PG&E power outage begins 2nd night

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. shut down power to 500,000 homes and business – an estimated 2-million-plus Northern California residents – creating the largest blackout in state history. The move, designed as a massive defensive tactic to avoid wildfires amid high winds, created confusion, consternation and angry responses from both the public and public officials.

Is this a result of CA’s budget crisis?
Since when was a fear of high winds causing a wildfire an excuse for a power shut down?
Does this have anything to do with chicoms or Calexit movement?
CA pols are very chummy with the Chiocoms.
Trump did take control of CA port from Chicoms recently.
Trump also ordered marines to act in support of State and local efforts to suppress civil unrest.

I’m not drawing any conclusions, only pointing out a confluence of events.

"For a 137 years they have pushed society into becoming completely dependent on and addicted to electricity."

It took a while but it did eventually swallow everyone.

"Yessir, the South is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a payin' basis."

I would say that PG&E is very little to blame - what are they supposed to do? Have a fire start, have it blamed entirely on their electrical system, and then have to pay out $14 Billion in damages again?

I suppose that they could have done things to help prevent the fire (underground lines, etc.) but that all costs money too, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are limited in how much they can increase their rates each year??? I'm also guessing the system they are using now is up to code?

I was just talking to a friend that remodeled his house. He was talking about how the city inspections are such a scam. They charge $500(???) to look at the electrical system that the pro put in. My friend said to the inspector “So with this inspection, does the city then guarantee the work in case there is a problem?” He knew the answer (”Of course not”), but it really does show the worthlessness of the city permitting process.

There always have been pockets of sanity in California, thanks to the large military presence. A lot of our troops stick around after they get out because of the climate.

This is why, back when I lived in San Diego (1980s), we had the best police department in the country. They wisely hired al lot of vets. (How to cut down on accidental shootings and eliminate spray & pray technique). It may still be the best, I just no longer have any knowledge.

Unfortunately, after the OC flipped blue, I had to give up my last glimmer of hope for the state.

It’s astounding how these people will keep voting themselves one tax increase after another for complete nonsense and without any accountings for the last 142,327 tax increases.

PG (they have to earn back the "&E" part) played this brilliantly. It cost them billions for the fire that affected a few thousand people which was an accident (although the company was found negligent). However, in this case that damage PG did to a million people will cost them nothing ... there is no recourse to damages caused by power outage even if the outage is intentionally inflicted.

Well, it appears to be over until the next time the tree leaves flutter. This is a relief as I was getting very tired of listening every 10 minutes or so to a piece of PR-type fluff trying to sell the idea that what PG was doing to a million people was for our "own good" (I presume that means PG was "protecting" us from PG.) Then, when I heard the CEO announce that "PG&E's primary responsibility to Californians is 'public safety'" I realized just how woefully incompetent and lost the utility's leadership truly is. That is, while PG has a moral responsibility to ensure their operations do no harm to people or the environment, PG's primary responsibility is to provide reliable gas and electric service. By failing to understand and perform their primary responsiblity PG also failed to meet their moral responsibility as it is likely there were a considerable number of PG "customers" who were not only inconvenienced but suffered financial and emotional harm.

So, from their perspective PG played this brilliantly. There was no financial downside to intentionally shutting the power off in 34 California counties for a couple of days. You see, it's so much easier to blame the wind (which was not a problem in more areas than not that were affected by PG's decision) and to fault the trees than do the heavy work of fixing the wires and modifying the electrical transmission system so that a weather problem in one location doesn't affect another location 200 miles away.

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