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'It's a real hardship for people' | Evacuated seniors react to substation explosion in downtown Sacramento

When the power went out and the elevator service went with it, Ora Turner, 73, wondered how she and other residents would get downstairs.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Residents at the Edgewater Senior Apartments in downtown Sacramento are staying at an emergency shelter at City Hall after a substation explosion Tuesday cut off power to the building.

All 12 stories of residents, roughly 100 seniors, were evacuated because fire pumps and sprinklers were deactivated from the outage. 

SMUD said one of their substations at 6th and H streets were damaged by an on-site fire. Roughly 1,300 people in the downtown area lost power when SMUD deenergized the substation. Power was not restored by the end of Tuesday. However, SMUD says 700 customers could have power restored by Wednesday morning.

RELATED: SMUD working to asses damage after downtown Sacramento substation fire

Ora Turner is 73 years old and uses a continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP) machine. When the power went out and the elevator service went with it, she wondered how she and other residents would get downstairs. 

"It's a real hardship for people who are here in the building," Turner said.

Marilyn Daniels is a nine-year resident of the housing complex. She said she tried reaching out to the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency [SHRA], but said the response she got was rude. They also told her to call the Red Cross or SMUD for updates. 

"It's been an ongoing problem to get them to do anything or to get them to take responsibility for anything," Daniels said.

Sacramento fire officials said they only became aware of what residents of Edgewater Senior Apartments were going through when one of their captains noticed something odd. 

"A notification went up because they had several 911 calls to this specific building for oxygen assistance," Captain Keith Wade with the Sacramento Fire Department said.

Five hours into the outage, first responders were evacuating residents with immediate oxygen needs. Turner said what they really needed was generators. 

Daniel Bowers, director of the Sacramento County Office of Emergency Management, said the building has back-up power, however "the only unfortunate circumstance of one of the buildings is it does not have working generators."

Building records show a permit application for work, including the installation of a transfer switch for backup building power was submitted in March 2021 and only recently approved on Nov. 24, 2021.

RELATED: 'Everyone is going to be cared for' | City setting up evacuated seniors with hotel rooms after substation explosion

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Hundreds of seniors evacuated after explosion at SMUD substation

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