Southland Endures a Step Back in Time

By BOB POOL and GEOFFREY MOHAN

March 20, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

They raged, they shrugged, they got over it.

When their turn for the rolling blackouts finally came, Southern Californians on Monday managed to muddle through--but not before the big blink zapped unsaved computer work, relegated lunch to a cold buffet and set motorists adrift in a world without traffic lights.

They learned to trust clients whose checks they could not check, or reverted to cash-only deals--not exactly going back to the Stone Age, but hardly what to expect from the 21st century, either.

“We had blow dryers going,” complained Beth Busbee, assistant manager at Carlton Beauty Salon in the Santa Monica Place Mall, where shopping was dimmed before 3 p.m.

“We were in mid-color on several clients,” Busbee said. “We had to send one woman out with wet hair. She wasn’t thrilled.”

Wet hair is one thing. Pity the motorist caught in the blackout, who went from making a right on red to puzzling over what to do on blank. Fender-benders were reported throughout the region. Santa Monica officials said a blackout contributed to a traffic accident at Pico Boulevard and 14th Street. The 21-year-old driver of a car that rolled over three times was hospitalized.

When traffic turned chaotic at the light-free intersection of Wilshire and Beverly boulevards in Beverly Hills, Leslie Byrum, a police officer on bike patrol, jumped from her bicycle and began herding traffic.

“We usually get notices at our department about blackouts,” she said. “But I just stumbled onto this situation.”

In Orange County, Sheriff’s Investigator Steve Doan stood at Oso Parkway and Cabot Road in Laguna Hills and witnessed several accidents. More crashes occurred on Aliso Creek Road, he said.

“People are not paying attention,” Doan said. “They do not even look at these signals. . . . It’s just mind-boggling, going through intersections at 55 miles an hour without a signal.”

In Oxnard, firefighters were called to a large office complex on Vineyard Avenue. In the Paine Webber building, a woman and her young children were briefly trapped in an elevator. In the 21-story Dean Witter tower, the tallest building in Ventura County, throngs of workers took to the stairs and headed to area restaurants or waited outdoors until the power returned.

“We had to walk,” said Julie Sicoff, 30, who works at Accountemps on the 15th floor.

Restaurateurs in particular were left with crippled kitchens and no way to ring up checks.

“It was about lunchtime, so a lot of people left,” said Marwan Gazali, owner of Cafe Noir in West Hollywood. “We didn’t know what happened.”

Like many people, he complained that the outage came without warning and said sarcastically of the power companies: “When they want money for the bill, they call. But when they make a mistake, they don’t.”

Perplexing to many in the region was the seemingly random nature of the blackouts. At Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade, “it kind of leapfrogged,” said Margie Ghiz, owner of the Midnight Special Bookstore, where the blackout darkened her shop while sparing her neighbors on each side.

Institutions fared well--hospitals barely paused and switched to emergency generators, and schools by and large continued classes.

When the lights went out without warning three minutes before the second lunch period at Long Beach’s Stephens Middle School, administrators opted for simplicity.

“We know what to do,” said Principal Mike Troyer. “We were out there with the bullhorns, out and visible. Everyone is reassured and we can go on with the regular business.”

Among the devices on the blink was the computerized system used to record lunch orders. Workers were forced to jot down ID numbers for students who normally key them in. And when the power returned, they had to punch them in. All 650 of them.

A bad day for some was a day of heroics for others. The unheralded workers at Amtech Elevator Co. became saviors. Dan Jenkins, 43, said he freed 15 people in several buildings in Orange County, while a score of his fellow workers were “running around” doing the same.

Not even Southern California Edison was immune. The utility’s office in the sprawling Valencia Industrial Center was one of 222 companies there benighted just after noon.

“Right now, I’m sitting here in my office with a flashlight,” Edison spokesman Glen Becerra said Monday afternoon. “They gave us six minutes’ notice to shut off our computers and prepare to notify the cities.”

The timing of the blackout made for red faces at the Orange County Business Council, where officials have spent several months wooing two South Korean companies to build manufacturing plants in the county.

Just before two executives arrived for a meeting Monday, the power went out.

“It’s kind of embarrassing it happened while they were here,” said the council’s Bill Carney, adding that the outage probably won’t kill the deal. “We asked them not to mention this to their principals in Korea.”

But others Others, however, got a whole lot more.

In Agoura Hills, five customers at the Jiffy Lube on Roadside Drive in Agoura Hills were given free service because workers were unable to process credit and debit cards, said technician Herbie Hernandez. “All we could do was say sorry and turn them away,” he said.

At a Winston Tires shop in Inglewood, cars were literally left up in the air on hydraulic lifts and manager Mariano Garcia was up in the air as well. So, like many people Monday, whether paying a tab or sneaking through an intersection, he opted for trust.

Unable to verify a customer’s credit card, Garcia agreed to take a check, unchecked. “I hope it’s good,” he said.