Wild storm zaps power in many HOAs

Strong thunderstorms rolled through Maricopa on Friday night, knocking out power to homes in several neighborhoods.

Electricity was reported out in parts of Glennwilde, Homestead, Rancho El Dorado, Province, The Lakes at Rancho El Dorado, Cobblestone and The Villages, according to social media reports.

The storm brought heavy rain, lightning and thunderous booms to many parts of the city around 10:20 p.m.

The Maricopa Fire Department was summoned to an outdoor fire at Honeycutt and Porter roads shortly after a particularly loud thunderclap in the area. It wasn’t immediately clear if a transformer blew in the vicinity leading to power outages in the surrounding neighborhoods.

At 11:12 p.m., the power kicked off for a moment in Desert Passage and came right back on. Similar episodes were reported in neighborhoods around the city.

The outage map on the Electrical District No. 3 website and app was not working, as some customers pointed out Friday night on Facebook.

About 11:10 p.m., the utility posted the following message on its Facebook page:

“ED3 is currently aware of the outage that is currently going on. Crews are onsite trying to make repairs. The outage is storm related. At this time there is no estimated time of power being restored as crews are still trouble shooting and making repairs.”

By 12:15 a.m., however, residents in parts of The Villages, Homestead, Province and Rancho El Dorado were reporting their power had come back on.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix sent an alert about 10:25 p.m. warning of a wall of dust moving west at 40 mph along a line extending from Mesa to 6 miles southwest of San Tan Mountain Park. Damaging winds of 60 mph were observed by the weather service. As soon as the alert expired at 11:15 p.m. another was issued for possible dust storm south and west of the city. It is in effect until 12:15 a.m.

Minor flooding is expected in some places including Maricopa and surrounding areas, the weather service said.