UTILITY IN DARK ON POWER OUTAGES; NEIGHBORHOODS SUFFERED 9 BLACKOUTS IN 2 MONTHS.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

An unexplained series of power outages has left the Morrison Ranch and Fountainwood neighborhoods without electricity nine times since July 10.

The area, covered by the Southern California Edison circuit, serves 1,566 customers. The problematic region is bordered roughly by Fountainwood Street on the north, Grey Rock Road on the west, Thousand Oaks Boulevard on the south and Kanan Road on the east.

The most recent outage knocked out power to the mostly residential neighborhood from about 9:15 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Southern California Edison is at a loss to explain the power problems, said Rudy Gonzales, Edison's regional manager.

``There's no common reason for the outages,'' Gonzales said. ``We've had a mix of reasons.''

Transformers, cables, switches and connectors all have failed at different times, causing the outages, he said. The blackouts have lasted from about 15 minutes to several hours, depending on the type of equipment that failed and the time it took to replace, Gonzales said.

But no link has been found in the various failures and, for now, Edison is calling the phenomenon a coincidence, he said.

``It's very unusual that a neighborhood, that small of an area, would be affected by so many outages in such a short amount of time,'' Gonzales said.

Edison standards call for no more than two outages in any area in a year. With nine outages in just seven weeks, Edison is concerned about finding the problem and getting its service back up to speed, Gonzales said.

``We are very aware of the situation and we are doing everything we can to try to resolve it,'' he said.

The use of air conditioners during hot weather always puts a strain on Edison's system, but the utility should be able to handle the increased demand and any problems should not be so localized, he said. Gonzales has fielded complaints from more than 100 customers about the outages.

Some of those complaints have come from people like Harry Schwarz, a city planning commissioner who works out of his home.

``During the past month, the electricity has been off two or three times a week,'' Schwarz said. ``It's been happening regularly.''

Schwarz said the outages are especially troubling when they occur while he is working on his computer.

``This creates havoc with computers and everything else,'' he said. ``That can burn your computer out.''

James Jensen wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to go to his job as a lighting director in the television industry. One night, the power went out while he was asleep and his alarm did not go off.

``Luckily, I woke up on my own,'' Jensen said.

But he faced other obstacles on the way to work, he said.

``I couldn't get out of the garage,'' Jensen said. ``I broke the garage trying to get out.''

The outages have been inconvenient because the air conditioning shuts off and he and his family need to reset all the electric clocks in the house, he said.

Edison workers are now checking out every wire and transformer that feeds into the neighborhood, Gonzales said. The inspection should take a week.

``We're going to get in every hole and check out every piece of equipment that's in that hole,'' he said.

Workers will replace anything that needs fixing, which could again result in the neighborhood going dark. But residents will be warned before that happens, Gonzales said.

``It may result in the need to have future outages, but those would be on a planned basis,'' he said. ``We hope to have it done in the short term.''