High winds prompted widespread power outages in various areas of the Santa Clarita Valley on Friday, as Southern California Edison enacted its public safety power shutoff policy amid high fire danger.
The outages created challenges, schedule changes and school closures for local school districts that have been impacted.
On Thursday, Golden Valley High School was dismissed early due to a power outage, which is why the campus remained closed Friday, according to Debbie Dunn, director of communications for the William S. Hart Union High School District.
She also said Sequoia Charter School, Sierra Vista Junior High and Bowman High School were impacted by outages Friday and that the campuses would be dismissed at lunch.
High school sports were also impacted: The varsity football game between Valencia and Canyon high schools, originally scheduled to be played at 7 p.m. Friday at Canyon, was moved to an earlier start time, 4 p.m. The Castaic-Hart game at Valencia High also was moved to 4 p.m. The West Ranch-Saugus game was not impacted.
The Sulphur Springs Union School District had four campuses impacted by the outages, according to Josh Randall, the district’s assistant superintendent of personnel and pupil services: Canyon Springs, Leona Cox and Valley View were impacted by outages Thursday and remained closed on Friday. Sulphur Springs Community Elementary School was impacted by the outage Friday morning, and school district officials were working on a dismissal plan and parent notifications, Randall said.
Superintendent Robert Hernandez of the Saugus Union School District said Friday afternoon that the district was working to notify parents of campus closures.
The winds are expected to give way to cooler and possibly wet weather in the days ahead.
The National Weather Service forecast for the Santa Clarita Valley calls for significantly less wind Saturday, but rain and cooler highs could make things about 30 degrees cooler by the middle of next week.
“So, we’re in the heart of this Santa Ana event right now,” Ryan Kittell, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said in a phone interview Friday morning, as the SCV was whipped by winds that reached 40 to 50 mph.
The winds are supposed to be half as strong Saturday, and then further weaken on Sunday.
“Then things change pretty quickly and dramatically next week,” he said. “So, we’ll go from around 90 in the (SCV) through (Saturday), and then down to around 80 by Monday, and then we’re tracking the potential storm system that, at this point, looks like it will bring rain everywhere.”
By Wednesday, the SCV could be seeing highs in the 60s, he said.
The size of the storm front is on the larger side, but he indicated the actual precipitation levels now are expected to be “light to moderate” in most models they’re using on the forecast.
There’s a significant range in the estimates though, and the actual amount will be clearer to predict once the winds die down Sunday, he added.
