March 2004 IBEW Journal

The first hint was an early Sunday morning voice from the dark, using loudspeakers to tell residents north of San Diego to get up and get out—wildfires were coming.

San Diego Gas & Electric gas crew members Mike O’Malley, Ralph Pike and John A. McRae, Local 465 members working in the Scripps Ranch area.

By the time all of San Diego could see the scary, eerie yellow light from the first of several large fires, IBEW Local 465 members were already responding. The effort literally involved everyone—troublemen, linemen, gas crews, distribution and transmission operators, gas service techs, storeroom personnel and substation electricians. At first, they were helping residents get out of the path of the fire, rescuing livestock and possessions as best they could.

“The fires were being pushed by strong Santa Ana winds of 60 miles per hour,” reports Assistant Business Manager Bill Layton of Local 465. “Throughout the week several more fires started and at one point were consuming over 6,000 acres an hour. The five wildfires destroyed approximately 3,000 homes and 12 lives—including the wife of one Local 465 member.”

All of that set the scene, Layton says, “for one of the largest electrical and gas restoration projects in California history. There were 3,000 poles destroyed, 400 miles of wire to replace and 17 transmission lines to repair. San Diego Gas & Electric began to ask for mutual aid from Locals 53, 57, 111, 266, 769 and 465.

From another of those who came to help, Local 1245, Walnut Creek, the effort enlisted 15 crews from Pacific Gas & Electric, three Sierra Pacific Power crews and more than 20 contract crews from Par Electric and Wilson Construction, along with 10 two-person pole digging crews from A.M. Ortega, according to a report from Local 1245 Business Manager Perry Zimmerman.

Three days into the ordeal, on October 29, 2003, the fires were still burning when those crews arrived—228 line personnel working 16-hour days at 28 remote locations. In the end, 108,000 affected SDG&E customers returned to their normal life. “This was truly an effort in the American spirit of hard work done safely and quickly,” Layton says of the final outcome.