City Estimates Up to $4 Million in Wind Damage

Monrovia officials estimate that a powerful windstorm last week caused up to $4 million in public and private property damage after hundreds of trees crashed into homes, cars and power lines early Thursday morning.

The city's own cleanup efforts could cost up to $500,000, city spokesman Dan Bell said Monday. The city hopes to recoup most of that money through emergency grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that it has already applied for.

The cost would be covered with money in the general fund reserves if FEMA does not reimburse the city, Bell said.

"You hope to get reimbursed but if you don't your responsibility is still to respond to the emergency that your residences and businesses are experiencing," Bell said.

Small pockets of the city remained without power as of Monday night, though Southern California Edison estimated that 99 percent of the county's electricity would be restored by the end of the day Monday, Bell said.

"Edison's kind of rolled in a small army to tackle this," he said.

Bell said that some residents may still be experiencing power outages in neighborhoods where electricity has been restored to other homes. In such instances, Bell urged residents to call and report the outage to city officials at 626-932-5550.

Going forward, the city still must clean up substantial amounts of brush and debris that remains in streets and along sidewalks.

"There is still a ton of debris out there," Bell said.

More strong winds that hit Los Angeles County Monday led the National Weather Service to issue a red flag warning, which indicates that critical fire-weather conditions are expected because of high winds and low humidity. The warning will be in force over the region until 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The warning took effect at 4 a.m. Monday in the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains, the Angeles National Forest, and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, and at 6 a.m. along the Orange and Los Angeles County coast, metropolitan Los Angeles--including downtown--and the Hollywood Hills.

The Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management activated a 211
Disaster Hotline for residents to report damage caused by the windstorm. The
hotline number is (800) 980-4990.

City News Service contributed to this story.