SoCal Edison briefs Temecula on wildfire mitigation, PSPS changes; city and utility name two community resource centers

Southern California Edison officials briefed the Temecula City Council on Sept. 23 about wildfire mitigation work, changes to Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) notifications and customer support programs, and the city described local preparations and new tools to respond to outages.

Andrea Morris, SCE government relations manager, said about 27% of SCE’s service area is designated high fire risk, and that 14,000 miles of overhead lines and more than 300,000 poles and towers are located in those zones. “PSPS reduces the risk that winds could cause flying debris to hit our lines or damage our equipment and cause a fire,” Morris told the council.

Eileen Flores, SCE, described changes to the utility’s notification timeline: government partners now receive potential-PSPS notices about three days in advance, with follow-up reminders two days and one day ahead. Flores said SCE reduced repetitive “expected shutoff” notices after customer complaints, and that the utility has expanded customer programs including critical-care battery backups for qualifying medical‑baseline customers and rebates for resiliency equipment.

SCE said it has deployed more than 6,400 miles of covered conductor, completed vegetation work covering more than 2.5 million trees/vegetation removals, and distributed more than 1,700 critical-care backup batteries to eligible customers across its service area. SCE also said it has 70 community resource centers (CRCs) in its service area and designated two CRC locations within Temecula; the city said those locations will be available when requested.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) described other local steps: updated outage mapping that breaks large circuits into 46 segmented circuits in Temecula; publication of circuit maps on the city’s internal SharePoint and EOC Teams site; a City dashboard showing affected schools, facilities and critical infrastructure; and a plan to map and perform wellness checks for residents with access and functional needs while preserving privacy.

OEM staff said the door‑to‑door wellness checks will be led by the Office of Emergency Management and carried out by Citizen Corps volunteers (CERT). The city also said it is coordinating with local partners including Temecula Valley Hospital, Rancho Water and Temecula Valley Unified School District, and that staff will post SCE customer-resiliency program information (battery backup, in-event loaners, rebates) on the city website.

Council members asked about maximum outage durations and financial assistance for spoiled food. SCE acknowledged there is not a fixed maximum time before re‑energizing a circuit; crews must patrol circuits and verify safety before power is restored and weather or fire conditions can delay patrols. SCE said it will provide a link for customers to file claims for food loss related to extended PSPS events.

City and utility officials described ongoing work to install switches and additional control technologies to isolate portions of circuits so fewer customers need to be shut off during PSPS events. SCE said the city can request feedback on notification performance and the utility welcomed further input.

Next steps: the city said it will finalize a PSPS SOP for volunteers, continue to map the medical/critical-care population in a privacy‑conscious way, publish the approved PSPS plan and continue coordination with SCE on customer assistance programs.