How about a government funded solar system for California? Take matters into our own hands? PG&E is a dead horse. Beating it won't bring it to life and we won't even want to.
1
Nothing says Go Green like solar power and tofu. Here's your chance to eliminate the evils of fossil fuel.
If that’s how California deals with upset conditions... imagine how it will handle when the big one hits... federal administration should take over the state and fix it before it’s not reversible anymore! Million dollar houses with no energy because the supply company refuses to maintain vegetation away from power lines as per its responsibilities....
3
@John B -- We did just fine in the 1989 earthquake. Oh but wait, that was 20 years ago; people & our culture have changed a lot since then.
& since a lot of the overgrown vegetation is on federal land, not sure if they'd be very useful taking over the state.
3
So in the middle of a "protective" power outage in windy conditions, the Times features a photo of a hilly heavily wooded area with backyard FIRES?! What were those people thinking, if anything?
2
@redtapegrrl I agree that it was a strange caption... (Were they really tending an outdoor fire... it's not clear.) I happen to live in the hills of Mill Valley, and there was no wind where I live.
@Bill SF Thanks for the info. But still .... I don't use my charcoal BBQ when it's breezy so my hackles rise (seems unnecessarily in this case) when there's open flame in fire areas.
Wind last night was no joke, it was just like the nights when Napa, Santa Rosa and Paradise burned. Just glad there wasn’t a repeat of those disasters.
1
TWO WORDS! Go Solar. We did. Old electric bill $3600.00 annually... with solar 250.00
2
@Eliza Robertson Most solar does not work especially when grid tied. The power inverter has a special circuit to prevent the grid from being backfed when there is no grid tied power.
Now you can have a non-grid tied system with battery backups and that will work when you lose power or maybe not even be connected at all.
If you want to test your system go to your main service panel and turn off your main breaker and see if you lights in your house, refrigerator etc still work.
For the amount of money outlay a standby generator system is much more cost effective and will not require nearly as much in costs to get.
Also, if you get one that runs as a dual fuel like gas and propane you can store 100 or 500 gallon tanks of propane for fuel.
The biggest downside will be you having your lights on and all your neighbors will start showing up trying to figure out why you have power and they don't...
2
As a former longtime resident of the area, I can only say that if PG&E is to blame for the monstrous fire of last year - that sparks from some of their equipment is the sole, deep-pockets cause of the entire disaster - that no one can blame them for cutting off further extraordinary liability at the switch, as it were.
Just maybe there were other causes of the tinder-dry counties, and some poor choices by those who chose to live there without taking adequate precautions against a fire sure to come, be it from a cigarette, lightning, car exhaust or electrical spark.
3
A few thoughts:
PG&E "serves" 16 million people throughout a 70,000-square-mile service area in northern and central California. They don't do a very good job, and our electric rates are the third-highest in the continental U.S. It's time to break the company up into a dozen or more locally owned and controlled utilities.
California doesn't need all power lines underground; that's very expensive, and there are thousands of miles of line that are not at risk. But tree limbs and live wires do not mix; aggressive pruning has always been expected; it just hasn't been performed, perhaps because it would cut into PG&E bonuses and dividends.
California needs to claw-back the cash distributed as bonuses as the company went into bankruptcy. Go after the C-suite pensions if we have to, but enough is enough!
Most Californians understand the difference between acts of God and negligence. A massive Oak blowing over in a 100-year windstorm is an act of God, and any consequent fires not the responsibility of PGE. But limbs breaking power lines a few feet away is negligence by the utility. (And the infamous Camp Fire last year might have been a hardware issue, not even a wind issue; someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
It's time to get rid of the PG&E monopoly.
5
Its interesting reading the comments. People are freaking out because the power is out. This happens all across America for any number of reasons all the time. Just a couple of months ago, Manhattan had a power outage. People in the Puget Sound lost power last month when we had 1,200 lightening strikes during a 3-hour thunderstorm. And this winter, most of New England will lose power during blizzards. I have lived all over the country and have never been in a place that was immune to power outages.
PG&E is the California equivalent of New York's MTA. People have thrown a lot of money at both projects with little to show for while a handful of people have gotten rich. Nothing will ever change because Americans just keep voting for Democrats and Republicans thinking they will do something about infrastructure (which they never do).
I would rather be in the dark in the Bay Area tonight than anywhere in Syria.
3
The situation in California is an example of infrastructure issues everywhere. Investment in infrastructure requires funding, meaning taxes. We accept taxation to build a better world. Simple no?
Over past decades the mantra of many politicians has been ‘no taxes’; owners will expand their business and hire people. Government programs are burdened by regulations and bureaucrats. Corporations invested off shore to avoid taxation. Infrastructure? Sorry.
Back to the wildfires. Wood poles which support electrical wires burned & collapsed, causing shorts. It was dangerous. Many areas had no electricity for weeks.
Burying wires; too expensive. Emergency crews worked round the clock. Cost? Maybe planned investment isn't so expensive. Solar collectors on roofs; if houses are close distribute electricity underground. Power company provides the solar collectors, connects the network. Work out the $ w/state & feds.
Lately there are mucho ideas about wildfires, coastal flooding, earthquakes, drought ... Nature is so pesky.
In the 50’s Eisenhower began the interstate hi way system. It ran for decades, financed by taxes, generating huge growth in roads, the auto industry, residential home construction.
A different time: America was optimistic, we trusted leaders, taxes were accepted to enrich society & invest in the future.
Can we ‘channel’ a bit of that ?
5
California is the 5th largest economy in the world, but these blackouts make us look like a third world country. This is insane. I do blame PG&E, but I also blame the state government that has not spent a nickle on infrastructure. We should bury all of our power lines to avoid such horrible catastrophes.
18
@Shirley, You are aware that the state government is not responsible for the maintenance of P.G.&Es power grid? This is on the Utility Company.
5
@shirley Burying power lines will never happen. You are talking about areas with granite, rocks, seismic movement, mountains, rivers etc.
The reason the power lines are up above and attached to poles is because of the difficult if not impossible task of doing what you suggest. 500KVA lines would probably have to be buried atleast 15-20 feet deep maybe more to avoid inductive heating and all the other problems.
What do I know I am only a master electrician...my 2 cents.
6
@RDB
I agree, folks always seem to think that burying power lines is easy and cheap.
1
The two key things I have learned reading and responding to with respect to this article:
1) most commentors have no actual factual awareness at all of PG&E operations, much less what they do and do not do in terms of managing infrastructure and more recently fire mitigation plans. Sad, but not unexpected.
2) The way some commentors appear to be melting down over this weeks public safety action (that is the official plan name by the way) by PG&E tells me that when we actually have an emergency event that impacts much more of the states population... total panic, chaos, and violence will be rampant. Law enforcement and other emergency respondors will be completely over whelmed. Seriously... 2% of the states population has been impacted here, roughly 5% of PG&e customers.. and reading some of these comments, you would think the world was coming to an end.
But you know what.. next week.. this will be history and you all can move on to your next giant tragedy worthy of aimless and minless soundbite attacks on whoever you perceive to be the demon of whatever it is.
The comments tagged to this article really is a good glimpse into how totally unprepared the average citizen is for anything out of the ordinary.
In my view.. learn from this event, or suffer worse when the next event comes.. which is likely as not to be an earthquake.
3
@Chuck
Regarding your point #2:
Looting, Gas Lines, and a Packed Comedy Club: 24 Hours in Blacked-Out Rural California
https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/2019101010696/looting-gas-lines-and-a-packed-comedy-club-24-hours-in-blacked-out-rural-california
For almost 30 years the state of California refused to compel Pacific Gas and Electric to upgrade and maintain its electrical grid. Whatever the state legislature was focused on it was not the monitoring of an enormously powerful utility that first took care of stock holders, bond holders and its banks before it took care of the physical portion of its empire. Law enforcement and oversight agencies of California also abdicated their responsibility.
Now Californians are living in what amounts to a third world country without power for light, air conditioning, household equipment, traffic lights, jail cells, hospitals and schools. Factories, stores, warehouses, courtrooms and fire houses are without power save for emergency generation equipment.
As stated, the economic losses are only starting to be tallied. The losses from looting will also have to be tallied as lawless crowds take advantage of darkness and alarm system failures. Police units are over whelmed with calls. What is not stated is the obvious and it is both political parties, Republican and Democrat that are equally responsible for this fiasco.
Pacific Gas and Electric should be dismantled and broken up immediately. Sell off the company and if shareholders take losses perhaps they'll think twice about who is managing this monstrous catastrophe and who in the boardroom is responsible.
And there should also be criminal trials for everyone else from Pacific Gas and Electric who is responsible for this mess.
3
When you don't invest in infrastructure this is what you get. Let us get real about it. Pay me now or pay me later. There are transmission lines designed to withstand stronger winds but they are not cheap. If we are not willing to spend the money to fix it stop crying when you lose it.
6
The thing to keep in mind about this PG&E "safety shutdown" is that this shutdown policy is necessary because PG&E executives made management decisions to short the maintenance and control of trees and vegetation, across multiple years, to reduce operating expenses and boost profits and bonuses. When their willful negligence finally sparked off horrendous wildfires that wiped out thousands of residences and businesses, killed dozens, and destroyed tens of thousands of acres of California - the PG&E executives filed bankruptcy to shelter the company from the consequences of their own negligent decisions. It is worth noting that the shareholders are being wiped out, while the executive pay and bonuses are intact... and that the weasels at PG&E are scheming to pay bonuses to their executive ranks even while in bankruptcy.
Never forget that the whole debacle of the wildfires, the damage, the deaths, and these shutdowns is caused by PG&E's executive decisions to neglect maintenance and "vegetation control" to boost their profits and bonuses.
2
Why is PG&E, a private, profit-making entity, allowed to hold its customers hostage? Why aren't they being forced to put in safety equipment? Oh, wait. Right. Of course. The company has a long history of diverting money for safety equipment into stockholder profit and bonuses. And cost shifting is so much cheaper for the company, too. Just let customers bear the economic and other opportunity costs.
Who says capitalism is dead in California?
43
PGE is not a private company but a public company. Furthermore as a public utility company they should be regulated by the State of California if they aren’t already.
Oddly California has the most environmental regulations yet the current and past Governors, state legislators and agencies allowed all this to happen? Where was the oversight?
Solutions aren’t always easy, but the past 2 governors appear to be more caught up in politics and federal laws, like immigration where they have no authority, which seems they chose the welfare of outsiders over their own citizens.
Galvin Newsome appears to be spending more time with Lebron James promoting student athletes being paid while the lights are out for millions of people...
7
@pdil - Does anyone say capitalism is dead in California? It's home to 3 of the world's 5 largest companies by market cap.
@MDCooks8 -- the oversight is there, the laws and regulations are in place. And PG&E, to boost it's profits and executive bonuses, decided to neglect transmission line trimming and "vegetation management", and spend the money on profits and bonuses instead.
This is not a failure of California oversight, other than in PG&E deciding to ignore the laws and regulations, and hide what they were (not) doing.
I live in Southern California and share my time between North and South. SDG&E faced similar situation but managed to keep the outages localized to very few areas. They’re also working on improving the situation with moving the lines underground where appropriate.
On an unrelated note, this is one of the wealthiest and technologically advanced regions in the world. If we can have more than a million lives interrupted for wild fires, why does everyone cry human rights violation when India blocks internet in Kashmir to prevent terrorists from using it to organize attacks?
It’s a lot easier to blame others than look at our own backyards!
4
Why not nationalize PG&E? If a single company has the authority to shut off power to vast stretches of the most populous state in America, affecting not just universities, but people's health and safety, why not have the state of California own it? That's far too much power for one company to wield and they've proven that they cannot maintain their equipment, causing taxpayers both damage and mortal risks.
1
for the "richest" country in the world it's embarrassing that we sometimes live like some of the poorest.
2
Welcome to the world of Climate Change. Better start finding ways to promote ability of homes owners/apartments to individually harness solar & wind power to adapt during central power outages -- better than fossil fuel generators. Adapt or watch your homes burn, and be homeless?
1
Shades of the 1972 gas crisis made worse by the politician's even / odd license plate number provision to buy gasoline.
1
Democrats have devastated wealthy CT’s once proud economy - stagnant for an entire decade. Why shouldn’t they have a go at California ?
Lets see what they can really do. And then lets discuss Global
Warming, Immigration Reform and Gun Control.
1
"Industry best practice"? Are you for real, Governor Newsom?
Then why hasn't SMUD (the electric utility in Sacramento) organized blackouts? The folks serviced by SMUD are experiencing the same weather as all the areas *immediately around SMUD areas* serviced by PG&E.
What a joke. You're wrong to side with PG&E and tout them as some sort of industry "best."
California has been an arid and fire-prone state for tens of thousands of years at the very least. A merger of two companies created PG&E in 1905 -- over 100 years ago. Are we to believe that company geniuses are only now realizing that there's a problem? They had 100 years to develop and deploy acceptable technology. Time to break them up and let someone else have a try. Government managers might not do much better, but they could hardly do worse.
15
Everyone Californian should keep a very close eye on the PGE bankruptcy. As its restructuring, including the entities that stand to profit, could end up significantly altering how we go about our daily lives.
2
Wealthy people should be allowed to buy their way out of this problem. A market in non-disruption certificates can be created and households that have purchased a certificate would be exempt from shutoffs of electrical power. The tax revenue the State of California takes in from this new market could finance windmill construction.
Californians are a hearty lot who never complain. That's particularly true of Southern Californians. All will emerge wiser, stronger, better. Turn the temporary inconvenience into a statewide character building exercise.
I have watched this coming for years P.G.&Es lack of funding to maintain their own infrastructure laying off maintenance personnel because of revenue reduction as larger customers could contract with other suppliers from out of state, but still left the utility liable for grid maintenance. Even after being granted extra funding from the P.U.C. they knowingly under maintained there grid. So that's where we are at now P.G.&E punishing there customers for there lack of foresight.
3
Boy am I glad I sold my stock last year before it crashed. PG&E is not a well-managed company
1
Many of us were cynical from the start about the claim that PG&E was responsible for the Santa Rosa and Paradise fires. There were too many other alternatives that weren't investigated, because dipping into PG&E's deep pockets was so much more lucrative. Now we are living with the results. The same people who loathe evil, capitalist PG&E are stunned that it has actually cut off their power. You think you can live well off the grid in an urban area? Go for it, Greta. Environmentalists are going to learn the hard way that electricity doesn't magically fall from the sky. And do you think that just maybe thousands of gasoline and propane generators operated by the ignorant and unskilled are going to pose an even greater fire safety risk? But excuse me for my rant - as a prepper, I'm well stocked with bottled water, energy bars, and toilet paper. I've even got a book or two (hundred) and now I think I'm going to go sit in the sun and read one. Like they say, a crisis is always an opportunity.
5
Guess what, the state has more power than you think over PGE. Don't be surprised if PGE management is shown the door for good and the utility's assets are handed over to the government to be operated in the best interests of its customers, not shareholders.
1
1. California has made PG+E liable for fires and deaths, ultra expensive and causes bankruptcy.
2. I suspect in the past the Calif. PUC resisted expensive efforts by PG+E to upgrade their grid/trim the trees and pass the huge costs on to the customers. Customers also probably resisted radical tree trimming because of the aesthetic cost to nature.
3. Californians love to live within the woods.
4. California suffers bad droughts and windstorms.
5. California lacks the will and/or resources to buy PG+E out and make the utility a government entity.
6. Lawyers manipulate juries to make a single live worth billions and they fail to balance financial cost and human life cost in a rational real world way.
ADD UP 1 through 6 and you get a situation where PG+E should cut off all these customers whenever there is any risk above background levels. Californians don't like it? Change one or more of the 6 points above. Good luck!
6
This is a completely ridiculous, untenable non-solution for a very real problem. Climate change may be causing bigger fire, but the PG&E utility it toying with its customers rather than work to fix the problem.
Business are closed, schools are shut down, customers with medical devices are left literally in the dark, country and city governments are shouldering huge financial burdens with no plans to have the utility reimburse them... It's nuts.
Many Californians are waiting for the other shoe to drop and for PG&E to ask the state for "relief" from future lawsuits -- and if they do, that is the exact second that we will demand the state revoke their license and take over their assets.
Thirty-plus years of cost-cutting, regulatory hanky-panky and egregious negligence have led to spectacular endangerment of public safety. If the best PG&E can do is throw up their hands and turn off the lights, they certainly don't deserve having the state's politicians cover for them anymore. And they definitely don't deserve more rate hikes which just get passed on to their shareholders and executives.
Enough already.
3
This is solely caused by PG&E refusing to maintain their power grid - they paid out huge dividends instead of taking care of business. Now that 15 years of greed is catching up, millions of people are again suffering for the greed and avarice of PG&E executives.
Regulators are also to blame - they are weak and timid, and allow PG&E to do whatever they want.
6
I'd be irate if I lived in one of these communities. How do they get away with this? Outrageous!!
3
Capitalism in action.
Does anyone believe anything PG&E says anymore?
These power outages are outrageous and poorly executed. I live in the Oakland Hills and almost lost my house in the big fire years ago so I know about this problem. Right now I have power but my friend a few blocks away does not. Much too large areas were targeted and the weather conditions used were much too low given the damaging effect of the shutoffs. I completely support shutoffs where and when they are needed. I hate to say it but this feels like a strike back from PG&E letting us know what they can do.
17
@Kathleen Oakland
The areas impacted are based not on the actual area, but rather the transmission lines that feed said area. These can and often are many miles from the location where a customer experiences a power outage.
One of the reasons you can have power and someone a few blocks away can lose power is because of the diverse way power is distributed... which under most conditions is actually a good thing.. not a bad thing.
2
We just got our power turned back on here in northern CA.
And ... just got back from a trip to the grocery store. No meat, no fish, scant available in dairy.
That’s after less than 2 days.
So, to the cupboard. But still a bit shaken.
By the looks of the map, have to wonder if the warehouses that supply our local stores have generators. If so, can they last as long as a week?
The cost of these blanket outages are far more than a little inconvenience to homeowners.
This is not a workable solution.
2
Are any customers utilizing alternate green energy sources for their homes or business such as solar power being impacted by theses shutdowns if they are tied into the utility companies power grid?
If so, do these customers need to stop producing electricity for their own use or just disconnect from the grid so that any excess power the solar panels generate are not flowing into the power lines?
Answers to these questions could hurt or help moving forward with more additional alternative Green energy sources and how the are implemented in the future.
Furthermore, these shutdowns highlight the need for investment in the power grid infrastructure from not only a safety point of view but an economic one as well..
4
@MDCooks8 Homes with solar panels are usually connected to the grid. Without a battery system, these homes have to turn off their panels so energy doesn't flow back into what are assumed to be de-energized lines; otherwise, workers can be electrocuted. Battery prices need to come down for these systems to be a reliable alternative during outages.
1
Gee whiz, I live in the second most frosted state in the United States and our power grid doesn't have to be shut off when we have dry weather. Our electric infrastructure is modern and maintained unlike California's.
4
@Tim Berry
That's great news for you and the other 23 people who live in NH.
1
Okay, these issues are progressing to the point where I am questioning whether California's leadership even has a shadow of compenancy.
Seriously? I could overlook the homelessness/human waste issue California has been unable to address. No system is perfect. But now they are having rolling blackouts. California administration is failing to accomplishing even the bare bones of regional management. Something clearly needs to change.
3
@nick This isn't a "rolling" blackout, which is due to insufficient power supplies. It is a deliberate turning off of power due to either a)extreme fire danger, or b)blackmail, depending on who you believe.
1
@nick - Didn't Manhattan just have a power blackout about a month ago? It was only a couple of hours but everyone here sure complained. No AC, no Alexa to talk to, just darkness.
This is what privatization looks like: sell out Dems and GOP been saying since Regan times that the market would solve it all.
Hows the working for ya America?
Does it feel solved?
5
Time to leave California!
California has devolved into a third world state:
- Can't manage its natural resources.
- People living on the streets and in cars.
- Streets and sidewalks used as sewers, festooning disease.
- Rampant illicit drugs.
- Voting fraud.
- Can't reliably provide power or water to its residents.
- People leave OTHER third world countries to go there and hide.
- No borders.
- If you happen to make money, they'll take much of it.
- Disregard for federal law.
- Forest fires destroying towns
- Earthquakes
3
@Kurt VanderKoi
Oh, please.
This is about a rogue power utility that has been problematic for decades, not about fantasy versions of California as a failed state. If you want a look at “failed” states, try a few places in the Midwest such as Oklahoma or Kansas, where no-taxerism has run up against cool, clear reality.
California is doing just fine, thank you, and we’ll be doing much better once PG&E is finally made accountable for its disgraceful business practices.
4
Just in case you're serious, why not offer ideas for logical/reasonable solutions? It can't hurt.
3
PG&E - is this a 'Utility' ? (O.E.D. = " ...the quality of being useful") - first they burn down our homes; then they shut off our power . . .
1
I must say I'm impressed by NYTimes coverage of the blackouts in California (so, so far away). Maybe I should cancel my subscription to the S.F. Chronicle... No, but the NYTimes is certainly making itself into The American Times.
6
It is ironic that the commenters here, who are mostly from California, are commenting on a NYC newspaper.
2
No wind! No basis for shutdown! This is the story.
1
So much for civilization
3
Bury the lines?
2
FYI, your report is a bit out of date:
This is an urgent message from the County of Santa Clara Office of Emergency Management. The time is 11:27 p.m. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has begun the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS), for areas of Santa Clara County. Your location could be affected and lose power for up to seven days. PG&E is providing a Customer Resource Center that will have charging stations for phones and plug-in medical devices, drinking water, air conditioning, and other amenities. This will be offered at the Avaya Stadium, at 1123 Coleman Avenue, San Jose 95110 from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day for the duration of the event. The City of San Jose will also have three resource centers open. Please check their website for more information. For more information, visit https://www.sccgov.org/sites/oes/Pages/home.aspx
(You can find our house somewhere near the intersection of Bohlman Road and On Orbit Drive, in Saratoga/unincorporated Santa Clara County.)
1
I'm in an area of the outages but so far no shutdown here yet. Right now the state and PG&E are in the "crude" phase of fire management. I think the utility rightly wants to avoid another disaster...and this is one of many tactics and more ideas are coming from all quarters. Defensible space in this last year has increased. Fire awareness and closures of open space has increased. Calm and practical public announcements are on the airwaves. I suspect criticism of the already beleaguered PG@E and overblown descriptions of the blackouts won't help. We are all in this to help each other and learn how to manage the inevitable.
7
Maybe PG&E is messin with you folks, softening you up
so you’ll be happy to pay triple to get the infrastructure
upgraded
Gavin Newsom is a tool. His administration needs to question PG&E and verify that their criteria for shutting down. NESC says that power lines need to withstand 90 mph winds. The winds out here today, you can barely fly a kite. I suspect PG&E is shutting down prematurely because they want to extort the state of California for higher rates. PG&E has a history of not dealing seriously with this fire issue. The only thing they ever do is the cheapest thing available. Delaying court ordered fixes and shutting down power.
3
@Oona PG&E paints trees like crazy, "rainbow trees" but never does anything with them.
Power out too, absolutely no wind, trashing contents of frig then freezer.
I cannot afford this.
I live 20 minutes from the southern entrance to Yosemite. We are surrounded by forest. New homes are being built in the middle of the forest.
We should never have allowed so many new homes with above ground power.
We should immediately stop all new construction that does not have power lines underground. (The fact that some areas are solid granite will make this difficult.) This will drive costs of construction way, way up.
People want cheap power and scream when costs go up. We made a choice, cheap, risky power. Now we don't like the choice we made. Safer power is more expensive, and we didn't want to pay.
And we wanted to live in the woods.
12
I am usually chagrinned when a NYT column about a local issue is flooded with comments from Californians. For example, not charging an absence for local schoolchildren missing a day for the recent climate strike. So by way of returning the favor of unsolicited advise, I thought everyone out there had rooftop solar panels, so I am not sure what the problem is. Just flip the switch when the lights go out.
5
@Patrick If only solar worked that way. It doesn't, for many. We have solar and when the power goes out, it goes out here too. There is a missing, expensive piece: a house battery to store all the energy we give back to the grid Right now, the batteries are cost prohibitive but expected to drop in price in 3-5 years. So why solar? Because if we don't do something about climate change, one person at a time, one method at a time, there will be no climate to change. We are indeed in uncharted territories.
4
I cannot believe that in the 21st century with some of the wealthiest companies in the world residing here that we would not chip in to bury power lines - like England! It is a blaring signal of the unfathomable greed of corporations and their utter social irresponsibility.
4
It would be better if PG&E were nationalized. It's hard to phantom a public utility with CEO's among the ultra rich so incompetent so that they could not do needed repairs 10
or 11 months ahead of time. At least with the state owning the company and with the government assuming the liability a dangerous fire wiould double as a marked political liability.
2
@jaco Blanket assumptions about who is better doesn't cut mustard. I suspect that the state of California would be better in handling fire emergencies but I could be wrong. The point that this "emergency" was entirely predictable but nothing was done. How would you insure better results in the future.
Sorry for all the people without power. The grid needs competition to drive pricing down and service up. Get some smart talent in there! No bailout whatever you do. These guys running that power company are a lost cause. It's not going to be a quick fix with years of negligence. At the same time, get rid of the old equipment and start fresh. Finger pointing is for children!
1
With increased homelessness, as we spend endless money on endless war, The US is looking more and more like a third-world country.
This isn’t a safety plan, it’s a greed plan. PG&E pays off lots of lawmakers, including Gov. Newsom throughout his political career, which this paper has even reported on. They in turn create legislation to protect the PG&E monopoly from liability for their intentional wrongdoing, most recently where citizens were foreseeable killed and property destroyed. Instead of maintaining their equipment properly they pay dividends to shareholders and outrageous salaries and bonuses to management. Their workers are notorious mistreated. This is criminal corruption with paid for protection by corrupt politicians. I’m a Democrat btw, it’s not about party, it’s about corruption and consumer crimes.
6
Too many people living in one state you better pack up and move to a more stabler area if you don’t like the weeks without power. It is too bad it has to be this way but whole towns are being destroyed like Paradice if precautions are not taken.
1
PG&E is only partially to blame for "mismanagement" of their utility. Crats (like Newsom) and environmentalists have hamstrung them for decades. Over regulation and tree-hugger types wouldn't let them trim a tree without a court battle. Had it happen in our town when PG&E wanted to remove a row of trees - not a native species - due to the impact their roots were having on a gas line, after the Bay Area explosion.
3
PG&E and SCE receive by law an automatic 10.5% ROI for constructing new power plants. They don't get anything for maintaining equipment to a level that ensures the equipment won't cause wildfires.
That is why California utilities have been building new power plants long before the old ones need to be taken out of service, instead of spending money on maintenance of lines and equipment in forested areas is so poor. It's all about the Benjamins baby!
see:
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-capacity/
4
For those who have solar on their roofs, adding a battery will make it possible to 'island' your home during outages. (Solar without a battery has to be shut off when there's a power outage, as it generates to the grid.)
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/california-approves-100m-in-energy-storage-incentives-for-wildfire-resilien
2
@Susan Kraemer
Have you priced those batteries?
It’s pretty shocking.
1
The power cuts in California appear to be a negotiating tactic by PG&E, to gain the upper hand in funding for tree trimming activities. The previous wildfires have been attributed to the fact that PG&E no longer trims trees near its equipment because it's too expensive. Evidently PG&E wants a rate increase, or have county or State Government take over the job. Shutting off the power gives PG&E negotiating leverage with the State. According to the article: "...the power was shut down before the winds started to pick up in the North Bay."
This style of negotiation is called 'symbolic reciprocity', with a good example reported by Pérez-Peña and Victor (23 SEP 2019). In that case, release of the oil tanker Stena Impero by the Iranians is a good example of symbolic reciprocity in a diplomatic situation. Symbolic reciprocity is used when normal negotiation channels fail, and the parties resort to tit-for-tat symbolic acts as a way of speaking to each other. These will often escalate in severity until the dispute is resolved.
Cite:
Pérez-Peña, Richard and Daniel Victor. Iran Says British Tanker Is Free to Go After 2 Months of Detention
NY Times, 23 SEP 2019. Permalink: https://nyti.ms/30h7Ex1
2
In case people are wondering what electricity costs in various states compared to California:
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
PG&E has a tiered-rate plan with substation differences between successive tiers:
https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-options/tiered-base-plan/tiered-base-plan.page
2
@Charles E Flynn
Typo: "Substation" should be "substantial". What a relevant auto-correct error.
1
@Charles E Flynn Those average rates are misleading. Here in the Bay Area we are paying 32 cents/kw-hr off-peak or 38 cents/kw-hr peak. That is for 100% wind-solar-hydro no carbon emissions energy.
The model of capitalism, in the case of providing power to millions of people, does not work. PG$E, was doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, providing their stockholders with as large a dividend as they could. They put corporate profits over public safety. Lesson learned.
There are some things that governments do and they generally do them well. When they don’t we vote in new people who will do the job. Think about this: we can’t all do our own air traffic control, interstate highway construction or make treaties with foreign countries. A role of government is to oversee and regulate corporations so that their practices do not endanger our public safety. To keep them from adulterating our food to make a profit, for example as we saw in the 19th century. To keep our water safe to drink. And make sure chemicals don’t leak into our rivers and streams and water supply.
If the capitalist model doesn’t work, because PG$E can’t make a profit, then that’s when we socialize the power system so that it is safe and this never happens again. California is the 5th richest economy in the WORLD!! California’s economy is now greater than that of the nation of Great Britain!
The power shut-offs are unacceptable, putting the public at risk and costing millions of dollars in lost productivity. California is not a third-world country. Our elected officials to take steps to ensure this does not happen again.
When is infrastructure week again?
1
Everybody out there needs to start raking the forest.
2
@New World My Great-Grandfather was a Finn and I DO rake my forest! Laughing all the time.
NYT -- Please use these types of articles to daylight to direct connection between these shut offs, their impacts on the economy, and the climate crisis. We need to start better articulating the direct impact the climate crisis will have on our day to day lives, including losing modern day conveniences.
1
@Natalie - This is not a climate crisis but a PG&E management crisis. I used to live in San Francisco way back in the Reagan days and they had a lousy reputation then. They are the New York subway system of California.
1
the only reason this is a problem is because PG& E chose higher profits over reinvestment in safety of their product. insult to injury is G. Newsome signing up tax payers to supplement any damages caused by PG&E.
For those of us in the rural areas that are prone to wildfires the question to pg&e is how do we get notified of anything if the power is off so there is no phone and no wi-fi. And how do we let anyone know if there is a problem that we know about. Generators don’t provide wi-fi or phone service. These jokers put everyone at risk so they can avoid liability. And they have now conceded their power lines can and likely did cause the 2017 fires. This is a textbook case of corporate management ineptitude and incompetence. Pg&e is being run by fools and they are putting everyone at risk by their stupidity. It’s not like the winds over the past two days are unusual for this time of year. Turn the power back on before you guys really cause a problem
1
@John - Ham radio? They have free classes at some organization in my neighborhood. And for around $100, one can buy a solar panel/battery that is more than enough to keep phones/computers going. I used one living outside in Seattle for two winters and had no problem keeping my stuff charged. Even in Seattle winter weather.
What do you plan on doing when a big quake hits and the power goes out?
@John I agree. Broken phone, but using a Verizon Mi-Fi and charging computer on Electromate 400, which could also jump my car and pump up tires--not a current problem.
Wine is low tho!
As pleasant as they may be some places are not appropriate for human habitation.
2
People are starting talking about buying generators.. Have they thought about climate change?? Why havent they prepared for the long talked and long planned power outages by PGE because of high winds and wildlife by starting installing solar and wind power where they will be affected. Towns can find properties to install a few mega watts farms here and there and store them in batteries. Talk is cheap.. Crews just installed industrial generators at famous Caldecott Tunnels through Berkeley Hills to keep the tunnels open during the outages.. instead of solar.. this is Berkeley, for heavens' sake! Those liberals so hypocritical themselves!!
1
Current wind conditions https://www.pressdemocrat.com/multimedia/10155288-181/map-current-winds-in-the
1
I wonder about Gov. Gavin Newsome's "connection" to PG&E . Will it be revealed?
1
24 hour advance notice....all of Northern California scrambling for ice, gasoline, and batteries. Unconscionable! PG&E is an extortion racket masquerading as a public utility. Where are our legislators?
NO Wind -- Power has been off for 36 hours. Whole towns shut down, schools closed for a second day, public safety at risk. IF there was a wind, yes, we understand the risk. But shut off El Dorado county because Sacramento has 8 mph winds & EDC has zero?
By the way -- Sacramento (has power) uses SMUD not PG&E -- and their transmission lines go through El Dorado County -- who has PG&E and no power. Figure the logic in that.
One more point -- State officials live in Ed Dorado Hills the ONLY part of El Dorado County that does have power. $$$ pays.
2
My thoughts:
1. Break-up PG&E into a dozen or more smaller utilities (PGE "serves" 16 million people across 70,000 square miles, and those Californians stuck with PG&E pay the 3rd highest electricity rates in the continental US).
2. Claw-back the company cash distributed as bonuses. If that doesn't work, go after C-suite pensions. The Capitalists that ran PG&E gambled that they could avoid maintenance, and the gamble didn't pay off.
3. Power lines do not need to be buried across most of California. But tree limbs do need to be cut-back.
4. Thoughtful people do not believe that any utility be responsible for 'acts of God.' When a mature oak blows over in a windstorm, that's an act of God. But when limbs that are 3 feet from power lines are not cut back, that's negligence.
5. "Stuff" will still happen. But it's time to get rid of PG&E.
1
This is merely retaliation for being held responsible for egregious behavior. For years, executives at PG&E have been ripping off their customers. They managed to corrupt the public utilities commission that was a revolving goor for PGE executives taking bribes and favors and returning or leaving to work for PGE. It’s a corrupt cesspool and dangerous because they are desperate.
1
24 hour advance notice....all of Northern California scrambling for ice, gasoline, and batteries. And the elderly? Unconscionable!
PG&E....an extortion racket masquerading as a public utility. Where are our legislators?
1
Welcome to the new state of Commiefornia. Why do you think people are leaving the place in droves?
1
Let's not forget that this is the same company that poisoned hundreds of Californians in the past. Why are they still in business? This is a PUBLIC utility - charged with abiding by law and protecting the public. Total fail! People at the head of this abomination (PG&E) need to be held accountable. Where is Erin Brockovich when we need her?
I can't believe our Gov. just went on record saying that multi-day shut offs of power to areas with below-advisory-level wind is "industry best practice".
California has a week or more of weather like this every year. It is absolutely unacceptable to have the power shut off every time it happens. PGE is a monopoly; it's customers have no other choice for their energy needs. They need to figure out how to keep the lights on. It's their job.
39
@Paul
Maybe he should have said "industry best" for a shoddily-run industry that run by short-sighted, greedy weasels on old, poorly maintained equipment.
4
@Paul - I highly recommend a whole house generator to not be at the mercy of the power company.
2
@Paul
The practices is actually a best practice. It was first developed by SDG&E in southern California (years ago) and subsequently adopted by other power companies more recently.
Bad weather can and will damage an negatively impact power utilities... no matter where they are located. What is different for California compared to many other states in the US is that we also have to grapple with extreme fire hazard conditions at the same point in time when we have to grapple with extreme wind conditions. Wind + fire hazard = disaster of proportions that are often hard to cope with.. and as such.. if you can prevent the fire to begin with.. you are ahead of of the issue.
People seem to forget that if PG&E does nothing, and just lets wind drop powerlines and start fires.... then if it becomes a massive fire (as we saw with the Camp fire), it will overwhelm fire fighting resources all over the western United States, will cause large loss of life, and guess what... massive power outages anyway.. due to infrastructure damage.
The price we pay for living in California is that we have a unique set of hazards that other states do not have.. (though other states have other issues to deal with... like huricanes that come through and wipe out all infrastructure.) For California... it's mainly fires and earthquakes we have to deal with... and frankly every Californian with a brain already knows this or should know it.
3
I am sitting in my living room looking at the trees in my backyard and their is literally NO WIND in my neighborhood; there was a barely perceptible breeze a few hours ago. I live in the SF Bay Area affected by these power outages. I really can't see the point. An investigation is needed especially before I have to go purchase a gas powered generator (with all that that entails) for this nonsense. PGE needs to be restructured and put out of business because this is unacceptable.
21
@Sasha
This is not about wind in your yard.. it is about dangerously high gale force winds in the hilly regions in northern Calfornia that are posing a serious hazard to power transmission lines many miles from your yard, and the extreme fire danger if a power line drops due to the winds.
If you can't be bothered to learn the context here, why bother making silly drive by comments like this?
3
Not only does PG$E not maintain its transmission lines adequately, its website is down, so you can't get updated information from them. Clearly they lack server capacity, and their internet/network infrastructure clearly isn't as scalable as it should be. So while you're literally in the dark, you're also in the dark when it comes to getting information from PG$E about the shutoffs. They saw this coming, but they didn't plan (or spend) for it. Typical.
Meanwhile, the publicly owned Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) is up and operating. It's a smaller system, and it isn't for-profit. This is a better model than the sprawling, for-profit, shareholders'-first model PG$E is using. PG$E needs to go away already.
33
@GreenGene
SMUD managed to get up and operating while PG&E was asleep at the wheel. Once the utility saw it had lost a chunk of territory, it has spent Billions in political advertising and lobbying every time any municipality or group of municipalities considers their own municipal utility district.
2
@GreenGene
Web site is up for me.. it's just slow sometimes. I have been using it the last two days to keep track of where they are shutting down power, and why.
As for the transmission lines.. they do maintain them... they just cannot maintain them against once a year gale force wind events that happen to coincide with extrem dry fire hazard conditions. In point of fact.. many of their transmission lines will actually survive said winds... but it only takes one getting hit by a particularly strong and nasty set of gusts to drop a line and trigger a fire. Said winds with said fire would then quickly get way out of control.. to the point of taking weeks to contain.. even with every firefighter in the western US.
2
This isn’t just about PG&E shutting the power just before the weather patterns predicted high winds.. this is about how a “power” company who has over & over shown negligence and caused so many casualties still remain to be a power house making ppl vulnerable and forcing them off the grid. To me this is unprecedented and government should step in.
27
@Penelope
So.. just to be clear.. you are totally fine with a remote transmission line getting hit by 70+ mph wind gusts which in turn break a power line, drops the power line into grass... starts a raging wind driven fire that will quickly overwhelm firefighters abilties to contain.. then sweep into one or more local communtities and burn dozens or hundreds of citizens to death before they can evacuate?
Case example: Last years Camp fire that literally destroyed the city of Paradise and forced the evacuation of a number of other communities.
1
I worked for Southern California Edison Company (SCE) years ago. You cannot have a power system without the possibility of sparking wires when they go down; the sparks are necessary to operate the line protection equipment for shutting down the line.
California’s politicians have been trying to nationalize its power system for years and are just about there. By claiming the power lines cause the fires and that PG&E is liable, they’ve forced PG&E into bankruptcy. Now PG&E has every right to shut down the system if they’re going to be blamed for every fire on a windy day. It is now up to California’s politicians to admit that PG&E and SCE cannot be liable for the natural, and necessary, sparking of wires.
14
@Jerry Sturdivant
Correct assessment.
For PG&E, it is not the right to shut down power... but in fact they have been ordered by the state (all utility companies in fact have been ordered) to have active plans in place to do so when a certain sequence of wind and fire hazard events are announced by the national weather service.
3
If this outage were necessary, why isn’t the Sacramento company shutting off power? Winds there are equivalent. PG&E failed to maintain lines it told the PUC it would in 2012. They continued to pay dividends and bonuses. The average household like mine has an inconvenience. Medically fragile are in trouble. Home Delivered Meals programs, which are non-profit, are losing thousands of dollars of perishable food while they cannot feed their elderly clients. Blaming the state government is bogus
1
@Renee Lewis
Power grids are being shut down both east and west of Sacramento.
Sacramento however is in the central valley and not predicted to experience the gale force winds forecast.
Wow, what third world infrastructure we have! It’s windy, so no power. Unbelievable.
Maybe instead of a giant tax cut for the rich, Trump could have actually delivered on the infrastructure bill he promised.
What a death spiral we are in.
7
It was public infrastructure Trump mentioned. Obama was your man if you are looking for bailouts of private companies like power companies, GM, and banks.
1
Years of PGE’s ineptitude has led to this nightmare. I understand the logic of trying to prevent wild fires but this is a nightmare for so many people, with no amount of proper advance warning.
I have a home in Napa Valley and today is day two without power and have been told it could last up to five days. I will be throwing out hundreds of dollars of food from my fridge. Far worse than that are the sick and elderly that rely on fridges to store medication or power to run medical devices.
I’ll be getting a generator. I have a feeling this will become the new normal.
6
So much for the greatness of unregulated capitalism.
5
@HT
Utility companies are actually among the most highly regulated entities in the nation.. and particularly in California.
I honestly do not know why anyone would ever be a shareholder in a public utility company... when they are so hamstrung by state mandates and controls.
4
See Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
1
To Mr. Fuller -- I appreciated your "dear reader" work break narrative but my goodness, please be safe. Your life is far more important!
1
Corporate greed and refusal to invest in foreseeable need for investment in infrastructure is turning our most populous state into a third world nation. PG+E should be taken over as a public utility and treated like a bankrupt with the public as creditors.
3
@Sheldon Bunin
As a member of the public in California... I do not want to be on the hook for a utility companies liabilities.
Your idea is absolutely terrible, and it would not solve the issue of high winds and extreme fire hazard which are a part of life in California.
1
I have lived in Southern California since 1978 and the mismangedment by the Democratic Politicians has this Sanctuary State in a melt down that very well could lead to insolvency , there is Recall effort right now under way on Gov. Newsom which is absoulty a Must to bring this State back from the long long list of things that need to be Fixed!
6
@There for the grace of A.I. goes I
did you get your talking points directly from Trump on this?
It certainly reads like it.
1
God bless your Trumpian use of Capitalization and misdirection of blame to your political Enemies. PG & E is not Run by the government. In fact I suspect if the Evil Democrats had it their way they would prefer to regulate regional power companies to avoid causing fire. Your Beloved Republicans, not so much. Nice try at misdirected rage.
2
@There for the grace of A.I. goes I - Didn't the state almost have a complete meltdown when Arnold was governor?
1
PG&E should spend whatever it takes to make the system fire safe. Now the big question for commentators is how do you plan to get someone other than customers of the bankrupt company to pay for it? I’d like to read your imaginative ideas. Surely you don’t expect those who use other power suppliers in California or even in other states to provide the cash.
6
Maybe if they had quit giving those beautiful golden parachutes to the ones who screwed it up to start with it wouldn’t be as bad as it is.
Oh, and don’t forget fixing the gas lines all over the Bay Area to prevent another explosion.
1
You sued the electric company into Bankruptcy over starting fires. California, you won the evil corporation is bankrupt. The electric company response by cutting the power so not to start another fire. Now California wants to sue the Bankrupt for cutting power. Good luck with that.
11
wonder why they haven'y come up with other ideas, like putting the wires underground ? this can't be that difficult surely, just think of the costs of shutting down areas... start thinking for the future and stop the "what to do now" each time something happens
1
@Margaret Ryan ...As a rule of thumb, underground power lines cost ten times as much per mile as overhead ones.
2
@Margaret Ryan
The cost to put PG&Es more then 18000 miles of transmisison wires (which are the lines vulnerable to wind damage due largely to their locations) would be somewhere between 25 and 75 billion dollars. And it would take probably the better part of a decade.
You going to pay for it?
2
PG&E is in this for its own interest, not for the public's. Right now it's clear their chief interest is limiting any liability to themselves. In other words, they are acting like the shortsighted capitalist for-profit company they are and always have been. Problem is, what they are managing is something that requires a sense of fiduciary responsibility and public trust. It's clear they don't have either. I wouldn't shed a tear if the state took them over when they go bankrupt.
3
@John
They are following a state order to all public utility companies to actually actively prevent fires.. not just sit back and deal with them after the fact (which was the old method by some utility companies, including PG&E).
PG&E is following state mandate here.
2
Imagine if all the billions spent on "high-speed" rail went to improving the grid in CA instead. Needs vs. Wants.
7
Pitiful, simply pitiful.
The world's fifth-largest economy can't even keep the lights on... for days!
7
@badubois
Context is important here.
98% of the population of the state of California is completely unaffected by the current public safety event by PG&E.
@badubois - Didn't New York City just have a power outage this summer? People were on here whining about no AC and freaking out because they had no electricity.
Last month, Seattle had a little thunderstorm and lots of people lost power all across the Puget Sound. And at about the same time, the city shut down our water for a day due to construction. Stuff happens.
How do these criminals get AWAY with doing this? Seriously, America, you need to man up.
It's alright for them to cut power to people in need rather than spend some money to fix their equipment? Seriously, is this how helpless against corporate abuse the American people are now?
6
Newsome just banned the little hotel shampoo containers, which makes one think he has had enough time to fix the electricity crisis and prevent the blackouts that were announced a year ago.
oh, wait.
8
Please clarify in your reporting that a "customer" is PG&E speak for an electric meter. That meter can be for a multi-unit apartment building, a house, a business, a school, or an industrial customer. That means when you say 600,000 customers, you are drastically under-representing the number of PEOPLE who are being impacted.
8
@Mindy craig
Actually.. in most cases one meter = one household.. so it is accurate.
The number of "multi-unit appartments" that provide electricity to residents via one meter is so small as to not matter in terms of numbers impacted.
Nice try though.
How ironic if a fire starts from some other cause and home owners have no electricity for their well pumps to pump water to save their houses from burning down and then turn around and sue PG&E for cutting their power? PG&E’s fire fighting abilities come off about as ham fisted as it gets.
2
There is only one relatively fail-safe long term fix here, and that is to bury the transmission lines. Nearly all new projects (commercial developments, residential subdivisions) have been required for years to place all utility lines underground.
The State can assist in this effort by issuing very long-term bonds for a Statewide effort. Undergrounding electrical lines would not only fireproof the grid permanently, it would also remove extensive visual blight, make repairs safer and simpler, and reduce the environmental cost of continually replacing hundreds of thousands of toxically-impregnated (Creosote plus) wooded power poles in the State.
The utility is presently pursuing a cheaper, less effective and relatively temporary approach by replacing older transmission wires with newer, more heavily insulated wires, which, if blown down and frayed as happens during a windstorm, will still spark fires. The Governor and Legislature should insist on the undergrounding of all lines. That is the current code, and all old transmission lines should be brought in line with the current code.
121
Underground power lines have some serious problems. Earthquakes, for example. A much better and cheaper solution is solar panels on every roof, night time AC generators in every building, and battery storage walls.
17
@Omar Alan
"Undergrounding" the power lines would require money, which the bankruptcy judge overseeing PG&E won't, and can't, be allowed to be spent ahead of certain creditors. Regardless of what the Governor and Legislature insist. And government takeover PG&E doesn't solve this issue. The citizens of California are simply going to have to pay for the upgrades should they desire to avoid periodic blackouts.
10
@Omar Alan
Burying lines is not the only option. There are at least two others: harden the lines against wind threats through engineering measures, and develop a system to detect and deal with faults through a rapid-response system. Broken power lines are not the only source of wildfires, there are many others, and a rapid response system would be a general solution for all of them.
12
CA infrastructure, like everywhere, long overdue. If they expect PG&E to pay up, taxpayers will have to subsidize upgrades and/or ratepayers see their monthly bills soar. And give tax breaks to homeowners who live in places where they can put in wind and/or solar. Water will be next, and the national pinch will be shared as we all spend more in the grocery stores for CA produce....
4
When I lived in the Sierras, we had a public utility co-op, funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority-type funding, which did an outstanding job of taking care of us just one county over from the catastrophic Paradise fire. It is the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, and they served us because we were too remote for PG&E to make a profit on electrifying us.
Long lines through forests dried up from years of climate-change-driven drought are a severe fire hazard. There is no doubt about that. But massive, third-world style outages in places like Mountain View and Sausalito seem ridiculously unnecessary. In the Redwood Empire, sure.
This speaks of incompetence, which makes their ability to prevent wildfire all the more dubious.
What I fail to understand is why PG&E can't isolate the blackouts to areas most prone to wildfire.
4
When I lived in the Sierras, we had a public utility co-op, funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority-type funding, which did an outstanding job of taking care of us just one county over from the catastrophic Paradise fire. It is the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, and they served us because we were too remote for PG&E to make a profit on electrifying us.
Long lines through forests dried up from years of climate-change-driven drought are a severe fire hazard. There is no doubt about that. But massive, third-world style outages in places like Mountain View and Sausalito seem ridiculously unnecessary. In the Redwood Empire, sure.
This speaks of incompetence, which makes their ability to prevent wildfire all the more dubious.
What I fail to understand is why PG&E can't isolate the blackouts to areas most prone to wildfire.
1
When I lived in the Sierras, we had a public utility co-op, funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority-type funding, which did an outstanding job of taking care of us just one county over from the catastrophic Paradise fire. It is the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, and they served us because we were too remote for PG&E to make a profit on electrifying us.
Long lines through forests dried up from years of climate-change-driven drought are a severe fire hazard. There is no doubt about that. But massive, third-world style outages in places like Mountain View and Sausalito seem ridiculously unnecessary. In the Redwood Empire, sure.
This speaks of incompetence, which makes their ability to prevent wildfire all the more dubious.
What I fail to understand is why PG&E can't isolate the blackouts to areas most prone to wildfire. There's a transformer on every corner and huge control rooms overseeing much of this grid.
By the way, there hasn't been a single outage in the past six months in my little not-quite-first-world new home here, despite its slow recovery from crumbling post-Communist infrastructure. Also my electricity costs a lot less even though we don't have all of PG&E's dams destroying the wild salmon fisheries.
I live in the Bay Area. Parents of public schools in the area were given very short notice of the blackouts - some, less than 24 hours. The hardships that this puts on families is undeniable and inexcusable. The blackouts were because there was supposed to be high winds, increasing the fire danger. There were NO WINDS! There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of mismanagement by PGE so don’t even try to explain it.
2
@KM
When you pop off with this sort of misinformed nonsense... you are definitely going to get it "explained to you".
Blame that on your public school system.
My daughters school system alerted us almost 72 hours ahead of the planned start of the public safety event, and continued to give us updates several times a day as they talked with PG&E staff, and continue to do so.
As for there being "no wind"... you seem to not understand the issue at all here. High winds (gale force level winds) in foothills and mountain areas of northern California are where the issue is.. and if they have to cut power in those areas.. it does have a downstream impact to communities being fed by said power lines.
2
Bankrupt, PG&E has limited access to capital. Rate increases are denied, cutting off O&M funding. The company is liable for wildfire damages caused by sparks from electric infrastructure. There is no action the company can undertake that won’t be wrong. No politician will support a utility; what’s to be gained? So. California should buy out PG&E and make it a government unit answerable to the people. No more problems and the critics, with all the answers, will finally have control.
6
PG&E already raised our rates this year. When the gas line exploded in San Bruno several years ago, it was discovered that the administration at the top was delaying/denying required upgrades that ratepayers were paying for. People died, homes were destroyed and lives were changed overnight when that explosion occurred. The head of PG&E retired with a nice golden parachute and ratepayers were left holding the bag. He should have been tried in criminal court.
The PUC of California was no better. The San Francisco Chronicle found e-mails between one of the Commissioners and a PG&E official that showed collusion between the two.
It’s very frustrating.
I live in Santa Barbara; we lost relatively few houses in the fires that burned right up to the city. Then the rains came and sent a huge amounts of water rushing down our seasonal streams. The seared forests around us filled those streams with burnt logs which created dams and blocked the streams. When it was over hundreds of homes were lost and 36 lives were lost. I would gladly accept periodic power outages in return for lessenig those losses. Count your blessings.
5
When I lived in the Sierras, we had a public utility co-op, funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority-type funding, which did an outstanding job of taking care of us just one county over from the catastrophic Paradise fire. It is the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, and they served us because we were too remote for PG&E to make a profit on electrifying us.
Long lines through forests dried up from years of climate-change-driven drought are a severe fire hazard. There is no doubt about that. But massive, third-world style outages in places like Mountain View and Sausalito seem ridiculously unnecessary. In the Redwood Empire, sure.
This speaks of incompetence, which makes their ability to prevent wildfire all the more dubious.
What I fail to understand is why PG&E can't isolate the blackouts to areas most prone to wildfire. There's a transformer on every corner and huge control rooms overseeing much of this grid.
By the way, there hasn't been a single outage in the past six months in my little not-quite-first-world new home here, despite its slow recovery from crumbling post-Communist infrastructure. Also my electricity costs a lot less even though we don't have all of PG&E's dams destroying the wild salmon fisheries.
Sue the electric utility for billions, put them into bankruptcy because of fires lawyers and mayors say they caused and they will react by not starting fires, and not delivering electricity.
California has a choice between attorneys or power. Or they could just do another power company which will take years to get to level of PG&E -- and start with all the power lines folks claim are starting the wildfires. Not the dry, or the heat, or the building in fire prone areas, or not clearing the undergrowth or cutting trees -- no really!
2
University of California, Berkeley, the premier US public research university, is on its own backup power today. Classes were cancelled today and yesterday. Only vital staff are at work today. A vast number of invaluable research samples are at risk of thawing, which could cost US taxpayers hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars of scientific research. Ongoing experiments may have been destroyed.
This PG&E debacle is impacting more than “just” SF Bay Area bedroom communities.
4
@ELS - :) Interesting. So, Berkeley, center of intelligence, has not had a plan B in place while sitting on top of major fault lines? I lost count of how many times I was woken in the middle of the night by quakes when I lived in San Francisco. Anything under 5.0 and you went back to sleep.
I have a solar powered battery I use for emergencies. Its the smallest made by the company and I used it to live outside in Seattle for a couple of winters. The same company makes one for around a grand that will run refrigerators without any problem. And they even have bigger stuff.
Its sad that the science students at Berkeley don't know about such things. Its even sadder that the students haven't figured out how to hook up all of those bikes in the gym that people spin 24/7 as a power source. Does anyone in the Bay Area watch MacGyver?
1
I feel for these people. Here in the Northeast we know what it is like to be without electricity for days, even weeks due to an ice storm.
After three days it feels like society starts to break down.
Food supplies get low, gas stations aren’t open, ATMs don’t work, intersections are a mess. It’s a disaster.
And to think this one isn’t a natural disaster, it is man made.
4
"Abundance of caution." That's one way to put it.
Absolute lack of a plan to turn it back on. Perhaps a bit better.
Finding extreme fire danger where all the brush was burned two years ago? Priceless.
Their website is a joke. The have NO customer service. The predicted winds just did not materialize in many places they turned off. AND wildfire occurred anyway.
They are purposely creating havoc because they can and in an effort to get their exposure to liability for POORLY maintained infrastructure erased.
What they should have done was hired many more line workers in preparation and reworked their switching to better isolate the ACTUAL areas of wildfire danger. People without power, in areas that burned two years ago (and thus are not in much danger of burning again) are being told it might be until Tuesday when their power can be restored. That would be a full week without power.
My husband was a lineman for PG&E when they had many more line workers. Then they cheaped out, let their line workers go and hired outside contractors when there were "emergencies." I wonder how many crews they hired in advance to be stationed at every switch to put power back on after THIS emergency of their own making.
2
PG&E is calling attention to its financial straits by suspending power to hundreds of thousands. When there is extreme fire danger, you issue an order of evacuation to threatened homeowners. And based on past fires, those threatened are virtually all the elderly and the disabled. Evacuation is the tried and tested means of dealing with the situation. Mass power outages are a transparent publicity campaign.
"I'm not an engineer but..."
"We can put a man on the moon and we can't..."
"Why can't all those brilliant tech people just..."
As one of those tech engineer people - I think people see an iPhone, see Star Trek, and think we must be there! Tech isn't magic, and isn't free. More intelligent power lines - huge increase in power cost. Systems to instantly monitor - how do you maintain those over hundreds of miles of desert, hills, scrubbrush, mountains? Oh, yeah, that's the utilities problem - but they better not raise my rates!
It's all a trade off, and it's not so easy. I'm no PG&E fan, but the idea that the tech is all there, and they just aren't choosing to use it - it's not reality. Last year they were told that if a single spark escapes, they are held responsible for every outcome from the fire. That told them their priorities - no sparks, period, because even one can cost billions. They can't turn and fix everything immediately even if the tech existed to do it easily, and even if everyone would be fine with a massive jump in their rates to pay for smarter electric lines.
PG&E have been horrible with maintenance, but there are real issues here. I keep having horrible flashbacks to the parody with seven red perpendicular lines...
4
California's politicians have mismanaged the power system for decades. The power company has gone bankrupt twice in the past 20 years. The politicians are beholden to environmental radicals who are anti-technology and oppose building anything near anybody. As a result of all the rules and regulations, it is difficult to build the power system that we need.
These shutdown plans have been known for months. The same Democratic politicians who are now tweeting in outrage said nothing when the plans were first announced. There is a lot of hypocrisy among the political elite.
People can criticize PG&E for not spending more on power line maintenance in the past. What they don't mention is that PG&E has been forced to spend huge amounts of money on new wind and solar generation. As a result, power prices have skyrocketed in California. At peak times, power costs 38 cents/kilowatt-hour in my area.
2
Folks in CA want it all. They want to live in terrain that is ideal for fire to spread and hard to fight. They want reliable power all the time at reasonable prices. They want to be able to sue their power company when wind brings down power lines. Sorry you can't have it all.
4
Is it just me or does this prove the point that a single mega utility company isn’t capable of maintaining their own infrastructure? If not it certainly begs the question of whether this is the most effective way to administer and maintain the power infrastructure in our state. Some clients of mine from Europe were aghast that this could happen anywhere in the US let alone a state like California.
4
The warning signs were posted long ago. We have the worst infrastructure in the Bay Area right now. Our highways and roads were built in the 40's and 50's. All the bridges in the Bay Area are at least 50 years old except for one span of the Bay Bridge that they had to fix because it already collapsed in the last big quake. Back when we had a drought, we worried about Sierra snowpack and water delivery. The power grid is just another thing to add to the list of failing systems. When we do start to care about this stuff. I pay property taxes and pay for school bonds and pest control. When do we decide to use the tax money we collect on the really big things that make the modern world work? PGE provides the services that keep us warm, fed, safe. These are the basic needs of most normal people.
12
It is not only homes that have been affected. Universities have shut down their campuses and classes cancelled now for two days, and probably on to Friday (3 days). This is unacceptable. If this is a precedent of what may continue to happen in the future (it is not going to rain anytime soon), universities need to develp alternate backup plans. PErhaps they need more powerful generators. Or, may I inquire, why do classes have to be cancelled, at least during the day, because there is no electricity? There are old fashioned ways of teaching that can be used in these situations short of cancelling classes. Instructors can use blackboards, the human voice does not need so much support to lecture or hold discussions, most class roooms have windows so sunlight does come in, even if it may be a bit darker than usual inside the classroom. Most buildings do not have air conditioning, so ventilation is not a problem--open the windows. It won't be as comfy as usual, but at least instruction is not completely interrupted. Serve cold food in cafeterias. Blackouts take place regularly in many third world countries and people learn to live with them. Most businesses in the northern CA area kept their doors open. UC universities went too far. Hopefully this will be a warning sign that backup plans need to be developed. This is simply unacceptable. To make things worse, winds did not feel particularly strong these last two days.
10
@tdb My experiments and frozen samples at UCD years ago would not have survived.
Go outside and teach under a tree--no wind! My power out, just trashing frig contents. No wind here either.
I didn't understand class cancellation either.
1
I have solar panels on my house. I live in Denver. I am connected to the grid though. The cost of a battery was prohibitive even though I would have liked one so I could have electricity even when the grid was down.
We need more reasonably priced batteries.
10
@Kerry Girl, Tesla’s working on those at their battery factory in Nevada. Now they can double the prices for them once they develop them and justify the added cost as a fire suppressing upgrade.
3
It seems to me that PG&E ought to invest a little in infrastructure to make the lines safer and capable of dealing with wind storms. It should not be that tough but it would cost a little more than shutting off power to people who need it.
How much more evidence do people need to realize that Utilities like electricity, gas and water need to be taken back out of the hands of the market. (Healthcare too.) No more private utilities. Public utilities are repeatedly shown to be more efficient and less costly to the consumer.
15
@hyp3rcrav3
Yes. A utility is an automatic monopoly - they should never have been allowed to be privatized. The myth that privatization improves things is only a myth.
3
So many seem to think it's about the wind in their yard. It's not. It's about high winds in the areas where the high voltage lines run. And while there's a lot to be said about PG&E's lack of maintenance, there's also a lot to be said about a mandate to bury lines without some legal mechanism to require landowners to allow them to bury the lines without having to negotiate every foot individually.
It's not being handled well, but it's also not as simple as "there's no wind here!" or "they should have just buried the lines". These problems need to be solved, and holding the company fiscally responsible for all outcomes of a stray spark, while not holding them fiscally responsible for shutting power down is creating an obvious path for the power companies.
15
@SusanStoHelit The problem is not that there are "stray sparks" from PG&E's high voltage power lines. It is that those towers are way past their useful lives, and pieces are literally falling off. There are many, many places turned off that are served by high-voltage lines that do NOT go through areas vulnerable to wildfire.
8
@Observor
Really? Living in California, I don't see much land that isn't vulnerable to wildfire other than on the coast, but the power for the coast goes through wildfire vulnerable areas. If they're turning off power to places they don't have to, that's a whole other matter.
Maintenance is a major issue - another reason these utilities never should have been private - private business has every reason to pick up the profits at the expense of maintenance until the CEO can grab his golden parachute and leave the mess to the next guy.
2
Gavin Newton should step down. These electric shut-down plans are a total joke.
His sharpie pen for wind-forecasting is even worse than Trump’s.
4
@Charlie No, Charlie. Gavin Newsom, not Newton, doesn't turn to a sharpie pen or Twitter in times of loneliness and panic. He leads. He had to stand next to Trump and maintain control in the charred ruins when Trump called Paradise, California Pleasure, California so Trump wouldn't take offense and cut off Federal funds to the disaster victims, most of them poor, uninsured and underinsured Republicans.
PG&E is a power company. PG&E shut down the power lines.
Feel the winds, Charlie. The only way forward is to take action and support solutions.
1
Huh? Gavin Newsom did not shut off the power! PG&E did that. From one living in reality.
1
PGE lines set Sonoma and Napa on fire.
Public tells PGE to fix the lines to stop the fires.
PGE stock tanks so no capital available.
PGE maxes out rate increases AND goes broke.
PGE tells public hope you like the 18th century.
26
@JP
Exactly. What did people expect would happen?
Let's face it. In California it is too expensive for PGE to provide power due to the risk of massive fires.
I SUGGEST everyone convert to solar power. According to all the experts, it is the right thing to do.So do it,
17
Impressive what consequences and threats from multi-billion dollar law suits can do.
I hope someone (especially PE&G) has thought about the potential spark risks when turning back on such a large proportion of the grid when there are fire risks.
4
@JFR
They have. They've given notice that after the winds it will take some additional time to safely turn the power back on.
2
Way past time for PG&E to start burying power lines in areas highly susceptible to fire. Add up the costs of the recent fires to PG&E, the loss of property and perishable goods, losses to business who shut down, wage losses of employees who have jobs curtailed or ended, let alone the loss of people who died or were injured. Then say with a straight face that it is too expensive to put the wires underground.
14
All utility users should not be required to pay for the improvements. Those in areas prone to problems should have an added delivery service charge on their bills. Why would those people expect that other utility customers should pay the cost?
4
@Cadcny
It sounds simple but it isn't simple and it's very expensive.
2
@jaco yoy don’t think the ratepayers won’t be paying billions in court ordered damages for fire losses?
I lived in Bakersfield for 27 years, 25 of which were spent in my suburban home. I retired from the State of CA and sold the home in 2012 to return to NH, taxes being one of the major considerations, not to mention the air quality in Bako.
When I returned to visit the following year, I did a drive-by of my home to see what the new owners had "changed". To my delight I noticed a bank of solar panels on the roof, an investment I could not afford, even with the tax credit, at the time. Kudos to them, smart folks I never met.
Here in NH where power outages are the order of the day in the winter, I did take the plunge almost immediately to invest in a whole house generator. Winter in stretches of sub-zero weather is no time to lose power...forget the meat, it's the plumbing! And I do no longer need an inhaler either.
As to my thoughts on PG&E, this is the NYT, not CNN.
5
Berkeley hills - a non-event. virtually no wind all day yesterday and even last evening/early a.m. 20 mph gusts max plus temps in the high 40s/low 50s - we get way worse (25/30 to 40 mph gusts) routinely during the storm season and into spring.
PGE trying to cover its years of neglect with "power safety" and turn lemons (shoddy infrastructure) into lemonade (look how we are protecting you) when really it was disproportionate to the issue. interestingly, we were in the "outage map" but retained power, so someone there seems to have tried -- late in the game -- not to make the outage overbroad and to tailor it to risk/conditions.
6
@Mark: The State of California refused to allow PG&E and SCE to increase power rates to pay for that maintenance, much less the increase in oil prices. It is the reason they went bankrupt. The State is the problem.
7
We have reached an inflection point across numerous sectors - healthcare, energy, and transportstion, among others- wherein the profit motive has far outstripped the public good. The ideology of the Chicago School of economics with an outright fetish for privatization has scorched civil society.
Who pays the price? The average citizen and worker does while 21 trillion dollars floats up to the 1 per cent. Get my fiddle, Rome is literally burning.
22
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
Aldous Huxley
6
I blame everything bad that happens in the world these days on Trump.
Nine times out ten, I ultimately discover that my initial hunch was right.
This leaves me a lot of free time to think about other things.
17
@A. Stanton, better recheck that tenth, I’m sure you’ll Trump’s fingerprints somewhere.
1
You’re right. When Trump was President 20 years ago, he should have required PG&E to update and secure their transmission system from causing fires.
2
@A. Stanton Why stop at nine times?
I am w/o power since about 4 am Wed. No idea when it will come back on. Frig flooding water--afraid to open freezer. Running, charging laptop on a Black and Decker Electromate 400--also jumps cars and pumps tires, but those are OK.
Hark! A helicopter! hope they are flying lines prior to restoration.
Three days ago I saw the belly of one at eye level out my dining room desk window--fire hazard for sure.
I hate PG&E, this is unnecessary, we have had ZERO wind.
10
In Puerto Rico, we went months without electricity, and nobody seemed to care...now, this angst.
35
@Joe Just because the Trump administration didn't care doesn't mean nobody else did. We were outraged on your behalf and sent money to relief agencies.
I suggest you try to become a state. You'll get better attention from Washington that way.
2
People cared. But there’s corruption and ineptitude everywhere. A little more complaining and then putting your money where you’re mouth is ( ie voting) can actually move things along faster sometimes.
California has had years to prepare for droughts and climate change and have done almost nothing to demand people ration water instead of blatantly wasting it on landscapes etc. The worst is yet to come and they are woefully unprepared.
15
@Jacquie
I can tell you don't live here. We are quite aware of and conserving of water here.
1
Lighting fires in your back yard does not seem like an especially smart or good idea during peak fire season and an episode of predicted high winds so worrying that the power, rightly or wrongly, was shut off. Come on, people. Think of someone besides yourself for a change.
10
@sunandrain
Agree. Mill Valley would be an absolute disaster if a wildfire swept through there. The narrow, winding roads would be clogged with evacuees and emergency personnel unable to respond. Not unlike the Oakland Hills fire in '91. Lighting fires in the backyard seems the height of foolishness. My sympathy to those with power shut off though...
2
I see the "private sector would never get this wrong" crowd are silent on this one
11
@Marion Grace Merriweather They are essentially public sector workers. Whether they are are a public or government monopoly, what makes you think we’d be better off? DMV?
This is yet another disaster created by Pacific Gas and Electric.
No wind at all in our area last night but power was shut off. No warning as PGE website was down and when it did work gave insufficient information. PGE website does not work on the best days.
Small businesses are losing billions of dollars across Northern CA.
Ask any of the PGE executives if they personally are suffering from the outages and see what they say. sarcasm.
11
This is why we need a system that allows them to supply you with power if you agree to absolve them and your insurance company of liability if some event causes a major loss to you.
2
“State Senator Bill Dodd, a Democrat who represents northern counties of the Bay Area, said the situation was “beyond frustrating” in a statement on his website. “Public safety power shut-offs have a role to play when they’re needed to prevent massive wildfires,” he said.”
The other option is to begin placing these power lines underground, but PG&E is too concerned about profit to undertake the necessary steps.
So long as PG&E is creating energy policy in California (the CPUC is pretty much a subsidiary of PG&E, and pols like Dodd are owned by PG&E), the fires will continue and the power outages will too.
No one is talking about long-term solutions to this problem, and even the media is afraid to point that out.
5
@Ed Watters In the longer term, there are huge areas of California that are becoming entirely uninhabitable, but there doesn't seem to be any mention of that anywhere. These are places that are simply too dangerous to live in - between wildfires, flash flooding, and mud slides, I can't imagine why so many people live in these areas.
1
This reminds me of the Russian turning off the natural gas to Europe via the Ukraine gas pipeline back a few years ago in the middle of winter. PG&E is under bankruptcy and of course they would like to be saved (or bailed out) so this is their way of signaling that you'd better save us or you're going to suffer power outages like some 3rd or 4th world country!
8
How can there be no fines whereby maintaining the infrastructure would be cheap by comparison?
4
Considering the huge costs involved in the shutdowns PG&E could almost place an employee with a fire extinguisher at each pole. Some ideas: a string of stationary IR satellites to spot early fires; rapid response fire teams placed at strategic points during fire season, including helicopters and tankers to supplement local resources; smaller outage areas and rotate the outages to lessen the regional impact; reconsider the practice of inspecting the whole system before re-energizing. A working website would be nice too, but that seems to be beyond their grasp.
11
I can't believe that in the land of Silicone Valley the most gifted among us cannot come up with a better solution than one Thomas Edison could imagine.
I'm no engineer, but instead of shutting down the entire grid for fear of a tree falling on a power line, can't we invent a large ground fault interrupter that could be placed on every tenth, twentieth power pole that shuts off the power FOR THAT EVENT when it detects an interruption? and then signals back its exact location to bring help?
8
@RonRich I am not sure calling Silicone Valley the most gifted among us. Consider Elizabeth Anne Holmes who is the American founder and former CEO of Theranos, a now-defunct company known for claiming to have revolutionized blood testing which was all a sales pitch and she is awaiting fraud charges and more.
5
@RonRich
Truly, thanks for the chuckle. Tech isn't interested in helping Americans; they want profits above all else. In that sense they might as well be Standard Oil.
5
A) it’s far north of Sillicon Valley. B) Yes!
How does a company that is guaranteed a 10%+ return on its equity by state regulators not adequately harden its infrastructure to adapt to a changing climate? The state should either take over PG&E's assets or the company should be forced to operate as a non-profit (i.e., all profits would be reinvested in grid infrastructure with an eye towards safety and resiliency). PG&E management has been asleep at the wheel for years.
19
@Father of One "The ultimate paradigm for a government-run project is the public restroom."
1
There are high winds blowing across the state which could bring down power lines. Such events have started big and destructive fires beginning in hard to reach areas but which the dry and windy conditions allow to spread rapidly. It's a matter of inconvenience for many who live far from the big fires to help protect those who do and to save billions of dollars in costs to fight fires and property lost to fires.
People who spend their lives in cities with underground utilities don't seem to grasp why power is distributed above ground. They think that all that power could be submerged as easily as distributed above ground.
5
@Casual Observer There is NO WIND up here.
But my power is out.
4
That’s not the issue - the issue is PG&E not maintaining and investing in infrastructure, then cutting off power to paying consumers as a result. Shutting off power to nearly a million homes is no solution at all.
@Ivy
Remarkably complex network, isn't it?
Centralized power grids are great until the switch gets turned off as it has in so many places for so many reasons, from fires to hurricanes, to glitches. Micro and local grids powered mostly by renewable energy, and equipped with battery backup storage are the way to go especially in places like California and the South East US.
9
This is 2019. If we can put a man on the moon and launch satellites into orbit, we should also be able to have electricity when it's windy.
This is the culmination of a decades long negligence when it comes to infrastructure R&D; negligence caused by prioritizing near-term share holder (mostly big banks and hedge funds) returns above all else. A public service monopoly should never have been a publicly traded company. The moment its shares could be bought an sold by those other than the public it is supposed to serve, it's priorities were mis-aligned.
Non-Californian share holders of PG&E will continue to push for postponing or underfunding maintenance while applauding power outages that reduce legal liabilities because they profit from it. All the Californians sitting in the dark right now are doing so not just in the name of public safety, but in service of PG&E shareholders. Their [potentially life threatening] inconvenience = shareholder profit.
41
@ab Are people aware that they pay massive amounts of money to PG&E, through fees and taxes, and that the power company has the responsibility to work on 'deferred maintenance', and not just blow off repairs? How are we allowing this to occur?
Perhaps after the power has been turned off for a few days, people will start getting annoyed.
How a private company has the right to disrupt the lives of so many people and cause so much financial damage to businesses and private homes is beyond me. Schools that were in no danger whatever had to close and lose financial support because they only get it when students are in the classrooms, grocery stores that stood to lose thousands in perishable foods because power was cut off, private citizens who had to scramble for childcare, and myriad other disruptions, all because a private company is more committed to fat bonuses for their executives, revenue for their stockholders, and phony advertising about how responsible they are instead of spending the money they were given to clean up and maintain their power grid.
PG&E is not a public service, it is a for-profit company. To be grateful to them and continue to support their greedy mismanagement and indifference to the State of California's citizens is wrongheaded.
39
@dutchiris
PG & E is reminding you of who is in charge and if you don't save them from bankruptcy, this will be your daily life. The Russians turned off natural gas in the middle of winter when the Germans were all for the Orange Revolution in Ukraine just to remind the Germans who is really in charge.
2
We are just learning that, for the past two and a half years, many people in the current administration have been busy running around like squirrels trying to prove trump’s whacko conspiracy theories, such as that Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election; the Ukraine did. Imagine if all that time, taxpayer money, and energy had been spent on improving the nation’s coast-to-coast infrastructure. Yet NOW trump wants to blame the few weeks’ old impeachment inquiry for his failure to get things done for the American people. California is currently the most visible casualty of trump’s inattention to infrastructure, but it is hardly the only casualty.
In part, Bill Clinton survived his own impeachment because it did not derail him from doing the job for which he was elected. The problem with trump is that he has no notion of what that job entails, other than inflating his own ego and fattening his coffers.
10
I appreciate the New York Times' coverage generally, but this article misses the mark. People aren't "grumbling" because the power needed to be shut off in some areas. They're angry, rightfully, because PG&E didn't invest the funds it was paid in important maintenance and the whole state suffered due to fires PG&E caused. Now the company can't even manage to provide basic information about what it's doing where and why. Take my family's experience. PG&E's website has been constantly down. On the morning of Oct. 8, the only time I was able to access the site, our address wasn't shown in a potential outage area. But all other maps I could find that were presumably based on PG&E's data showed it was. Two days later, a functioning website from Arcgis is finally up. It shows our address and two of our friends' addresses in outage areas. Shut-offs in our county happened last night at 10 p.m. Our power's on. One of our friends has power, the other doesn't. Other friends whose addresses are outside all predicted outage areas don't have power. How are people supposed to prepare for an emergency when the company that's caused it can't provide reliable information?
66
@JS I got a call from PG&E about the planned outage. It gave me a 13 digit code to use on the website under "my addresses." Lovely, except there's no place named that on the website. Their outage map is color coded, with no legend. And they cannot even estimate when power will be restored.
4
@Observor Someday how PG&E handled this will be written up in textbooks as a chapter titled "What Not to Do in Managing an Emergency." And state officials really should have anticipated a bankrupt utility wouldn't deal with this well and insisted on a clear action plan.
2
@JS Well said!
Weird how only american electric companies have not come up with a solution to this problem. In Europe we have high winds, dry forest and yet when a storm hits the electric company does not shut down. Could burying the lines be a solution?
8
@arm19
The distances between power sources and users is not comparable with the United States. There is a very good reason that the U.S. uses three phase alternate current systems while Europe relies upon direct current systems.
The AC systems deliver more power over greater distances.
6
@Casual Observer
Europe uses three-phase AC just like we do for distribution and most transmission. Also high-voltage DC transmission (hundreds of thousands of volts and above) is more efficient and cost-effective than three-phase AC over long distances. In fact, there's been talk in the US and in Europe of building a HVDC supergrid to supplement and replace our current, aging 3-phase AC transmission system.
The main difference between the US and Europe is that Europe uses 208-220-240 VAC for end user circuits while we use split-phase 120/240 VAC.
2
@Casual Observer
And you can't bury an AC system? Or is it just a cost argument?
So tell me again why I should live in California again? Sorry but could not resist. Fires, flooding rains, mud slides, drought, earthquakes, high cost of living, and, oh yes, no power....
Seriously folks, you cannot have it all, you cannot sue PG&E for providing power in a hazardous high fire risk environment and then get mad when they have to cover their back side and cut power during high risk conditions. Those living in high risk remote areas are unfairly taxing the rest of the state with this liability, they are the new "ocean front" in the climate change world.
7
@Jc Consumers did not sue PG&E; their insurance companies did.
1
@Jc Native of DC area here, who self-deported to CA--and that was before all the yuppie transients descended on DC/MD/VA.
It is far better here, despite my current lack of power.
1
Looks like PG&E is just too big to be run efficiently. Or perhaps the management is just incompetent. And the structure of a central plant distribution power has its limits over really large areas. With renewables and new technologies, different models of distribution would invite more flexibility and localize problems. But that remains in the future, although technologically possible today.
3
My uncle, who lived in Napa, always called Pacific Gas & Electric "Pacific Gouge & Extortion". And that was decades ago when nothing ever seemed to go wrong. A little local humor from the good old days.
10
No offers from PG&E to pay for the consequences of this ridiculous, uncalled-for shutdown: injuries, accidents, and crime related to darkness and no traffic lights or street lights; loss of medicines needing refrigeration; loss of food stores needing refrigeration; loss of income from forced days off.
But who cares, since PG&E execs are sitting in air conditioned offices counting their money and stock portfolios, right?
9
Best argument for solar and wind power yet.
13
@troublemaker If you live in a house and own it. Not so much if you rent or live in an apartment. No landlord will pay for the installation of solar.
@troublemaker You mean, like, Crescent Dunes...?
If PG&E's outside plant, is this prone to cause fires, then they should be forced to underground those facilities.
2
Something's gone wrong here on part of the PG & E and the authorities because they should be able to adapt to the present more fire prone environment and shouldn't need to impose third world conditions on the public.
PG&E should be keeping their lines and right of way space around them clear. Doing that is standard utility practice and should greatly reduce risk of fire. That should be enough to get power to the substations. The utility probably shouldn't be liable when it has met good standards for line clearance and maintenance, but should be liable if it hasn't.
There might be a case for shutting off some distribution lines from the substations if they have inadequate clearance or if private service lines from them to customers pose risk. However that shouldn't be the case on many or most lines. If the problem is customer service lines or lack of space around distribution lines solving the problem may take change in regulations, upping standards, etc.and those served likely would need to fund it or go without service.
Keeping lines clear or upping standards for private service lines will increase costs, but those may be less that the cost of shutdowns like this one for the whole economy and affect on the public.
The public may need to also bear costs if PG&E needs to upgrade line clearance and maintenance practices.
Root cause of need to adapt seems to be human caused climate change and spread of increased human population into fire prone areas.
5
Perhaps those folks without power want to look into some solar panels? Energy security that's cheaper and better for the environment seems like a no-brainer. Clearly the rates they had been paying weren't enough to maintain a safe grid.
9
@Michelle Solar panel has its own issue in California. As energy storage technology is not mature, abundant day-time solar won't help the late-night electricity demand. This also causes an issue called "duck curve" in CA. The electricity demand currently in CA still depends on the traditional power plant. Of course, one could say we need to get more wind energy or so, but using more wind energy still needs the infrastructure to trans the electricity...
PG&E needs to renew its infrastructure ...
4
@Michelle RE: Being better for the environment: in addition to what "E" commented, the eventual waste that solar panels produce is immense. Also, when solar panels are disposed of in landfills, the modules of the panels can often break and those toxic chemicals may seep into soil and contaminate drinking water. I'm all for using solar panels for energy, but personally, not until I know that they are recycled in a way that is as close to 100% environmentally conscious as can be.
1
@Michelle Most people here live in apartments, as houses go for over a million dollars. How do they get solar systems?
5
Okay, I won't pretend to be an infrastructure expert, but it seems to me that if building can be designed to better withstand earthquakes, it should be possible to design and maintain power line and power line towers to withstand predictable high winds.
What, if anything, am I missing here?
2
@catstaff the issue isn't that they *can't* design better infrastructure. the issue is that PG&E has neglected infrastructure maintenance and updating for decades in favor of executive salaries and shareholder profits.
19
@catstaff The problems is PG&E, a private company, has been allowed to mismanage the lands where the lines are for 50 years. They failed to clear debris.
8
@catstaff Tens of billions to replace every power line in California with either buried power, or something hardened.
All it takes is one spark form one small line and, whoosh, up in smoke
1
I live in Eldorado County, been here for nearly 25 years. PG&E does very little to cut back the over growth up in the back country. It's rare to see a crew, other than the helicopter inspections and occasional helocopter line repair. They strung the lines decades ago and act surprised by forest growth. We're all expected to maintain defensible space, but PG&E ignores it. Fires would start regardless of climate change/drought. The difference is in the fire behavior because of climate change.
Now we are hostages to who will pay -- pay for fire damage, maintenance of lines, forestry maintenance around the lines, insurance costs (our quadrupled this year, but at least it's still offered for now), and CalFire taxes.
PG&E doesn't want to pay to upgrade the lines or cut back the trees around their lines. BLM, USFS and CalFire don't have the resources either. Either way, PG&E keeps its assets and profits and we're going to foot the bill -- taxes, more "facility fees" on the electric bill, or in lost revenues and lives during blackouts.
Hey, did you guys even notice that the last time the state had rolling blackouts PG&E had hand in it? And they ran to bankruptcy court then too.
17
@Bob The last time we had rolling blackouts, Gov. Gray Davis was recalled. Remember Enron.
2
@Bob Near you. Watched years of rebranding trees, now "rainbow trees", it would take less time to cut them down.
Power out now, days ago looked up from computer and saw belly of helicopter BELOW the tree line, at eye level. "Unleaded fuel only", and merely a few hundred feet away from me.
Great way to start a fire!
1
@vspdance Davis was recalled 10/07/2003. PG&E filed for that bankruptcy July 2003. Governor Davis was a lot of things, most of them not good. But he wasn't wrong about CA being ripped off by Enron and PG&E. They manufactured the so called energy crisis to manipulate the price. It all ended on a dime when Senator Jeffords switched control of the US Senate. Senator Feinstein set a hearing date and viola! problem solved -- no more unexplained energy shortage and no more holding us hostage with pay 5x the rate or no power. PG&E took its California $$$ it scammed with its electricity market manipulation and moved into its parent company prior to the bankruptcy filing of 2003. Imagine if they'd never helped rip off the state for nearly 8 billion? Imagine if they were forced to claw back all that profit they moved for the bankruptcy? These aren't free market actors. They're narcissistic scam artists. This is nothing more than hostage taking to play hardball. Same thing, different scam.
The blackouts are a logical consequence of imposing strict liability on PG&E. Maybe they should go the further step (which presumably would require regulatory approval) of terminating electric distribution in all these remote area which are prone to drought and wildfires.
Politicians, being the lying skunks that they are, want voters to think they can have it all: PG&E to pay for all wildfires, cheap power and no outages.
It's not possible. You can loot the PG&E shareholders once, but, as the PG&E bankruptcy demonstrates, there is a limit.
Those who complain about neglected infrastructure might ask themselves who is going to pay for it?
People who live in these beautiful but remote locations are already being vastly subsidized by the rest of the rate payers. Really, they ought to be using solar panels and batteries and be disconnected from the electric grid. The technology is here to do this effectively, albeit perhaps at a higher cost for the homeowners.
But, since they don't have to pay the true cost of their power, they choose to have electricity from the grid and then whine and complain about blackouts.
41
@Mac I never thought of Sausalito and Mill Valley as especially "remote." And aren't major utilities effective monopolies? Techno-utopianism cant about "living off the grid" is just that: cant. The current arrangement is the only one we have at present, and people losing expensive food or small business going under had every rational expectation that service would continue.
44
@Mac Baloney. If they spent their money on their equipment instead of handing to the shareholders we wouldn't be in this mess. Easy to say in Chicago.
25
@Mac
Sausalito and Mill Valley are just across the Golden Gate Bridge, less than 15-20 minutes from downtown San Francisco on a good traffic day!
12
Here’s what I find so bizarre about the posturing in CA. Was at our home yesterday which is now without power some 36 hours into the blackout. We have medical needs and are a “medical baseline” customer meaning PGE knows we have medical needs in the home. Think we’ve received any updates since the blackout began? Nope. Did PGE let us know in an adequate way where it’s emergency locations are located? Nope. Are these locations adequately supplied and staffed with 24 hour access? Nope. Yet still their talking points make the rounds. The promised winds hadn’t materialized as of yesterday late afternoon in the foothills. Now I’m in Las Vegas for work. The winds are substantially stronger in Vegas than they were in the Central Valley of CA during my departure. Have 1.2 million people in Las Vegas lost power which has significant above ground power line exposure? Nope. Yet Governor Newsom claims PGE’s actions are industry best practice? Come on. Cut the nonsense. PGE did a horrible job maintaining its system for the past couple of decades. The state didn’t hold PGE accountable. The hand wringing here is inexcusable. When Vegas pulls power like what PGE is doing then talk to me about best practices. Until then, it seems to me Governor Newsom is making a big mistake siding with PGE on this matter. PGE’s approach to managing this blackout is inexcusable and the the Governor, his administration and every elected official in the state feel culpable to me.
92
Living in the unforested mountains around San Fran is not living in the flat desert of Las Vegas.
Lawmakers have forced this upon PGE after years of letting people build in areas untenable for overhead electric power.
Kinda similar to government ‘letting’ people building on a flood plain here in Houston.
Whining to the government when it doesn’t go your way, but do whatever you want otherwise, is not sustainable, responsible living.
14
Identical analogy referenced applies to say the area around Mt. Rose, Reno, Park City, or perhaps Steamboat Springs. Each have dealt with wildfire and drought risks over the years. I just happen to be in Vegas hence the reference. As referenced, when Colorado, Nevada, and Utah respond to threats in similar fashion then speak to me about state of the art responses. Until then, PGE’s approach is draconian not state of the art.
5
@Tom B.:
I have worked for Southern California Edison (SCE) and have been a Power Line Dispatcher for the Western Power Grid (Bonneville Power Administration, BPA). The state of California has financially strapped its power companies in an attempt to take them over. The state controlled the power rates by forcing them lower when oil prices went down, but refused rate increases when oil prices went up. In effect, (nationalizing, or) busting them and forcing them into bankruptcy. The state now controls water flow, power flow and power routing.
Power line protection is operated by the wires ‘sparking’ when they go down, it’s how it works (like blowing a fuse). If the power companies are going to be liable for every fire, they have the right to shut it down for their own financial protection. It is now up to California’s politician to relieve the power companies’ liabilities for natural wire ‘sparking,’ or explain to the population that weeklong blackouts will become a reality.
5
For a company that is bankrupted, and that provides a critical service that we can't honestly afford to loose, I am grateful they're taking this action. What risk can they afford at this point?
While we're without power right now, I much prefer a few days of this to the risk that the wildfires ignited by our electrical system pose...
3
I'm not sure I see the problem. Isn't the Green New Deal just getting a head start in the Bay Area? You have energy not produced and consumed, and fires not being started, so huge amounts of CO2 not being created. Sounds like a win win. And the residents of California don't mind: they've been clamoring for this for years.
21
The green new deal is not “just getting a head start” in California. California is a world leader and innovator in green tech and environmental regulation all while being the sixth largest economy on earth and having a balanced budget. Don’t confuse having to grapple with climate change and a corrupt utility with the overall dynamic of the state. And don’t naively think your immune. Climate change will touch everyone.
1
Memories of 2003 eastern blackout, proximate cause of which was failure of an Ohio utility to do proper vegetation maintenance, resulting in short to ground on a high voltage line which took down entire east coast. Kind of important to keep those trees trimmed!
8
It looks at a distance that PG&E have been skimping on maintenance and upgrades and are afraid that their equipment will indeed be defective and cause a fire.
I am sure no one wants a fire on the other hand all those faithfully paying their utility bills have a right to get electricity.
This sounds like many third world countries where I have lived. They usually give you a schedule though. Like 10 PM to 6 AM no lights.
13
@gpickard This IS a third world country - practically. Electric lines all above ground when they should be underground. They could be put underground when the roads and bridges that are crumbling are fixed. OH....they're not going to be fixed. What a surprise!
6
All of PG&E's asset should be turned over to the state, so the state can reform the company with a new and appropriately experienced and capable management team, and use whatever profits it generates across the coming years to pay for the billions of dollars of damages that the company is already directly responsible for.
And, if there's any possible way to legally do it, current and recent top PG&E executives should be very heavily personally fined and serve real jail time. They're directly responsible for the gross negligence of the company over the last decade that's the cause of the big mess now.
21
@fact or friction Wow - so you're advocating 'socialism' as the answer to our PG&E problems? Better be careful or you'll have the Trump Administration investigating you!
so lets look at the numbers:
PG&E has ~16 million customers, and thousands of miles of high voltage power distribution lines that route power to local community power grids.
~750,000 customers have been impacted by the need to shut down live power to powerlines that are at risk of failure due to unusually high wind conditions (ie: gale force wind levels). Not all customers have been impacted all at once, nor have all been impacted equally.... because it totally depends on wind conditions in real time (as opposed to forecasts, which is what PG&E has to use for it's planning and logistics.
Weather conditions and fire conditions are currently extreme risks for more then a dozen counties in northern California. One spark from one downed power line in high wind conditions on dry foliage and you have a fire that literally cannot be stopped or even reasonably managed... thus putting both lives and natural resources at risk.
Over 200 California residents died last year due to one fire triggered by one downed power line from one wind event. PG&Es ultimate liability for this will be multiple 10s of billions of dollars. And the state has made it clear to PG&E will not be indemnified by the state or allowed to shirk liability.
What PG&E is doing with this power safety event is inconvenient for ~5% of it's customers, but it definitely is the right thing to do.. so as to avoid needless loss of life due to severe wind and fire conditions.
8
@Chuck Out since Wed c. 4am, NO WIND.
Ton of dead food in frig and likely freezer though.
The current blackout will require an investment of many billions of dollars. While I applaud the restructuring of California’s electricity no matter what the cost, I think the changes may only make a small improvement in the threat of catastrophic wild fires. Only a small number of wild fires each year are proven to have been ignited by downed power lines. But by far, the largest category of wild fires is NO KNOWN SOURCE OF IGNITION. The actual sources of ignition are merely speculation in many cases. No evidence survives the fires. The fires occurred in remote locations. There were no eye-witnesses.
I would like to suggest a different cause of ignition for these remote fires that no one is even talking about now: arson. Specifically arson committed by psychopaths, sociopaths and serial killers. If you read the literature written by criminologists and psychiatrists who specialize in studying serial killers who have been caught and interviewed, it is clear that a large majority of these serial killers have fire-setting in their backgrounds, beginning from early youth. They may even have some deliberate murders by arson in their case histories, for example the notorious Peter Kurten in Germany, and just recently Samuel Little in Tennessee.
Thus, it is an open question whether more wildfires in California have been ignited by serial killers, rather than by power lines. I think some of those billions of dollars should be directed to studying this question thoroughly.
3
I don't understand all the agnst over this.
PG&E began communicating, through many different methods, to customers as soon as the national weather service alerted them to gale force wind conditions coming to northern California foothills and mountains in the coming week. This includes emergency alerts over the emergency alert systems.. which have been lighting up my smartphone for days now. Add radio ads, etc. etc. etc.
PG&E assessed the reports and began planning how to deal with the wind conditions in a manner that would preclude a repeat of the Camp fire (which killed over 200 Californians). They determined that they may have to temporarily cut power to up to 800,000 residents. They also said that the actual impact may be less, and of lesser duration.. but they planned and communicated for the worst case predictions.
If you were unaware in advance of the coming power safety event... that is on you.. because PG&E encourages all customers to keep their address, phone, email, and other contact information current so they can notify you specficially if you might be impacted.
2
@Chuck I actually got someone from PG&E on the phone on Monday, because their website was down. I gave my address and was told that we were not scheduled for a shutdown. I confirmed that they had both my wife and my cell phone numbers, and was told we would get notification via text if anything changed. Then, last night my power went out without notification. So I'd say no, it's not on me other than trusting what I was told by this inept corporation.
12
A faulty, antiquated system to begin with. Time for renewables, now! Let’s use this opportunity to observe what aspects of our society and personal lives are dependent on this archaic grid and figure out ways to no longer be dependent upon it. We were sold snake oil. It doesn’t work, and it’s killing the planet - causing these symptoms of climate change that are now the norm. Time for people to take the power back and to no longer trust the corporate mode to provide for their lives. Be smart!
10
@Al Franken We miss you Al.
2
PG&E should be disbanded in some manner. They have shown complete incompetence, an unwillingness to maintain their power grid, and an amazing disregard for their customers. In the Pacific Northwest we too get a lot of wind, and have a lot of dry areas. We have NEVER had to worry about shutting down power because the infrastructure is so poorly maintained it can't stand up to annual wind events. Yes, power lines can start fires, but the extent of the dysfunction of PG&E is unbelievable. I wonder what they think people on oxygen are supposed to do? It wouldn't have to be an industry "best practice" if the company had invested as it should over the years in upgrading their transmission lines.
11
What needs to happen is class action suit of customers, not against current management, but to claw back salary and bonuses from prior management who did not provided adequate infrastructure to support the customer base, but ripped off profits for themselves and prior stockholders.
Just another case of greedy capitalists hollowing out a business, and leaving the debts to others.
7
While I understand the anger. I do not understand or condone people taking their anger out on the workers! MY husband is a worker, and we are also without power. But people shooting at the work trucks?! Remember, the workers want the electricity on too. They are there to turn it on. threatening them, shooting at them only delays the power being turned on!! I want my husband safe and his crews. Instead, ask them if they need some water, coffee or anything.
13
Let's keep making everything reliant on electricity, so that we can barely survive without it, and then turn it off! Great planning.
The boilers sold today are no longer able to work without electricity. My old one did, and got me through a nine-day power outage after Hurricane Sandy. Hot water, too.
Last year Verizon literally threatened to disconnect my land line unless I let them rip out the copper wires (which had maintained a strong phone line throughout that same power outage) and replace them with Fios--which goes dead the second the power goes out. A giant pile of batteries can keep it going for a few hours, but that is cold comfort.
We had the means to live without electricity but we are hellbent on making those days go away.
8
This is PG&E putting its own fear of being sued for its extensive negligence over the safety of hundreds of thousands of customers who are and will be affected by its deliberate power outage.
Earth to PG&E: If you stop your negligence and act responsibly for a change, you won't feel the need to keep putting customers at risk.
6
For decades PG&E has enjoyed a very profitable and very lazy business model, thanks to deregulation. They never buried power lines to emerging rural communities because it wasn’t cost effective. They begrudgingly cleared trees and brush from poles and large high voltage tower paths through the forests of Northern California after being fined for failing to do so, but never spent a nickel more than they were forced to. Power lines on old wooden poles run criss cross through the driest woodlands and grassy hills. They now are holding California hostage in the hopes that new legislation will be drafted releasing them from further liability in case of more fires. They won’t fix the problems that they created with poor infrastructure design, but they’ll cut electricity to make a point that they are the ones in power.
16
CA needs to update its laws so that PGE loses its guaranteed rate of return if infrastructure is not maintained. That way shareholders don't get rich at the expense of customers.
Is PGE going to bill customers for infrastructure maintenance charges during the period of no power? Just watch.
12
Every time I see that a Tesla owner is charging up their car before the power goes out, I laugh. They can afford a Tesla, but they can't afford a solar system to charge it? They might want to rethink their priorities.
8
@Rebecca Sharad Many DO have solar systems as well. In CA, the power from the solar systems is sent TO PGE and then 'sold back' to the customers. Like everything else, PGE, it's a racket.
10
@Rebecca Sharad 1) You cannot get supercharger speed at home. 2) Just like gas, you might want to top up while you are not home.
3
@Rebecca Sharad one of the disappointing things a lot of Californians with grid-connected solar panels have realized is that when the grid is shut down, they lose power the same as everyone else. This is why you need a battery setup like the Power Wall as well.
1
Sounds like corporate extortion to me. Just where were the winds last night? Given our extensive data sets from thousands of weather stations it should be easy to spot locations where it may have actually occurred.
If there were no winds why will it take 5 days for the company to verify the lines before restarting them.
28
@SBJim
Ignorance is bliss isn't it?
I have personally seen the wind forcasts, by location breakdown and intensity over the next 48 hours... on my local news stations. Said wind conditions are not at the location of my residence, but rather out in the foothills and mountain areas where high voltage power lines route a lot of the power needed for local communities.
As for the 5 days statement... if you actully read it... you would see that this is a worst case blanket estimate of possible power loss. The reality is for most customers.. it will be 0 to 48 hours..... with longer outages only happening due to actual damage to powerlines from winds which of course must be repaired before power could be restored.
2
@Chuck Over 500,000 customers (not reflective of actual individuals, which are far greater) have not had power for 36 hours now. 0 indication that it will be switched back on in the next 12. Now it is said that winds will not die down until tonight ... 48 hours. THEN they will begin to visually inspect "every inch of power lines" to switch back on. Likely this will extend through the weekend. Just sayin'.
3
@Chuck Over 500,000 customers (not reflective of actual individuals, which are far greater) have not had power for 36 hours now. 0 indication that it will be switched back on in the next 12. Now it is said that winds will not die down until tonight ... 48 hours. THEN they will begin to visually inspect "every inch of power lines" to switch back on. Likely this will extend through the weekend. Just sayin'.
While at no no unusual risk of fire, we had five hours notice of the shutdown. Apparently PG&E doesn’t even understand their own grid and it wasn’t clear who would be shut off.
Meanwhile, we have a power station in our country that is capable of producing power for the entire country. But PG&E couldn’t figure out how to pull it from the larger grid to do that.
So, our entire country went out for no good reason.
For most of us, it’s an inconvenience. For the elderly and disabled, this could be fatal.
23
@Chickpea Did you mean the entire "county" went out? Because the rest of the USA has plenty of power.
3
Gavin Newsom is an extremely attractive, capable, and intelligent leader, but he won't escape the taint of this. I lived through Jimmy Carter's energy woes, and rightly or wrongly, they stuck. If California, one of the richest parts of the planet, is electing to make residents go without electricity, then this is not going to end well for elected officials.
21
@Blair Yes, the governor and the Democrats are responsible for the high winds and single digit humidity at the end of the dry season that caused this.
We have had two major droughts in California in the last 50 years. Jerry Brown was governor for both of them. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Texas has a good Republican government, and they never have drought or other weather issues.
2
@Biji Basi
My point is that elective blackouts in one of the richest parts of the planet are a political loser, just as gas shortages were in 1979. It's not fair. It still happens.
3
If I were a company and I was facing billions in possible liability payments because the people I served wanted me to take the blame for whatever happens, I would be as prudent as possible and do things like this.
I don’t blame PG&E one bit.
These people need to quit complaining. It’s what they asked for, literally demanded.
16
Randy, PG&E deliberately cut costs by NOT maintaining the trees around their power lines, which it was REQUIRED TO DO, and that resulted in fires that killed scores of people and flattened entire towns. And severely poisoned the air for hundreds of miles around. It was sickening, literally and figuratively.
It did that out of greed and to please their shareholders.
That is why it was sued and ultimately declared bankruptcy.
15
Completely disagree.
This company has had billions in taxpayers money made available to improve infrastructure. Fix the infrastructural problems that lead to the increased risk of wildfires from downed power lines and then take measures, when necessary to avoid catastrophe.
Also there is no transparency in how and when a home or neighborhood or city will be affected. their website is completely unresponsive, so individuals have no way to concretely plan.
This is mismanagement of the highest order.
12
Its time to move away from the type of electricity grid now being utilized by PG&E. These long power lines have been shown to be serious fire hazards in a place where a small spark can cause huge destruction.
9
I see this as a preview of how our government will address future climate change issues. No electricity on windy days seems a bit like a third world solution for a rich nation problem.
It's almost like projecting that when my Manhattan streets are constantly flooded because of rising sea level the answer won't be seawalls and will be co-ops, condos and businesses constantly replacing everything in our basements over and over.
I can imaging the headlines "Subways Closed Until Further Notice" and "Electricity Turned Off to Avoid Pedestrian Electrocution." I can see a city dying because of a pathetic federal government and a bankrupt local government.
12
So a few Californians deal with a power outage by having a fire in their backyard...during red flag warnings and the height of fire season?!
Wow.
7
@B Dawson During the "height" of fire season in the immediate Bay Area last night, even in the warmest areas, it was 65-63 degrees with no wind. Those conditions do NOT equate a high fire risk.
5
@B Dawson Those people had to light a fire to cook, as their power was out.
There are always unintended consequences.
Take charge. Get a generator.
4
@clarity007 And how do renters in apartments get a generator?
3
Some without power lit fires in their backyards in Mill Valley, Calif., on Wednesday... Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
14
@Don They had to light fires in order to be able to cook.
1
There are winds, Just not constant and not everywhere. Mount Diablo had gusts of up to 68 miles an hour. The humidity rate is in the teens. Just because it’s not windy where you are doesn’t mean it’s calm everywhere.
8
This is what you get when you do not maintain critical infrastructure.
15
PG&E's behavior has been criminal for a very long time. In 2010 their gas line exploded in San Bruno, California, due to their knowing disregard of gas safety laws. They were convicted of multiple felonies for this, but they continued to rake in money and pay millions to their executives. In 2018, PG&E electric lines, which they knew were at the end of their safe working life, sparked the Camp Fire in Paradise California, which killed 86 people and destroyed at least 13,000 homes, but executives continued to be paid. PG&E's solution to inadequate and deadly failure to maintain their equipment, is now to shut off power to hundreds of thousands of households and businesses for up to a full week. This is unacceptable, and yet the California Public Utilities Commission and the Governor of California are doing (and have been doing) nothing. This is how well private enterprise is working in the United States.
35
This is such a California event. Can you imagine Con Ed trying this gambit in NYC? A “preventative” blackout. New Yorkers wouldn’t stand for it.
And maybe after voting themselves nonstop tax increases and unlimited bond measures Californians will finally say enough and stop both the poor forest and public utility management that led to this ridiculous action.
7
@DD Con Ed is indeed a much better outfit. (Their slogan "On it" sums it all up.) However, I seem to recall, or outside of the 11 years I lived in BK/NYC, rolling blackouts for short windows of time in the summer during heat waves.
@DD That is because in NYC, people live in high rises and are dependent on elevators, and also take the subway, but not so much in California. Also, we do not need heat in California in the winter, but you do in NYC.
@SJW Seriously? We don't need heat in California in the winter? That's just not true. And you don't have to live in Tahoe to need it.
1
It’s long overdue for the state of California to take over PG&E. They have been managed incompetently, and supervised corruptly by the state PUC, for decades.
Gavin Newsom should beware. Last time we had power problems in California, Gray Davis lost his job as governor in a statewide recall vote. If Newsom is unable to take strong action, he’s vulnerable.
No one will be surprised if there is an initiative on the next ballot requiring the state to take over PG&E, to fire all upper level executives, and to bar former PG&E execs and former and current members of the PUC from any role in managing the agency. CG&E (California gas and electric)! Give PG&E stockholders $.50 on the dollar, take over all current liabilities for the good of homeowners who were burned out, and be done with it. It’s better for everyone than a rolling bankruptcy, and rolling blackouts throughout the state.
20
@Pete
The only way to prevent the fires is to stop the electricity and to cull the forests. Or to stop the winds and raise the humidity levels. Since the latter are currently impossible, it is unclear how the State of California could operate the utility in a way that doesn't involve blackouts. Unless California taxpayers pay for underground power lines. And determine that forestry management is actually a good idea. Good luck with all of that.
7
@Froat
Thanks for bringing up stopping fires. If the state takes over PG&E, they will be able to develop a unified response to containing the risk from power lines, combining it with a response methodology applicable to all the other many sources of ignition. My favored plan is to combine satellite and drone surveillance during high-risk periods with rapid strike fire suppression to take care of fires in remote areas when they are just small, the size of a house. That requires the same kind of response time fire departments in urban areas achieve. California's national guard owns many F106s, and many more are coming up for grabs as the USAF brings the new generation of fighter online. An F106 can reach any area in California in minutes, and can deliver a decent load of fire-suppression to a particular spot.
2
There’s been little wind here in Tuolumne County, but no power and a lot of businesses shut down and people’s lives and income disrupted.
Someone messed up.
7
@Erik Frederiksen are you in Oakland or Tuolumne County?
@Alex the latter, as I wrote.
Congratulations to PG&E for having the courage to do what was absolutely necessary!
How soon we forget the nightmares of the past when we scrambled desperately in the dead of night and horrors of the day to save our homes and lives while choking to death in the acrid smoke.
Good Job, PG&E!
6
No mention of the people whose lives depend on medical devices powered by electricity, who were blithely told to 'take an ambulance to the ER' as if we had universal health care and there would be no charge for this? SHAME SHAME SHAME
23
Lighting backyard fires during a wildfire emergency because the electricity has been cut seems like a really stupid idea.
9
@Mikhail Not if they needed the fire to cook. Eating is essential.
1
@SJW You can go without hot food for a couple of days.
1
So every time it gets windy are they are going to cut power? Is this the fix? This definitely fits into the idea that if you’re not outraged , you’re not paying attention. One commentator said to move to a low risk area, be prepared, etc. I agree we can be more prepared but when something looks straight out of The Walking Dead, then it’s time for PG&E to find a long term solution rather than a short term knee jerk reaction.
6
This is just economic and political passive aggressive behavior by PGE. According to CA law, they are not liable for losses due to planned shutdowns. And they currently are still awaiting insurance for future problems. This is all a chess game for them. Sadly Newsom has decided to play along for now until it could hurt him at the ballot box.
56
@Ed Bough
They are pretty much not liable for deaths either. Who can forget the gas explosion in San Bruno?
2
@Ed Bough
They were ordered by the state to 'DO SOMETHING' and they are doing something.
3
@Ed Bough
You are out of touch with reality.
They are actually following a state mandate to not sit back and let fires happen due to wind damage to their power lines ... but rather to actively take measures to prevent them to begin with.
2
I agree with many here that PG&E should be a publicly owned utility, but I don't think that will solve the problem. Regular line maintenance is no longer good enough; because of climate change, we have to spend more to keep power lines from sparking fires. Undergrounding the lines seems like the best solution, although not always feasible where lines run over rocky hillsides.
People who are complaining that they didn't notice any high winds, but their power was still out, don't comprehend the issue at all. High winds in the Sierra foothills, where some of the power generation occurs, can affect people hundreds of miles away. It doesn't matter what's going on where you live, it matters if the winds are high where the power lines are.
16
@Wayne Cunningham A friend who lives in the East Bay told me a couple months ago that PG & E was going around in their neighborhood, trimming back trees and other foliage where they felt it was necessary, and I think threatening homeowners who didn't want it done with cutoff of their utilities.
By the way, my friend had one of those older and quite flammable roofs -- I think shake -- and they recently spent some $$$ having a new, less flammable, roof put on.
1
Extremely high voltage transmission lines across remote areas from large, central generating stations are a recipe for disaster, as PG&E and Californians are learning. It's time to rethink the large, cumbersome "grid" as we know it, and look to smart micro-grids with distributed generation, relying significantly on PV and wind rather than massive fossil fuel or nuclear generating stations.That is the future of electricity, and we should be embracing and advancing that as quickly as we can.
66
@Erica Smythe
The only infrastructure that Trump is interested in is at his golf courses.
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@Erica Smythe
What a preposterous raitonale to excuse the golf-playing, serially tweeting, Fox-watching lazy Trump. He is far too busy bad-mouthing celebrities, trying to cover his diverse criminal tracks, and setting up the Kurds for genocide to focus his impaired cognition on a complex environmental issue. He not only doesn't have the neurological real estate to understand power grids, he can't even pronounce the technology that would be involved. But do follow the stable genius down his self-dug rabbit hole.
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@Kevin Brock
Some (many?) of those high voltage transmission lines were new when Herbert Hoover was President. Multi generation native Californians have called the utility Pacific Greed and Extortion for almost a century.
PG&E is a good example of badly screwed-up priorities, otherwise known as capitalism at its worst. Its only duty is to shareholders, who do not "share" responsibility for PG&E's destructive negligence; consumers pay for that. PG&E must maximize profits at the expense of consumers, even if that means consumers' deaths in San Bruno, Paradise, etc.
I wonder if any of the revolving-door Public Utilities Commission/PG&E bozo "leadership" have had any thought or regret that they didn't put power lines underground and maintain or replace aging infrastructure. It was always too expensive pushing against profits. But now PG&E is facing billions in compensation to its victims and the complete loss of public confidence and good will.
The power outages or outrages currently taking place are typical of PG&E's wrong-headed bad judgment. There's no wind for the most part and there is no fire at the moment. But PG&E will stick it to consumers just because they can and to hell with good will.
The State should take it over, make it CG&E, like Cal Trans.
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@George Dietz
I think that the capitalist owners of PG&E are sharing the "responsibility" quite a bit - they will lose their entire investment in bankruptcy.
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@George Dietz I wish I could trust that the State would do a better job than PG&E, and given PG&E's abysmal record one would think it could, but Caltrans is not exactly a beacon of hope. The California Department of Insurance is the only State agency I have found to be well run and truly helpful to consumers. Caltrans, the DMV, and countless others, not so much.
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@George Dietz
Anyone that thinks the state would do a better job of managing infrastructure and hazards related to it.... is completely out of touch with reality.
This is what happens when a company that doesn't maintain its equipment and puts short term profits above everything else meets a State government agency that cannot do its job.
For the 5th largest economy in the world to be brought to a halt by a little wind is beyond embarrassing, it is ridiculous. Governor Newsom, remember Gray Davis?
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CA is run so poorly it’s frightening. Companies need to start bailing on this state. The infrastructure in NY and CA is a disaster. Gas explosions in NYC and this in CA. Utility companies need to be held liable and work with gvt to solve problems not cause them.
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Ok so the state is suing PGE for billions because they’re equipment started one of the biggest wildfires in the state’s history and incinerated nearly 200 people trying to leave the town of Paradise. This was absolutely nightmarish.
Now everyone is enraged that they’re turning off our power. We’re having high winds and red flag warnings just about everywhere. I’m sure it could have been organized better but they’re right. You can’t sue for fires and complain bitterly about shutoffs simultaneously. The climate is changing and we need to address it. Even if PGE isn’t entirely honest. Every year we ignore possible fire hazards. This is forcing us city dwellers out of our cocoon of denial. It’s hard to ignore a 5 day power shut off.
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@Bitter mouse I'm not in "denial." There are plenty of remote, scrubby locations where I wouldn't choose to live.
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@Bitter mouse Address climate change? Human's cannot control climate change, can't change the climate, and cannot address it. It's way beyond human's control- always has been and always will be.
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@Blair
Well, you can choose power or your desired location. Probably not both.
Frankly, what do you expect from a company that was blamed, right or wrong, for the devastating fires over the last couple of years? At what point do the citizens of an overpacked territory that has a history of poorly managed development and worse fire mitigation assume responsibility, in part, for creating such an environment? The situation is bad yet people and developers continue to ignore the realities of the firestorms that occur every year. I’d love to feel sorry for you all but I’m not. Climate change has left few, if any, parts of the country with their own devastating consequences. It’s difficult to control the rain, rising water levels, or superstorms that are developing. At least you have the option to suppress a few of the variables that lead to catastrophic endings - turning off a source of the fires. Go ahead and take over PG&E. Then try to sue the government when the fires continue to rage out of control.
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@Area Citizen well said.
PG&E needs to go away as an entity. Break it up in to a hundred manageable pieces run by local governments with a state agency in charge of linking them together.
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@Joe
Two words: Ma Bell.
Because that will make it better?! Really?!
When I explained this situation to my teenage son, he said,"Huh? Public utilities aren't owned by the public? "
I blame Samuel Insul. He came up with the idea of a "natural" monopoly, in private hands, of course.
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People want it both ways: they want to live in fire-prone areas and be serviced by electricity but when something goes wrong as it inevitably will, they want to be able to blame the electric company for not acting proactively. In the meantime individuals, politicians, developers and other stakeholders take absolutely no responsibility for their choices.
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I am from Germany and have lived there for almost 30 years in the past. I still remember vividly a power outage from 1979, when I was about 6 years old. Why do I remember it so well? Because it was the only one I ever experienced in Germany.
Here in the US there are several power outages a year, lasting several hours or sometimes over a day. There is no reason for these power outages, other than the fact that utility companies are private companies and don't invest more than the absolute minimum in infrastructure. These companies should be better regulated and held to minimum performance standards.
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@S You forgot to mention why you only have 1 outage to remember - your power lines are underground and ours in the US are not.
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Underground power lines, especially in remote areas, brings up the question: what will happen to underground power lines during an earthquake. Earthquakes are known to have occurred in California.
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@Irving Franklin Right! that would explain why in just about any other part of the country power lines are above ground.
Please, at least try to find a good reason (to tell yourself) why this country's public infrastructure is in such a dire 3rd world state.
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It is not just PG&E's failure to maintain their lines, it is that the lines are raw wire, not insulated which causes sparking which causes the fires. Then the State shields them from liability. Other utilities are not allowed to operate with non-insulated lines, especially in high wind, high fuel areas. That this outrage is allowed to continue is mind boggling. Of course this utility should be taken over by the State without compensation.
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@hazel18 As someone who spent 15 years in the electric power generation business, I'd love to see where you get your information.
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Power is restored in Humboldt County where the local Co-op footsore and and other cleared the shelves of perishables at half-price and most shut down completely, including Humboldt State University. Lines for gasoline at the rare open stations were 50 cars long most of Wednesday. How great it felt to wake up with the furnace churning away. Best of all, my wife and I are speaking civilly again.
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Industry best practices? For what industry?
Most anything is preferable to shutting down an economy for days. One thing that would be preferable would be a deployable round the clock brigade of 30,000 (or how many it takes...100,000? Ok) to address fires at the outset. This is essentially similar to how Russia addressed the threat of lethal radiation at Chernobyl, solving by numbers, with a huge contingent, each getting exposed to high radiation by a small amount, when robots could not do the job. Another thing would be to rectify the liability statutes so that the shutdown does not happen or is not the call of the utility. Drones and AI also need to play a role here and I assume that is not far in the future. Human life is indeed precious but the approach taken by Californians is not reasonable and essentially is throwing the civic contract off kilter.
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Yeah, let’s emulate the Russians at Chernobyl! Submitting hundreds of thousands of workers to radiation was a great idea.
SDG&E has been turning off the power on red flag days for years so I am surprised our neighbors to the north were unaware of this practice. Our power company does a good job getting the word out and our local news folks have been good about transmitting the information since the loss of life in 2003. I agree with lucidbee there is no reason not to have a generator or a solar battery. We did not get the battery when we got the solar panel so if the State of California could offer incentives to buy I am in favor of that. We do have a generator, but a redundancy would be nice. We must adapt or the fires will continue.
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@katie Well, many of us live in apartments here in the Bay Area and so have no control over such things. So, yes, there is indeed some reason for many of us not to have a battery/solar.
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@katie
SDG&E's service area is tiny in comparison to PG&E. PG&E services 2/3 of the state.
PG&E should be taken over by the state. Period.
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@Ed Watters Done! Now what would change...do you like the way the DMV is run?
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@Ed Watters
And then what?
A state takeover does not alter the basic fact that in arid California in the fall season.... power lines are subject to high winds causing downed power lines and causing fires that in fact under the same winds.. would run out of control... and ultimately take weeks to put out (see last year) and many lives lost (see last year).
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@Chuck
Hmm, what do first-world, developed countries do? Bury their lines under ground. It's called investing in infrastructure (aka socialism).
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I agree, PG&E has not taken care of its infrastructure. The company should do better. But we are all implicated in the causes of climate change. We have lived too long with everything we want when we want it. Maybe this will wake people up to start changing their habits. And grocery stores...instead of waiting for your perishables to rot, why not donate the food while it's still good?
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@KMW I agree. I often use food pantries, and most of the fruit and vegetables we get is rotting. And the milk is almost expired. Bread is often stale. Grocery stores need to donate their food to pantries sooner.
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@KMW
At the same time the state hasn't kept up with thinning the forests out, clearing underbrush, controlled burns, ordering homeowners to clear a firebreak around properties.
@KMW Great, and what would recipients DO with it? I have frig and likely freezer full of rotting food.
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You might as well add Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to your list of power companies who are cutting power in the state over the next two days. Those all electric cars don't look like such a great idea now, do they?
This is going to force a complete rethinking on how power is delivered in California. Santa Ana Winds occur every year here, we can't have the state shutdown for weeks each year.
This is just one of the effects of climate change, it is going to get worse. That old curse is true: "May you live in interesting times."
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@Bruce1253 You do realize that electricity is also needed to pump gas at a gas station.
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@Bruce1253
I know it is a weird idea but when a Santa Ana if forecast, would it be effective to have aerial tankers soak the ground along the power lines in dangerous areas?
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@Susan
Yes but in 10 minutes you can pump enough gas to last for several days. Assuming of course that you planned ahead, perhaps even filled a couple of 5 gal cans. It takes about 10 hrs to charge a Tesla and there are no provisions for swapping out a depleted battery pack for a charged one.
Elon still has some work to do on the whole concept. There are some problems with being a 'First Adopter.'
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Need one fails to criticize PGE and calls thus best practice. Really? I wonder how much in campaign contributions he has accepted from this outlaw organization. Rather than demand through his public utility commission he gives the company, once again, a pass. Corruption at its finest. Puerto Rico anyone?
3
Last year's Camp fire killed 86 people. I wonder how that will compare to the inevitable fatality rate due to shutting off the power to 800,000 people for five to seven days.
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@Max Splash You are exactly right about this. Shutting off power is an outrage, when you consider the deferred maintenance by PG&E and it is compounded by the high likelihood of this "solution" to be just as bad as the danger it purports to prevent. I think PG&E should be liable for any damage, injuries, or fatalities that are a result of these outages!
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Your point is an extremely important one!
The slapdash haphazard willy-nilly manner in which this outage-outrage was planned seems to be just more typical PG&E negligence.
Enough already!
1
Management at PG&E dismissed internal calls for safer maintenance practices and associated investment. The savings went to big salaries, bonuses, and dividends... and translated into power cuts, monumental damage, and deaths. If the PG&E CxOs walk away from this with slightly smaller bonuses, or slightly reduced pensions (but still $M) - there is zero deterence, zero reason that this will not happen again.
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Someone needs to develop a cost-effective, speedily deployable way to move power lines underground. That this critical utility is still carried on overhead wires and poles is ludicrous.
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PG&Es executives, none of whom are elected officials, effectively have their finger on the switch of California’s economy. This is an insane abuse of corporate power intended to strongarm the state. Governor Newsom, you have essentially abdicated power to a private entity whose profit motive and avoidance of liability is now impacting millions of Californians.
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@Bob Egerton
Seriously? Newsom has taken PG&E money for his entire career. Look it up, it’s public record.
1
I don’t even know where to begin. This was handled and communicated with such ineptitude it’s hard to believe we trust them with our power grid. And - where I live there’s been virtually no wind! Just a slight breeze last night. It’s dead calm right now on my way into work.
They cried wolf.
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@Berks I live in Eureka. I have also operated and refueled nuclear power plants, operated a hydroelectric station, and taught process control technology in coal-fired plants. I have over 15 years in the business and I did not get it either. But clearly, they're not spending money on their infrastructure.
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@Berks I appreciate your frustration. But the nature of the grid means that what is happening 100 miles from you affects your access to electrical power. That is part and parcel of this massive thing we call "the grid."
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@Berks
You do know that it is not about the breeze in our backyard, but the wind conditions where the actual high voltage power line run.. right?
20
Isn't this another argument against massive power grids? We need to invest in decentralized (perhaps even to the level of the household) renewable system. Decentralized systems might also require shut downs on occasion, but each would affect far fewer people.
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Public and the cities also have shared responsibilities in not permitting buildings and houses in fire hazard zones. We also need new legislation to define extent of liability by the utility companies. There may be need for arbitration proceedings in case of liability claims against utility companies to obviate siphoning of money to attorneys instead of the victims.There needs to be zoning for no build in areas which are flood prone and fire hazard .
6
I remember how PG&E justified increasing rates using one reason or another in the late 90s. Then there was its bankruptcy caused by Enron and other out-of-stare market manipulators (how did it emerge from that one?)
Clearly it has not been able to improve the safety of its electrical system.
Is it still wise to entrust a fundamental public service to an unreliable private entity ?
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@mm
If I remember correctly, Enron purposely caused blackouts and brownouts in CA in order to increase the price of energy in the state so that they could gouge their customers more.
Gee, I wonder if PG&E isn't doing the same now, I do believe they are in financial trouble and would have the incentive to do so.
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@AV
You are right about Enron... and you are wrong about PG&E.
PG&E is actually following a well developed and approved (by PUC and the state) plan for how to mitigate fire hazard when facing extremely high winds and extreme fire hazards.
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@mm
PG&E's first bankruptcy was not "caused by Enron and other out-of-stare market manipulators." It was caused by a poorly thought out de-regulation regime that our idiot CA lawmakers enacted.
3
In the long run we are not going to have carte blanche to all our modern amenities all the time and people must adapt. I have solar. Everyone in the power outage areas should have solar with batteries and there should be loans to assist. Businesses should have backup power. I know someone who sold their house in Sonoma and moved into a low risk town. That is another option. Some of this complaining is entitlement which needs to turn into constructive action.
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@lucidbee
Consider a generator, your batteries are probably only good for 10 hrs max.
Time for an X Prize on developing large scale efficient batteries.
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@lucidbee How are people who live in apartments, which is most of the Bay Area, supposed to get solar, or generators?
3
There was no wind at all. This was a punitive measure by PGE. If you look at the map there are areas that have power despite the surrounding areas having no power. How is this possible if PGE is shutting off the transmission lines?
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@JB - Their system is so untrustworthy that they can't risk burning down another town or city. They need to be broken up completely and go away as an entity.
@JB Yes, there was wind in parts of the Bay Area, which is comprised of NINE counties (people in SF, Oakland, San Jose and other large Bay Area cities tend to forget this). Where I live, the wind's been whipping through my neighborhood at over 20 mph and more.
PG&E's PublicSafetyPowerShutoffs are all about limiting their liability in case of another big fire for which their equipment is pegged as the culprit. I don't think they give a hoot about public safety. They DO give a hoot about getting sued again.
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Heaven forfend pg&e should actually maintain its equipment and take care of its transmission lines.
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@slightlycrazy Your snark helps nothing. Individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rely on electricity to power their oxygen units, and a power outage can cause their deaths. Persons with sleep apnea like us (up to 2 minutes with no breathing and no oxygen to our brain) rely on electricity to power their CPAP machines, and a power outage can cause severe and disabling sedation and memory problems due to brain oxygen deprivation. Police departments, fire departments, hospitals, and other public safety agencies all rely on electricity and have limited supplies of independent back-up generator fuel.
The majority of complaints are *not* that PG&E --ever placing profits before people as all capitalist enterprises do-- is finally getting around to maintaining its infrastructure only *after* it murdered 86 people in the Camp Fire it caused by not maintaining its electrical line, but that it is now *failing to inform* persons both where and when the outages will be, which makes planning for them nearly impossible.
We have visited PG&E's Public Power Shutoff Announcement web page several times to nada. Santa Cruz shows as having been shut off at 8 pm last night, but it did not happen. The embedded Google map shows no data. The pop-up list of cities is empty. The local paper says PG&E announced a delay, but there are no specifics as to when. PG&E has not updated its web site, and Santa Cruz still shows as scheduled for last night. PG&E is idiotic and dangerous.
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@slightlycrazy
Heaven forbid you be so clueless as to not know that they do maintain their infrastructure. If they did .. NONE of us would have power... ever.
This is about severe wind conditions and the fact that even perfect infrastructure can suffer line drops into very volatile brush in the face of such wind conditions.
2
PG&E should be fined for each day it fails to provide service. They should be compelled to hire workers to monitor under maintained infrastructure. California should consider seizing PG&E ownership
1
The results of a long pattern of misbehavior and a lack of accountability from PG&E. They have painted themselves into a corner by failing to properly maintain their infrastructure, and this is the result (which, for the record, we have been warned was coming since earlier this year). While their decision to cut power to their customers is logical when we examine the alternatives and risks associated with them, it should not shield them from harsh criticism for allowing things to get to this in the first place.
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@Stephen
That's the sainted for-profit free market in action: infrastructure maintenance cuts into profits and executive pay, so slash it to the bone and let the customers deal with the consequences.
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@Stephen
In this case, it is not about infrastructure maintenance or the quality level of the infrastructure.. it is all about 60+ mile per hour winds in some parts of the state currently, coupled with extremely high fire risk conditions as we are in the dryest part of the year coming off the summer season.
FACT: you can have brand new infrastructure in the form of towers and wires in place, certified, and verified to be defect free.. and said infrastructure can and will still fail in such high wind conditions.
The issue is very high winds, very dry conditions, the propensity for a broken power line to spark a fire, AND the fact that the old method of utility companies to just repair downed lines and let the fire departments squelch any fire NO LONGER WORKS.
With the Pardaise disaster... California as a state has made it painfully clear to PG&E (and other utilities) that they are liable for loss of life and property caused by a failure in their infrastructure. In the old days, before drier climate conditions, and with less regulatory accountability.. utility companies just let fires start, have the fire departments put them out, and then they go in and repair the lines. Now days... they are expected to prevent the fire to begin with... .and that means turning off power on power lines when extreme wind conditions present themselves.
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PG&E should be forced to hire sufficient manpower to monitor and address those sections of its infrastructure that it failed to maintain and end the terrorist behavior.
2
Difficult to understand why business owners with perishable products have not invested in generators to power at least some of the refrigeration and freezer units.
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@Michael Well, we PAY for the power from PG&E, and they HAVE NOT performed the maintenance they were required to do.
You're suggesting everyone pay twice. That doesn't make sense.
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@Michael
They do here in Florida.
3
@Laura
In Florida, power outages are a regular phenomenon because of the weather. The weather is different here. At least it was until recently.
5