The repeated occurrence of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) in the last several months have taken a toll on segments of Santa Clarita’s small business community.

Some of the local businesses that have felt the impact of the public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) by SoCal Edison (SCE) include Mellady Printing and Direct Mail and the dental practice of Dr. Neal Green.

Mellady Printing and Direct Mail lost two full workdays this week to PSPS, starting when they lost power the morning of Jan. 19 through 6 p.m. Jan. 20 during the Santa Ana winds event, according to owner Jill Mellady.

“It’s just very disheartening. All the businesses around us are affected as well, and when you’re running big machinery like this and all of the sudden the power just blows, it affects not only your machines but your production,” Mellady said. “It also creates lost wages because we have to send our employees home not knowing when they’re going to come back. It’s very hard on them as well.”

Her business has struggled to cope with the shutoffs as SCE has failed to provide meaningful notice of shutoffs. Not only are the shutoffs an inconvenience, but they can be potentially damaging to the equipment utilized by the company, according to Mellady.

“There is nothing for the business community, as far as I know, even letting us know this is going to happen,” Mellady said. “The problem is it ruins some of the machines when it’s just shut off, and I have a neighbor who has a 900 degree fahrenheit machine that’s doing coating processes and he says his machine could literally burn up that place, just burn it up and explode.”

Despite her company’s struggles, Mellady remains engaged and hopeful to help find solutions for the business community.

“It’s very frustrating, but I want to be part of the solution,” Mellady said. “I want to be an advocate and help other business owners so they don’t experience this and we can figure out together what we can do together.”

While operating with significantly smaller machinery than Mellady printing, Dr. Neal Green’s dental practice on Soledad Canyon has also recently been affected by the loss of power to their equipment while administering services during the outages this week.

“When it went out I had one patient that was very difficult to treat, we were doing a root canal and he was very fearful so I stayed with him and, to do the best I can at the time, I did filing by hand instead of with the machines,” Green said. “We couldn’t do any x-rays or anything as we hoped the power would go back on, in the meantime we had to cancel lots of patients, so that was pretty bad.”

See Related: Local Representatives Call For Better SCE Practices In Aftermath Of Widespread Power Outages

Green’s experience also revealed how other services reliant on power can be impacted in a cascading fashion when PSPS are implemented.

Even after the power came back on, the dental practice’s internet service was then delayed in coming back online, their phone services are also connected via the internet, leaving the business struggling to contact or be contacted by patients scheduled for the day.

“This is California,” Green said. “25 percent of the GDP in the United States and we can’t figure something out to get our power stable?”

Both business owners agree that whether through SCE or government intervention, some effort must be made to provide businesses impacted by SCE outages with alternative means of power such as generators.

The shutoffs are conducted in an attempt to mitigate the risk of wildfire from downed power lines during extreme weather events such as high winds or high heat. However, the shutoffs have drawn complaints from a number of residents in addition to the impacted businesses.

As recently as Tuesday, thousands of SCE customers from Saugus, Val Verde, Castaic and Saugus lost power as part of a PSPS amid severe Santa Ana winds.

The wave of mass shutdowns elicited a response from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which referred to the actions of SCE as both “tactless” and “deficient in meeting the standard its customers deserve.”

The repeated nature of the shutoffs has also prompted a response from some local government representatives, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and State Senator Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park.

Barger and Stern issued statements this week asking for better access to microgrids for vulnerable communities

Both officials cited the heavy impact on the Access and Functional Needs community, as well as the countless families coping with COVID-19 requirements such as tele-learning and tele-commuting, when these shutoffs are conducted without significant warning as motivation for the policy change.

SCE has been called upon by the CPUC to appear at a public hearing Jan. 26, 2021, to explain the events of the shutdowns and to go into possible solutions to these concerns.

The public hearing will be on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. Community members may tune in here and can call in for public comment at 800-857-1917, passcode: 5180519#.

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