ANOTHER L.A. BLACKOUT?

What is up with these people in L.A.? It must be Hollywood and the nasty smog that make people loony out there.

LOS ANGELES — A blackout hit downtown government buildings, Chinatown and adjacent areas Tuesday. It was the third significant electrical failure in the city since mid-September.

The blackout cut power to as many as 1,000 customers and affected City Hall, the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration and police headquarters at Parker Center, said Gale Harris, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

By late morning, power had been restored to about one-quarter of the affected customers. The cause was under investigation, Harris said.

Blacked-out traffic signals snarled traffic downtown and in Chinatown. Power failures last month affected 2 million people on Sept. 12 and 40,000 customers in downtown and neighborhoods to the east on Sept. 23.

The Sept. 12 outage lasted 11/2 hours and happened after a utility crew mistakenly cut several lines in theSan Fernando Valley. The one on Sept. 23 was over in about five minutes; the cause is under investigation.