Posted on 10/09/2019 10:53:40 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Pacific Gas & Electric, Californias biggest utility company, shut off electricity to more than 1 million people on Wednesday in an effort to prevent wildfires caused by downed power lines.
The utility said it cut power to more than 500,000 customers in Northern California and that it plans to gradually turn off electricity to nearly 800,000 customers to prevent its equipment from starting wildfires during hot, windy weather. A second group of about 234,000 customers will lose power starting at noon, the utility said. The power outages are expected to affect about 2.5 million people.
The utility plans to shut off power in parts of 34 northern, central and coastal California counties to reduce the chance of fierce winds knocking down or toppling trees into power lines during a siege of hot, dry, gusty weather.
Gusts of 35 mph to 45 mph were forecast to sweep a vast swath of the state, from the San Francisco Bay area to the agricultural Central Valley and especially in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where a November wildfire blamed on PG&E transmission lines killed 85 people and virtually incinerated the town of Paradise.
"This is a last resort," said Sumeet Singh, head of the utility's Community Wildfire Safety Program.
However, people should be outraged by the move, Gov. Gavin Newsom said. "No one is satisfied with this, no one is happy with this," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
I had not understood the line clearance issues to have been a problem on long transmission lines of that size. I had thought the fire claims had been on local subdivision and ag property feeds.
I do see the point you are making but I guess you are grading the apples and Im juggling oranges.
“Half a million here IS the sale of ANY normal house, you cant touch a house in CA. for less than half a million”
That has been a growing problem in Utah for years. Retired folks sell in California, buy a home here for less than half and then live well on the rest.
Then they want to turn Utah into another California.
minnesota_bound, I had to open your image in another browser (normally use SlimJet here, a Chrome clone that runs on Xp), namely FireFox, in order to see the image ...
Yeah ... the Camp (Road) fire was (best guess estimate and by supposed witness) caused by transmission, not distribution lines ...
So on the main long distance high lines they have had environmental and state regulations stop the normal clear cutting of trees and brush below?
I had seen such on all the area distribution lines when I was there last year but the foregoing is beyond stupid.
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