VENTURA/OXNARD : Power Failures Affect 4,300 Customers

An underground electrical connection and a cable terminal failed in two separate outages Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, cutting off power to 4,300 customers in the Ventura and Oxnard areas, officials said.

Mike Montoya, area manager for Southern California Edison, said the first outage occurred about 8 p.m., affecting about 800 customers in parts of east Ventura and Oxnard and causing traffic signals at Victoria Avenue and the Ventura Freeway to malfunction for most of Thursday.

Employees at the California Department of Transportation said they expected the traffic signals at the northbound ramp of Victoria Avenue to be restored late Thursday.

In the first outage, service was restored to about 600 of the 800 customers by 9 p.m., Montoya said. The rest had power by 6 a.m. Thursday, he said.

That outage was blamed on an “elbow” at the end of a cable that blew out.

At about 4:25 a.m., an underground connector at Ventura and Gonzales roads failed, causing about 3,500 customers to lose power, Montoya said. Electricity was restored about 25 minutes later, he said.