notices@sdge.com<\/a>.<\/p>\nCustomers who did not receive a test message should check their contact information and notification preferences at MyEnergyCenter.com. More information about the notification test is available at SDGEToday.com\/NotificationTest.<\/p>\n
The test comes as San Diego County approaches a time of year when dry conditions and Santa Ana winds can increase wildfire danger.<\/p>\n
Blossom Valley resident Chris Barnhill knows that danger firsthand. He witnessed the Cedar Fire in 2003 and remembers how smoke and embers transformed the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s pretty terrifying,\u201d Barnhill said. \u201cI mean, you couldn’t see the sun. It was just, you know, the embers everywhere. You couldn’t see anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Diego County has made changes to wildfire preparation and response in the years since, including bolstering its air attack, conducting controlled burns and regularly clearing brush, and alerting residents of threats any way possible.<\/p>\n
SDG&E has also invested millions of dollars in wildfire safety measures, including replacing wooden power poles with steel poles, monitoring potentially dangerous weather conditions in its command center, and its notification system \u2014 which will also notify customers of important outages and severe weather. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe get them right away because we’re East County. You know, we’re in the middle of it,\u201d Barnhill said. \u201cThe more pre-evacuation notice you can get, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The importance of wildfire preparedness has been underscored by some of the region’s most destructive fires. Santa Ana winds knocked down a power line that ignited the Witch Fire in 2007.<\/p>\n
For Barnhill, who lives in East County, receiving warnings as early as possible can be critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery necessary, I would think. You got to have enough time for the people to evacuate\u201d Barnhill said. \u201cNobody wants to be through that.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Gas & Electric sent millions of texts, phone calls, and emails to customers across its service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27015,74,76,75,5094],"class_list":["post-450755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-lakeside","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sdge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}