Map shows power outage in Calif., Ariz., Mexico
Map shows power outage in Calif., Ariz., Mexico
Adelita Zamora, 14, carries bags of ice from the Albertsons supermarket, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 on Carlsbad Village Dr. in Carlsbad, Calif. A major power outage knocked out electricity to more than 2 million people in California, Arizona and Mexico on Thursday, taking two nuclear reactors offline, leaving people sweltering in the late-summer heat and disrupting flights at the San Diego airport. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Don Bartletti) NO FORNS; NO SALES; MAGS OUT; ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER OUT; LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS OUT; VENTURA COUNTY STAR OUT; INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN OUT; SAN BERNARDINO SUN OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT, TV OUT
A San Diego police official directs traffic after a power outage Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, in San Diego. A power outage is affecting millions of people across southern California, Arizona and Mexico. San?Diego Gas & Electric Co. Darcel Hulce said that crews Thursday believe the outage was caused by a system breakdown and assured people it was not the result of a terror attack. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Deborah Springs shops in a convenience store for food items after a power outage Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, in San Diego. A power outage is affecting millions of people across southern California, Arizona and Mexico. San?Diego Gas & Electric Co. Darcel Hulce said that crews Thursday believe the outage was caused by a system breakdown and assured people it was not the result of a terror attack. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Jasmin Carrillo of San Diego sits with her daughter Devine, 1, after being stranded downtown during a power outage Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, in San Diego. A power outage is affecting millions of people across southern California, Arizona and Mexico. San?Diego Gas & Electric Co. Darcel Hulce said that crews Thursday believe the outage was caused by a system breakdown and assured people it was not the result of a terror attack. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
SAN DIEGO (AP) ? A major outage knocked out power in a region of almost 6 million people in the Southwest and Mexico on Thursday, bringing San Diego to a near-standstill and leaving people in the surrounding desert to swelter in late-summer heat.
Two nuclear reactors along the coast went offline after losing electricity, but officials said there was no danger to the public or workers.
Power officials were just beginning to investigate what caused the blackout, which began shortly before 4 p.m. But it likely could be traced to an employee removing a piece of monitoring equipment at a power substation in southwest Arizona, they said.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. officials said late Thursday that more than a half-million customers have power back in California, Arizona and Mexico. Nearly 180,000 of the homes and businesses with power restored are in Mexico.
San Diego bore the brunt of the problems, and as night fell, much of the nation's eighth-largest city was in darkness, its freeways clogged all outgoing flights grounded at its main airport, Lindbergh Field.
Police stations were forced to use generators to accept emergency calls across the area. But there were no signs of widespread looting or other unrest related to the outage.
The blackout extended east to Yuma, Ariz. where more than 56,000 people temporarily were left in the dark; power was restored there about five hours later.
Power also was back on by 10 p.m. in about a dozen cities in San Diego and Orange counties, officials said. Nine of San Diego Gas & Electric's 115 substations were also back in service.
"We have a ways to go but were starting to see a bit of progress right now," said Mike Niggli, chief operating officer of the utility.
Niggli said he expected a "very steady advance" around 2 a.m. through the middle of the afternoon.
Despite the gains, most of the people in the darkened swath were expected to spend the night without power.
"It feels like you're in an oven and you can't escape," said Rosa Maria Gonzales, a spokeswoman with the Imperial Irrigation District in California's sizzling eastern desert, where heat was well into the triple-digits when the power went out for about 150,000 of its customers.
After the sun went down, residents poured into darkened bars in downtown San Diego, some donning reading lights on their heads like miners. A pair of men carried flaming tiki torches ? usually planted in backyards ? to see their way down the pitch black street.
The U.S.-Mexico border also was cloaked in darkness and police on both sides sent in re-enforcements to prevent looting and other crime in their cities, but none was reported.
A backup system allowed officials to continue operating crossings from Arizona to California, said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jackie Wasiluk.
The blackout extended south of the border to Tijuana, Mexicali and other cities in Mexico's Baja California state because they are connected to the U.S. power grid, Niggli said.
In Tijuana, people wandered out of their hot homes into the street to cool off while restaurants scrambled for ice to save perishable food.
In San Diego, the trolley system that shuttles thousands of commuters every day was shut down and freeways were clogged at rush hour. Trains were stopped in Los Angeles, an Amtrak spokesman said, because there was no power to run the lights, gates, bells and traffic control signals.
Police directed traffic at intersections where signals stopped working.
Blake Albert Jordan, 20, saw a trolley come to a screeching halt as he neared the platform. Dozens of passengers emptied onto the tracks when the doors opened.
Jordan said he called about 20 friends and family to pick him up in San Diego's Mission Valley, where he was visiting a friend, to his home in suburban Lemon Grove. None offered to venture on the roads.
Effects of the blackout were likely to linger well into Friday, and San Diego officials announced schools and city trains would be closed as a precaution.
An investigation into the exact cause of the outage was likely to take some time.
Officials at the Arizona utility said it appeared to be related to an unspecified procedure by an APS employee at at its North Gila substation, northeast of Yuma. The problem typically would have been isolated to the Yuma area; the reason that it spread so widely would be a focus of the probe.
"We are working hard to restore our customers as quickly and safely as possible," said APS President and Chief Operating Officer Don Robinson in a release. "We take great pride in our hard-earned reputation for safe and reliable service, and we will work hard to identify the cause."
The extreme heat in the region also may have caused some problems with the transmission lines, Niggli said.
"Essentially we have two connections from the rest of the world: One of from the north and one is to the east. Both connections are severed," Niggli said shortly after the blackout occurred.
Officials ruled out and wrongdoing, or terrorism, quickly.
"This was not a deliberate act. The employee was just switching out a piece of equipment that was problematic," said Daniel Froetscher, a vice president at Arizona Public Service Co.
The two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power plant went offline at 3:38 p.m. as they are programmed to do when there is a disturbance in the power grid, said Charles Coleman, a spokesman from Southern California Edison. He said there was no danger to the public or to workers there.
The outage came more than eight years after a more severe black out in 2003 darkened a large swath of the Northeast and Midwest. More than 50 million people were affected in that outage.
In 2001, California's failed experiment with energy deregulation was widely blamed for six days of rolling blackouts that cut power to more than 3 million customers and shut down refrigerators, ATMs and traffic signals.
In Arizona, about half of Yuma County had power again Thursday evening after losing it earlier. Yuma County has about 200,000 residents and a little under half live in the city of Yuma.
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Associated Press Writers contributing to this report include Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Gillian Flaccus in Orange County; Shaya Mohajer and Greg Risling in Los Angeles; and Walter Berry and Paul Davenport in Phoenix.
Associated Press
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