An estimated 673 customers across Coronado Village lost power on Monday night, with the outage hitting the northern and western parts of the neighborhood. By the 9:30 p.m. update, most homes had their lights back on, though roughly 280 residences were still sitting in the dark.
The outage was reported by the Coronado Times, which said San Diego Gas & Electric estimated power would be fully restored by 10:30 p.m. Monday.
Cause Still Unclear Near Sixth and Alameda
Coronado police said the cause of the outage was unknown but could involve a faulty underground transformer, according to the same report. Police, fire officials and SDG&E crews converged near Sixth Street and Alameda Boulevard to investigate, though as of the last update no cause had been confirmed.
That stretch of Alameda Boulevard has a history with power trouble. Back in 2011, an outage knocked out electricity for 123 SDG&E customers in western Coronado, an incident the San Diego Union-Tribune reported was tied to a combination of factors affecting overhead electrical lines or equipment. Officials at the time estimated power would be back by midnight.
A Pattern of Outages, Without a Clear Thread
A Pattern of Outages, Without a Clear Thread Monday's incident is far from the largest Coronado has seen. In June 2013, an outage initially left 3,200 customers without power across the island, with roughly 1,400 still affected hours later, according to Patch. Patch reported that the cause was unknown at the time, and the restoration estimate slipped from 3 p.m. to around 7 p.m. the same day.
A separate incident described by Fox 5 San Diego affected more than 400 customers in southern Coronado and the Coronado Cays, starting around 7:11 p.m., with SDG&E's outage map attributing it to damage to utility equipment, per the station's report. And during one major storm, NBC San Diego reported that as many as 14,000 SDG&E customers across Coronado and other San Diego County communities lost power, with about 8,825 Coronado customers affected around midday before most had service restored by early afternoon. By 6 p.m. that day, an estimated 1,750 customers across seven communities remained without power, the station noted.
These past incidents involved different causes, scales and locations, and the available reporting does not tie them together as part of any broader trend. What they share is simply that Coronado has periodically dealt with outages that leave hundreds or thousands of residents waiting in the dark while crews work to pin down the source.
By 9:30 p.m. Monday, most of the 673 affected customers were back online, though roughly 280 residences remained without power. The question of what exactly knocked out power near Sixth Street and Alameda Boulevard remains open, with police describing the underground transformer theory as a possibility rather than a confirmed cause.
