High winds: Wires, poles, cables leave tangled mess in Temple City
A tangle of power lines and poles stretched Friday along Live Oak Avenue in Temple City, where a massive cleanup effort was underway after the fiercest windstorm in a decade slammed Southern California.
With nothing else to do Friday, resident Bill Nunez set up a folding chair in his frontyard and watched the work crews with his neighbors.
Five blocks of Live Oak Avenue between Temple City Boulevard and Baldwin Avenue was nearly covered by downed cables, cracked coils and splintered poles.
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“We heard the first one snap,” said Nunez, a project manager at Caltech, sipping his morning coffee. "[Now] I can’t even get out to go to work.”
City workers had visited the neighborhood Thursday, handing out flashlights to residents and saying power would likely be restored to the street by Sunday.
Nunez considered himself lucky that his stove and water heater run on gas.
“I can’t go anywhere, said Chu, 44, owner of a Chinatown restaurant.
Estimates given to neighbors by work crews were that as many as 18 power poles were down or listing on Live Oak.
In 50 years in Southern California, Nunez said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
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-- Sam Quinones
Photo: Fallen power poles block the 9900 block of Live Oak Avenue in Temple City as a crew surveys the damage. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
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