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A Downey Fire department ambulance passes by the traffic light at Lakewood Boulevard and Cherokee Drive, which was out during the power outage in Downey caused by lightning strikes on Tuesday, September 8, 2026.
September 8, 2026
By Vincent Medina
More than 600 Southern California Edison customers in Downey remained without power Tuesday after lightning strikes caused outages across parts of the city and knocked out traffic signals for more than an hour in the morning.
The city also reported a brief water outage that officials said was restored within minutes.
The City of Downey first posted a water notification at 10 a.m., informing residents that parts of the city were without water and that the issue was being resolved.
Twelve minutes later, the city said the water problem had ended.
The city did not identify which neighborhoods lost water, how many customers were affected or what caused the outage.
Almost 30 minutes later, Downey issued a separate traffic alert saying lightning strikes in the city had caused Southern California Edison power interruptions and that several traffic signals were not operating.
“We did have, unfortunately, some power outages due to the lightning that took place earlier in the morning,” said Juddy Montenegro, assistant to the Downey city manager. “As a result of the lightning, we had power outages, traffic signals went out. Our staff were able to confirm that all signals were operational before noon today.”
The city said traffic was affected at Paramount Boulevard and Telegraph Road, Paramount Boulevard and Fifth Street, Suva Street and Bluff Road, Firestone Boulevard and Old River School Road, and Lakewood Boulevard and Cherokee Drive.
Residents looking for power updates were directed to SCE’s outage map.
Just before noon, the city said all of the listed traffic signals were operating again.
However, lightning strikes caused additional power outages in other parts of Downey, according to Southern California Edison.
The utility’s outage map showed three additional outages caused by lightning in the city Tuesday morning.
One outage initially affected 2,034 SCE customers, but power had been restored to most of them by around 10:30 a.m., according to Diane Castro of SCE media relations.
The outage still affected 627 customers in an area southeast of Paramount Boulevard, southwest of Telegraph Road and north of Stamps Road, Castro said.
Power there was expected to be restored by 7 a.m. Wednesday.
Three customers also lost power after lightning strikes along Old River School Road between Arnett Street and Burns Avenue, according to the SCE outage map.
Power there was expected to be restored around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
SCE’s map listed the Birchbark and Old River School Road outages as separate incidents that remained open Tuesday afternoon.
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