The Associated Press
 Photo Mike Meadows Downed powerlines in Los Angeles, Thursday. |
LOS ANGELES — Southern California cleaned up toppled trees and downed power lines Thursday after fierce overnight Santa Ana winds battered parts of the region with gusts that on one mountain hit 100 mph.
More than 90,000 Southern California Edison customers experienced outages after the winds roared in Wednesday evening, but by Thursday afternoon fewer than 1,800 were still without power.
San Bernardino and Orange counties, east and southeast of Los Angeles, were hardest hit Edison service areas. Los Angeles itself got less of a blast and the Department of Water and Power reported no wind-related outages.
The National Weather Service said the 100 mph gust was recorded on Laguna Peak on the Ventura County coast northwest of Los Angeles.
Other big gusts included 74 mph in the Malibu hills and 61 mph in Newhall Pass north of Los Angeles.
The city of Santa Ana in Orange County was hit hard when a string of 10 power poles came down on Grand Avenue late Wednesday.
The winds tore the roofs of homes in a Rancho Cucamonga mobile home park. In nearby Ontario, uprooted trees destroyed the canopy of a church and crashed through sidewalks.
The Santa Ana winds, which blow from the interior and out to sea, were dying down late Thursday afternoon but were not over.
Cold air over the Great Basin was expected to allow the winds to regain some strength overnight, the NWS said.