TIJUANA Border region residents returned to their routines Friday after power was restored around midnight, swapping stories of how they had fared during the "mega apagón."
The blackout left more than three million people in all five Baja California cities without electricity in an unprecedented outage that stretched to southern Orange County and Arizona.
Particularly hard hit were the residents of Mexicali, who had been roasting in temperatures that topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
In Tijuana, power has been re-established 100 per cent across the city, and all public services were functioning normally, officials from various sectors announced Friday at a midday press conference.
Javier Larios, the regional head of the Federal Electricity Commission, which regulates power, said the outage affected virtually all of the 1.1 million customers across the state.
Alcide Roberto Beltrones, who heads operations in Tijuana, said the outage affected 35,000 businesses, 700 plants, 1,500 schools, and hundreds of thousands of drivers who were left navigating streets without functioning lights.
Gustavo Ley, a deputy secretary for the Baja California government, said officials had begun to tally economic losses.
The director of Tijuana's public safety department, Gustavo Huerta, said municipal police officers were joined by state and federal police forces as well as soldiers in patrolling the city during the outage.
The most notable incidents were that 11 people were rescued from elevators, there were four gas leaks, one vehicle fire, and one residential fire caused by an exploding boiler, Huerta reported.
Just like north of the border, most gas stations were forced to shut down. However, by Friday morning gas stations had begun to reopen.
Schools across Tijuana were open Friday. The outage had affected the Thursday afternoon session of the schools, which were forced to close early.
On Friday, the airport, central bus station and public transit were all operating normally.
All the officials agreed that the blackout was an opportunity to create greater awareness among residents that they have to prepare for such emergencies.
Omar.millan@sandiegored.com
