Update: No Boil-Water Orders for Coronado

Update, 9:30 a.m., with quotes and continued calls from SDGE for conservation.

Coronado schools will be closed Friday because of the mass outage, city officials reported, but many facilities, like the library, will be back to normal Friday.

Silver Strand State Beach, however, will be closed, and SDGE continued to ask residents to conserve until the system returns to normal.

In addition, the community's water is fine. There is no boil-water advisory in effect. The city also offered child-care services for parents of elementary-age children affected by school closures.

Call the Recreation Services department, 619-522-7342, if you need assistance.

The bridge was packed this morning as families heeded warnings about possible delays and headed to North Island early for the USS Ronald Reagan's return after being deployed since February.

Officials also reported all power was restored on base. In Coronado, the outage lasted roughly 8 hours, through about 11:30 p.m., according to the city.

The community appeared to largely take the potential calamity in stride, though officials asked residents to use water sparingly. Outdoors, traffic moved freely on local streets, though jams choked off other areas of San Diego.

A planned block party around I Avenue and Ninth Street even proceeded, with residents in the streets enjoying each other's company and sharing food. Instead running to the store for extra ice, partiers stocked up on lantern batteries.

Since cooks don’t need electricity for barbeque grills and most people were happy to be outside while the air conditioning was out, the outage provided a perfect opportunity for the party.

“It’s a blackout party,” I Avenue resident and host Robb Huff said.

Authorities put up stop signs at some intersections to take the place of the malfunctioning signals, and patrons crowded into Village Hardware and other stores to stock up on batteries and candles.

Albertson's and Von's closed early, as did several eateries, but Nicky Rottens, the Gaslamp restaurant that's opening a new space on First Street and Orange Avenue, pushed forward despite the outage.

Patrons packed the restaurant for its first day, and the proprietors, who use a gas grill, were able to serve a partial hot menu, and salads said one of them, Tim Aaron.

“As long as there's ice and as long as beers are cold,” Aaron answered when asked how long he planned to stay open. But he amended that, to say they would shut down when night fell.

The Firehouse and the Coronado Brewing Company kept the suds flowing as well. The Firehouse planned to stay open after sunset.

“We’ve got lanterns and candles. It’ll be ‘Little House on the Prairie’ land in here,” said manager Eugene Collins.

Patrons stood in long queues at some stores. At Central Liquor, Corey McLaughlin wanted to buy beer. “I've never seen a line coming out of here like this,” he said.

A clerk at Village Hardware said the store normally makes about 10 sales in the two hours before closing. That shot up to 50 late Thursday.

Most stores could not use credit cards, but Coronado Glass and Paint had an old slider credit card machine to process sales. Others simply used calculators.