through 8 pm Thursday, Sept 10.

The heat causes outages as transformers are overheating and are also under strain with refrigerators and air conditioning units working overtime to cool, SDG&E spokesperson Anthony Wagner said. 

“Prolonged heat definitely stresses the grid,” Wagner said, adding that SDG&E has positioned staff around San Diego County to fix outages quickly.

SDG&E has “the best reliability in the country with the least amount of outages,” he said. “We care about our customers.”