Southern California Edison on Nov. 24 described how it notifies customers about outages and public-safety power shutoffs (PSPS), how crews identify and restore outages, and the company's ongoing grid-hardening work in the South Coast region.

Natalie Yanez, SCE government-relations manager, said Carpinteria is fed by five circuits and that three are designated as PSPS circuits because they transverse high fire-risk areas as defined by the California Public Utilities Commission. She directed residents to the SCE outage map and account-level alerts, saying customers can receive notifications by email, text or voice and that non-account holders can sign up for address-level alerts.

"Always assume that downed power lines are energized and dangerous," Yanez said in a safety moment, and asked residents to call 911 and to stay at least 100 feet from downed lines. She described restoration as a safety-driven process: crews locate the outage, make repairs, patrol lines and reenergize only after checks are complete.

On mitigation, Yanez described recent work in South Coast Santa Barbara: roughly 119 miles of covered conductor completed and a pipeline of additional covered-conductor and targeted undergrounding projects (SCE cited about 15 miles of targeted undergrounding planned locally). She said covered-conductor installations take about 18 months and estimated a cost of roughly $1,000,000 per circuit-mile; undergrounding can take 18 months to 4 years and cost between $1M and $10M per circuit-mile, with costs ultimately reflected in rates and subject to CPUC review.

Yanez also highlighted customer supports during PSPS: community resource centers, partner food banks, cooling centers, hotel-voucher guidance and medical baseline/backup-battery programs. She urged residents to report outages on the outage map or app when SCE systems have not detected them, noting the company has added more meteorologists and improved earlier coordination with public-safety partners since January PSPS events.

Council members asked whether outages must be reported by customers; Yanez said SCE uses automated detection but recommended customers report outages when they occur. Several residents described recent prolonged outages and concerns about clinic operations and medical devices during blackouts.

SCE offered to follow up with more detailed, locality-specific outage reports and availability of flyers or online links for city distribution.