Thousands of people are without power in Mesa on Wednesday amid a record heat wave hitting the area.
At least 4,000 people were without power in the Signal Butte Ranch area of Mesa earlier in the day. But as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, that number had dwindled to about 2,000 people with Salt River Project crews working to restore power.
As of 5:00 p.m., about 1,000 people were still without power in the area, and it is estimated that some places will not have power again until almost 10:00 p.m.
Patty Likens, spokeswoman for SRP, said this outage was caused by a truck accident near 102nd Street and Quarterline Road. Temperatures reached a high of 119 degrees Wednesday afternoon.
In an unrelated power outage that began around 5 p.m. on streets just west of the original outage, an additional 4,000 people were without power and crews were trying to restore power Wednesday afternoon . SRP Map Notes the affected area south of Red Mountain Park and west of Loop 202.
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Officials say Rural Metro Fire extinguished small brush fires caused by the crash and subsequent downed power lines. A cooling station was set up at 102nd Street and East Quarterline Road while power was restored, according to Rural Metro spokesman Shawn Gilleland.
SRP recently set new records for electricity demand during the summer. Tuesday saw a peak demand of 8,163 megawatts, Likens said.
“SRP is prepared to meet increased electricity demand during this week’s high temperatures. SRP is conducting careful planning to ensure we have enough generation capacity to meet our customers’ peak energy needs.” Likens said.
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