Power outage history
Los Angeles County California
4.5hours
without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025
41st most of 56 in California 32% below the national median
Every day since 2015
Eleven years, one night at a time
Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of Los Angeles's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.
Year by year
Hours in the dark, per customer
2025 was the worst well-recorded year, at 8.9 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.
Los Angeles, hours without power per customer
The record
The biggest outages since 2015
Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.
| Began | Storm | Peak out | Share | Lasted | 90% restored | Customer-hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 8, 2025 | Windstorm | 398,901 | 11% | 3.4 d | 2.4 d | 11M |
| Jan 13, 2025 | Wildfire | 46,406 | 1% | 25 h | 36 h | 1.1M |
| Oct 15, 2018 | No storm report | 77,207 | 2% | 15 h | 13 h | 724k |
| Jan 7, 2025 | Windstorm | 80,170 | 2% | 13 h | 12 min | 636k |
| Jan 12, 2025 | Wildfire | 44,249 | 1% | 12 h | 20 h | 480k |
| Jul 9, 2017 | No storm report | 44,327 | 1% | 5.0 h | 1.2 h | 217k |
| Feb 25, 2023 | Flooding | 46,663 | 1% | 4.0 h | 14 h | 171k |
| Dec 24, 2024 | No storm report | 40,281 | 1% | 4.8 h | 2.0 h | 96k |
| Jan 15, 2025 | Wildfire | 42,077 | 1% | 2.0 h | 13 h | 83k |
| Feb 25, 2023 | Flooding | 38,877 | 1% | 2.8 h | 13 h | 67k |
| Aug 21, 2023 | Flooding | 44,122 | 1% | 1.5 h | 12 h | 62k |
| Sep 6, 2020 | No storm report | 65,931 | 2% | 30 min | 13 h | 31k |
| Dec 28, 2020 | No storm report | 43,921 | 1% | 30 min | 13 h | 22k |
When it happens
The outage clock
Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.
What was happening
Weather behind the outages
Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for Los Angeles from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.
- Windstorm 80%
- Wildfire 12%
- No storm on record 6.1%
- Flooding 2.1%
Who keeps the lights on
Utilities serving Los Angeles
As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole California territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.
| Utility | Type | Outage min / yr | Excl. major storms | Outages / yr | Residential ¢/kWh | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern California Edison Co | Investor Owned | 545 | 116 | 1.39 | 31.5 | 4.6M |
| Los Angeles Department of Water & Power | Municipal | 408 | 89 | 0.78 | 26.5 | 1.4M |
| City of Glendale | Municipal | 588 | 112 | 1.64 | 35.5 | 78k |
| City of Pasadena | Municipal | 213 | 60 | 0.78 | 25.1 | 59k |
| City of Burbank Water and Power | Municipal | 174 | 13 | 0.81 | 21.5 | 47k |
| City of Azusa | Municipal | – | – | – | 20.8 | 16k |
| City of Vernon | Municipal | 33 | 33 | 0.68 | 13.0 | 73 |
EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.
Next door
Neighbouring counties
- Ventura 9.1 h
- San Bernardino 6.8 h
- Los Angeles (this county) 4.5 h
- Kern 4.3 h
- Orange 2.3 h
About these numbers
Notes
Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 3,762,600 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →