More than 640 people were left without power late Friday afternoon following an underground vault explosion in Valencia — the second such malfunction in the SCV in less than a month.
Shortly before 5 p.m., firefighters responded to reports of an underground vault explosion on Creekside Road near Valencia Boulevard.
“There was no fire, but firefighters called for (Southern California) Edison work crews to respond and make whatever repairs were necessary,” Inspector Michael Pitman of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.
Edison reported an outage on its website that affected at least 643 customers.
Businesses including Valley Produce at the intersection of McBean Parkway and Newhall Ranch Road were left suddenly without electricity, according to reports from people at the location.
Pittman described the incident using the same terminology — an “underground explosion” — that officials used to describe an incident happened in Newhall a month ago.
On June 26, about 10:14 a.m., firefighters were dispatched to the 23000 block of Lyons Avenue, between Peachland Avenue and Wheeler Road, for reports of smoke coming from the sidewalk that appeared to be buckling.
The blast, which officials later called an “electrical vault fire,” sparked a power outage that left 2,230 Edison customers without electricity. Nearly half the affected customers saw power restored within about 15 minutes.
Investigators with the California Public Utilities Commission said earlier this month that they are looking into last month’s underground explosion in Newhall.
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