Fire safety power blackouts begin for as many as a half-million in California

NBC News ^ | Octobet 23, 2019 | Alex Johnson

[C19fan]

California's largest utility once again began shutting off electricity to nearly a half-million people on Wednesday to protect against wildfires sparked by their equipment.

And yet another widespread blackout could be needed next week, it said.

Hot, dry Santa Ana winds and low humidity were creating a high risk of damage and sparks and "rapid wildfire spread," Pacific Gas and Electric Corp., or PG&E, said in announcing that it was beginning to cut off power to 179,000 customers in the northern part of the state Wednesday afternoon.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

>>> a half-million people <<<

As I understand it, the utility companies in Caliunicornia define “people” as a meter. So this effects many more individuals than reported.

[Sacajaweau]

Talk to the state....time to clean up the tinder and put in fire breaks and renew the forests. Time to revive the CCC camps.

[abigkahuna]

Our power is off until sometime Friday....then off again Sat/Sun until sometime Tuesday. Still have all the amenities of life...The RV FRidge runs off of propane, so the house fridge was emptied. I have a hand pump on the well, so we do have water when needed. Sort of like living somewhere between 1890 and 1990

[abigkahuna]

Oh, and I have all the ham radios charged up as well as the GMRS radio. Our area keeps in contact through GMRS for these type of situations. No Cell service. We have a rotary phone...and that works. Obviously we have internet, as neighbor across the street that beams the wifi signal from town to around the neighborhood has set up a solar/generator thing to keep things running. (He’s part of the internet company)...so that means I can keep connected via allstar to all my radio chums around the world.

But going to have lunch buffet at the Casino today. Then get some small parts for a 220 antenna coming today. The Alinco 235 arrived yesterday. Built a RPi4 allstar node this past weekend...set it all up once the LMR 400 arrives, and voila! Local hams will be able to access my simplex node which I will have rotating between the Alaskan Morning Net, the WinSysem and the Manchester Hub! Life is good...power or not. Oh, and got a new power supply for radios from Megawattpowersupply...30A continuous for around $60 shipped. beautiful!

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Geyserville, 20 miles north of Santa Rosa, has a 10,000 acre out of control high wind driven fire presently that is fortunately, for the time being, moving east towards less populated areas. PG&E needs to install automatic wind sensing breakers on their high tension towers and engineer the ability to better customize the shut off zones. Right now the eastern 1/4 of Santa Rosa is in blackout conditions and that includes most traffic signals in the area. People are being courteous and waiting their turn at darkened intersections. This looks to become the new normal for early Fall.

[Lurker]

In laws are in El Dorado County.

L

[Cedar]

“The excessive regulation, regarding the maintenance of the transmission lines ROW and brush clearing, have tied the hands of the PG&E management,”

Wonder if PG&E would come out better (and the citizens of CA) if management just ignored the regulations and did the maintenance? Maybe the fines would be less expensive in the long run? Maybe not, I sure don’t know the details about it all.

[abigkahuna]

Up here in Butte County, where clean up from the Paradise Fire is still ongoing...

[spokeshave]

When the wind is over 20 mph, shut everything down and wait for instructions for local authorities.

Good luck with that.....what with the electric power shut off and all.

[Lurker]

They looked at property there. Thank God they opted for somewhere else.

L

[CodeToad]

I’m all for PG&E just closing their doors. Kali wants no “fossil fuels” so give it to them.

[Bob434]

so hospitals and senior centers and such have to crank up their carbon spewing gasoline generators just to keep patients alive now?

Someone posted an article about the unintended consequences of blackouts- it was a really good article and pointed out how asinine and dangerous blackouts are-

[from occupied ga]

Couldn’t happen to a better bunch. Those jackasses elected their insane government not let them feel the effects of their stupidity.

[Haiku Guy]

California's largest utility once again began shutting off electricity to nearly a half-million people on Wednesday to protect against wildfires sparked by their equipment.

The purpose of these shut-downs is to prevent lawsuits, not to prevent the inevitable fires. There will be wildfires whether or not the electricity is turned on.

PG&E is now the Deep Pockets for every wildfire in California. They only way they can avoid Billion-dollar lawsuits is to make sure they are not providing electricity during high-hazard conditions.

[RitchieAprile]

here in WA the big league powerlines have a cleared strip beneath them. this is not the case in CA?

Gov Newsome should give thought to his post gubernatorial
career as this will probably sink him politically (well it would sink a republican..).

[AU72]

When in college in the late '60s had a summer job with the local electric company. That summer was spent spraying the foliage under the power lines. It was a great defoliant. In one week all the foliage was reduced to a brown crisp.

The solution was mixed with water and resembled Tang. My foreman, who did most of the spraying, called it German bug juice. He was dead in four years. Turns out we were spraying Agent Orange.

[Ozark Tom]

Certain areas are free of the blackout process. Add those fortunate ones to the party every time time a scheduled interruption occurs. A positive change in perspective will occur when everyone shares the experience.