The community of Fillmore was as ready as it could be for last week’s record-breaking heat wave. Water? Check. Shade for Fido? Check. Air conditioning? Check… except for 300+ homes at the El Dorado Mobile Home Park. Edison power went out at 6:45pm Friday and wasn’t restored until 7:40pm Saturday—25 long, hot hours at temperatures reaching 114-degrees in some areas of the city.

Three hundred homes without air conditioning in such high, humid temperatures is bad enough, but considering the park is still mostly senior citizens, the urgency to restore power was vital.

Edison’s online power outage reports at 12:11am Saturday morning read “Equipment Problems” as the cause of the blackout. The message changed several times: 9:58am and 2:36pm Saturday it read “Storm Conditions”. And at 6:34pm Saturday it read “Extreme Heat”.

Many residents lost all refrigerated and frozen food during the outage.

Fillmore Fire Department sprang into action on Saturday morning, coordinating with the City of Fillmore, Fillmore Unified School District, Fillmore Police Department, the Red Cross, Ventura County Health Care Agency and FATCO. A cooling center was opened at Rio Vista Elementary and FATCO bussed El Dorado residents to the location free of charge. Fillmore PD went door-to-door to check on the park’s residents, and EMTs also transported some residents to the cooling center. The Red Cross manned the center, offering water, cots and wheelchairs. And Fillmore Fire stationed rescue equipment in the park as a precaution.

Cooling centers for the general community were available at the Active Adult Center on Santa Clara, Fillmore Library on Second Street, and the Boys & Girls Club on First Street.

Temperatures remained high Friday and Saturday, with Sunday cooling slightly to the low one-hundreds.