Calabasas residents outraged over planned power safety shutoffs in midst of heat wave

Hundreds of Calabasas residents are up in arms over a planned power outage in their neighborhood in the midst of a sweltering heat wave that is expected to bring triple-digit temperatures to some parts of Southern California. 

"On a heat wave. It's horrible, it's unbearable," said Jonathan Bobbitt.

He's one of more than 500 Southern California Edison customers in Greater Mulwood who are due for overnight outages over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday. 

"Our house gets so hot. It's harder to sleep when ... it's 80, 90 degrees in your house," Bobbitt said. 

A spokesperson for SCE said that they notified all customers two weeks in advance, and that the outage can't be postponed as crews are slated to upgrade equipment in the area that will help reduce wildlife risks and prevent future outages. The SCE website initially showed that work would begin at 7 p.m. each night, but they later decided to push the planned outages back to 9 p.m. after re-evaluating plans.

"I haven't really seen that before, where they change hours," said Calabasas Mayor James Bozajian. "They must have gotten quite a bit of pushback."

Bozajian says that the city also received numerous complaints from residents, many of whom said they were concerned about safety during the high heat. 

"Elderly and some people, maybe with disabilities, they have limited ability to get out of the house or to go somewhere else, or to take alternatives," he said.

Residents say that they support the upgrades, since they're for safety's sake, but not at the cost of their health and peace of mind during the heat wave. 

"I just think that there could be better planning for this," said one resident. "It's called reschedule the entire thing, not just reschedule the hours."

Bozajian said that the city is working on plans to help vulnerable residents who may need somewhere to cool off during the outages.