Southern California Edison restored power after Santa Ana winds cut electrical service to 146,000 customers beginning the evening of January 22. Winds gusting to 70 miles per hour knocked down 133 power lines and 18 power poles on Sunday and throughout Monday, January 23, according to a company spokesperson. The winds also fanned brush fires along the foothills in the eastern section of the greater Los Angeles area. As of the afternoon of January 24, 3,500 Edison customers were still without power. More than 500 of them had been without power for at least 18 hours, said Ron Ferree, Edison director of grid operations. "We're focused on restoring power to those customers as quickly as possible," he said. The outages were centered in the San Gabriel Valley communities of Altadena, Arcadia, Flintridge, and Sierra Madre, which are located in the foothills and canyons below the San Gabriel Mountains. Further inland, outages struck Fontana, Ontario, and San Bernardino, which lie along the base of the San Bernardino Mountains. The Santa Ana winds are generated by high pressure over the inland desert area. A developing La Niña, in which the water is colder than normal off the coast of South America, may mean drier, warmer weather, which is associated with Santa Ana conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.