SANTA ANA (CNS) - John Wayne Airport resumed all commercial flights today, ending a full operational stop due to a power outage that affected more than 28,000 Southern California Edison customers at its peak.
Airport officials said the flights resumed at about 6:30 a.m.
The outage was reported just after 7 p.m. Friday at the airport in an unincorporated area of Orange County surrounded by Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, and prompted all inbound commercial flights to be diverted and all outbound flights canceled.
Airport officials tweeted at 9 p.m. that “All Terminal power slowly coming back online. General Aviation flights unaffected and Air Traffic Control Tower is open. The full operational stop is in effect until 7 a.m. (today). For flights departing (today), please check with your airline for more information.”
At the height of the outage, 28,028 SCE customers, mostly in Irvine and Newport Beach, were affected, according to SCE's Lois Pitter Bruce. As of 8 a.m. Saturday, 11,885 customers were offline.
“Crews are working as quickly as possible to restore power, given the circumstances,” Pitter Bruce said.
The cause of the outage was a substation fire that forced it to be de- energized. The fire has been extinguished, she said. No injuries were reported.
The Orange County Fire Authority tweeted that the vault fire was near Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive.
Irvine City Councilman Anthony Kuo tweeted that about 100 residents from an apartment building on Palatine were temporarily evacuated due to smoke.
A care and reception center was set up at Northwood High School in Irvine and was available as a cooling center for those who need shelter, according to the Irvine Police Department.
Residents were urged to exercise caution during the outage by using flashlights and treating all intersections as four-way stops, Pitter Bruce said.