Power Outage Snarls Rush-Hour Traffic

A power outage in north Oxnard snarled rush-hour traffic Tuesday afternoon and left about 4,200 Southern California Edison customers briefly without electricity.

The outage , which began about 4:05 p.m., affected the area bounded by Gonzales Road on the north, Monte Carlo Drive on the south, Patterson Road on the east and Victoria Avenue on the west.

Traffic lights and office buildings along Oxnard Boulevard and Vineyard Avenue were affected as well, said Mike Montoya, an Edison spokesman.

By 4:45 p.m., power was restored to all but 40 customers, he said. There was no damage and no one was injured as a result of the outage, the cause of which is still under investigation, he said.

Commuters bore the brunt of the 40-minute outage.

“Oxnard Boulevard has been crowded because all the traffic lights are out,” Oxnard Police Cmdr. Bob Elder said. “We’ve sent officers out to do traffic duty--it’s rush hour and it’s a mess out there.”