Byline: Louise Farr
LOS ANGELES — Parts of Rodeo Drive and other southern California shopping areas were plunged into darkness Saturday as a massive chain-reaction power failure struck nine Western states at around 3:45 p.m. PST.
Lights and air-conditioning were cut off, cash registers froze and elevators stalled throughout areas that stretched as far south as the Mexican border and north into Canada.
The duration of the outage varied widely, and on Sunday, it was still too early to assess the total financial loss to retailers.
At the Target store in Woodland Hills, customers abandoned their shopping and filed obediently out into the searing heat, with temperatures topping 100 degrees. At Sherman Oaks Fashion Square mall, anchored by Macy’s, electricity was lost momentarily until an emergency backup system set in. About 12 miles away at Northridge Fashion Center (reopened exactly one year ago after being destroyed in the Northridge earthquake), full power was out for 1 1/2 hours.
Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive swarms with tourists at this time of year, and sporadic power outages sent undaunted shoppers from closed boutiques to open ones. The Chanel store, normally open until 6 p.m., was forced to close two hours early, as was the Ann Taylor store on nearby Camden Drive. Across the street from Chanel, Giorgio Beverly Hills was without power only for a few seconds, as was CAline.
“We ended up the last hour having really strong sales,” said CAline manager Elyse Reichman.
At tony 2 Rodeo, home of the Iceberg and Valentino boutiques, power was down for more than 3 1/2 hours. The building elevator stalled, and a passenger, stuck for an hour, had to be rescued by the fire department.
On nearby Wilshire Boulevard, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York closed early, while adjacent Planet Hollywood remained open.
Early speculation by officials blamed the disruption on as yet unidentified problems concerning major power lines feeding California. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power manager Maureen Palmer suggested that multiple problems would be necessary to create such a widespread outage. All southern California systems were operating by Sunday morning, and officials were reported to be investigating an Oregon brush fire as a contributing cause to the power failure.
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