Generators brought in to restore power to Canyon View Estates

Solar panels line a hillside in Canyon Country above the Canyon View Estates. The City of Santa Clarita has ordered the removal of these panels. Cory Rubin/ The Signal
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Generators used to restore power to residents of Canyon View Estates kept residents of the 445-home community warm and dry over the weekend.

Managers of the property, meanwhile, are busy trying to fix a breach in the community’s electrical system, which they believe happened underground.

Power went out Wednesday morning, prompting a response Friday by Los Angeles County public health officials to check on the welfare of residents inside the mobile home park.

“Public health teams went out Friday and interfaced with landlord employees,” Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Kathryn Barger, said Monday.

Welfare checks
“They conducted welfare checks door to door, to ensure they had power and water,” he said, noting “they (residents) are working on generators at this point.”

Property Manager Kerry Seidenglanz brought in generators Friday to ensure residents had power.

On Saturday, he sent a detailed explanation of how the outage happened and the efforts being made to restore power to residents.

“Throughout this power outage, our main focus has been to restore power to all the residents,” he wrote.

“On Wednesday around 10 a.m., we received knowledge that power had gone out affecting part of the community. We immediately called our licensed electrician to locate the problem,” he wrote. “After examining the breakers around the community, we discovered that the problem was with an underground line.”

Underground line
“Even though the solar panels are operating as they should, the fault in the line underground has kept that power from getting to some of the homes. Underground lines are susceptible to damage resulting from rodents, roots, or normal wear and tear over time,” Seidenglanz wrote.

“As soon as we knew what the problem was, we immediately reached out to numerous companies that specialize in high-voltage underground fault-finding,” he wrote. “At this point in time, we also began trying to locate enough generators to power the homes that were down, because we realized that no high-voltage underground electricians could repair the problem immediately.

“We were unable to locate a high-voltage specialist on such short notice, but one company promised to have someone out to the community by 10 a.m. Thursday,” he wrote. “At this point, we had also located a generator company that had enough industrial-sized generators to power the houses that were down, and they said they would be there on Thursday.

“By Thursday evening — less than 36 hours — those homes that originally lost power had power restored. The specialty electrician did not arrive until after 1 p.m. Thursday, at which time he determined that he needed to examine the main power panel.”

Damaged panel
Seidenglanz’s statement said the electrician “proceeded to examine and ended up damaging the panel and caused the remaining houses to be without power. We then called Edison, and they arrived soon after because this high-voltage electrician had also damaged some of their equipment in this process.”

Edison spokesman Robert Laffoon Villegas said Edison — although initially affected by failed attempts to restore power Thursday — reported no impacts to Edison customers outside of Canyon View Estates.

“We have no information of any impacts outside the park,” he said. “SCE has no visibility to repairs or operations being conducted by the operators of the community.”

Generators rented by Seidenglanz continue to supply power to the community.

“At this point in time, we rented more generators. By Friday afternoon, all homes had power restored,” Seidenglanz wrote Saturday.

One woman who lives at Canyon View Estates said Monday that she was grateful that power had been restored by generators but complained of power “flickering” as a result of the temporary hookup.

“Power was restored by generators,” she said Monday. “Only to part of the neighborhood on Thursday and then the other part on Friday.”

Flickering power
“We had a few flickers over the weekend, and we are still running on generator power today,” the resident said. “There is literally a generator on every corner in the neighborhood. They are having issues with some of the generators (Monday), so parts of the neighborhood are currently without power.

“We still don’t have information as to how long the generators will be in place,” she said.

“The fear from some residents now is that the cost that Kerry is incurring to fix the power issue and to pay for the generators will be passed on to the residents through rent increases or land lease increases.”

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