DWP Chief Defends Soundness Of System

LOS ANGELES -- In the aftermath of the power blackout that left much of Los Angeles unplugged for a time, the DWP chief defended the soundness of the system, saying it "did what it was supposed to do."

Monday's outage was triggered when workers accidentally cut a line, setting in motion a series of actions designed to save power equipment from serious damage.

The resulting outage affected about 750,000 homes and businesses serviced by the city-owned Department of Water and Power.

"I still maintain and truly believe that the system did what it was supposed to do," said Ron Deaton, general manager of the DWP. "What we're going to do is get some kind of an outside review. Is there a way that perhaps we can put our arms around, get a smaller area so it doesn't trigger as large an area."

The outage, affecting about half of the DWP's service area, occurred at 12:37 p.m. yesterday, according to the utility. About 90 percent of the affected homes and businesses had their power restore within 90 minutes.

Deaton said workers accidentally cut a line at a DWP receiving station, then connected it to another line "that was not expecting that amount of electricity."

That surge activated power-control systems throughout the electrical delivery grid to avoid an overload, knocking out service.

Deaton promised a report in the next two weeks explaining what happened, and how such a widespread outage caused by human error can be avoided in the future.

"This is not one employee's problem," Deaton told the City Council. "There are a lot of people involved, and a lot of people responsible, not least of which is myself."

The outage came one day after a purported al-Qaida threat of impending strike on Los Angeles and caused some to fear the region was under attack. Deaton apologized for the slow response in reporting the cause of the outage.

"At no point did I have evidence that it was a terrorist issue," Deaton said. "On the other hand, I had no evidence that it was not."

Disruptions, while widespread, were not as damaging as might have been the case because backup generators, many installed since the energy crisis of 2001, kept many companies and most emergency services operational.

A spokeswoman for Cal-ISO, the independent organization that oversees the statewide electrical grid, told the Los Angeles Times that the incident was "disconcerting."

Stephanie McCorkle criticized officials of the DWP, which is independent of Cal-ISO's system, for not being more forthcoming with information about the outage, saying the DWP did not officially alert the rest of the statewide grid until 3:45 p.m., more than three hours after the outage began, The Times reported.

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