GLENDALE BLACKOUT IS BLAMED ON CABLE.

Byline: EUGENE TONG Staff Writer

GLENDALE -- An underground cable failure led to the blackout in downtown last week that disrupted businesses along the city's prime entertainment and dining district just as the weekend got started, authorities said Monday.

The blackout at 8:15 p.m. Friday darkened the homes and offices of some 2,500 customers from Monterey Road south to Garfield Avenue, said Ramon Abueg, electrical services administrator at Glendale Water and Power.

The service failure -- the latest in a series of outages that have hit the area in the past 18 months -- interrupted a book signing by actress and activist Jane Fonda at the Glendale Public Library and a performance of ``Hooray for Bollywood'' at the Alex Theatre.

``Any sort of blackout in a major metropolitan city is just not what we call a fun time,'' said Elissa Glickman, the theater's marketing director. ``The city seemed to have it resolved as quickly as it possibly could. We just kind of have to roll with the punches.''

Power was restored to about half those affected within an hour, though about 250 customers waited until 2 a.m. Saturday for the lights to turn on, Abueg said.

Crews traced the problem to an 800-900-foot cable under Brand Boulevard between Wilson Avenue and Broadway.

It was replaced, and technicians are inspecting the failed cable -- installed in 1978 -- to discover what went wrong, Abueg said.

``We're cutting that cable up to see if there are signs of anything else,'' he said. Underground cables are designed to last more than 30 years, but extra pressures, like continually transmitting a heavy electricity load, could shorten its life span.

It's the latest large-scale power disruption to hit the city in recent years. Animals and fallen palm fronds often short-circuit fragile power lines, with a raccoon partly to blame for one of several outages in March 2005. In June, a bird slammed into an overhead conductor, disrupting service for 1,031 customers.

Abueg said GWP is continuing work on a 10-year, $100 million plan to shore up its deteriorating 530-mile overhead and underground distribution grid.

``Some of them are already new, some of them are old,'' Abueg said. ``It's a matter of identifying them. And just because they're old, it doesn't mean they're bad. That's where we need some analysis.''

Though with several high-rises and the Americana mall slated for the area in the coming years, some wondered if the city's power grid is up to the job.

``It's always a concern when we build a town center and a new commercial center that the infrastructure is done properly, so that it's not going to overload anything,'' said Harry Hall, president of the Downtown Glendale Merchants Association. ``This sheds light on what we need to do a little more.''

Abueg said downtown's existing infrastructure can handle it.

``We are designed to carry the growth in the area,'' he said. ``As part of the conversion project, we are going to strengthen that further.''

David Palmquist, manager at Trinity Worldwide Reprographic, which lost power Friday, recalled a blackout downtown roughly three years ago.

``That was something in the ground -- it happened in the middle of the day,'' he said. ``They had it back up in several hours. I'm quite impressed with their services all the way around.''

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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