SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The High Wind Warning was no April Fool’s joke around the Lake Tahoe Basin as gusty winds took down numerous trees around the Basin, resulting in hours-long power outages.
Liberty says at the highest point, 15,613 electrical customers were without power in South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, and the West Shore overnight and into Thursday. A total of 17,506 customers were affected by 36 different incidents at some point. The first outage was reported on April 1 at 11:06 p.m., and some are still without power as of 10 p.m. on April 2. The Liberty outage map still shows eight outages affecting almost 5,000 customers, mainly in parts of Meyers and the West Shore. Some residents are being told their power could be restored between 11 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday.
First responders and Liberty crews were called to many downed trees, some on top of power lines, blocking roads, and some fell onto homes and cars.
Lake Tahoe Unified School District had to close three schools due to the outage – Tahoe Valley, Sierra House and Meyers elementaries. The others remained open. Many stores and restaurants were closed for the day, with those open and serving food and coffee seeing long lines.
The forecast for the next five days is for sunny and clear to partly cloudy skies, though some gusty winds are expected on Friday. The next system arrives Tuesday night with rain and upper elevation snow through Friday morning.
