Southern California Utility Cuts Power To Customers On Thanksgiving As Wildfire Risks Surge

NATION AND STATE ^ | 11/25/2021

[george76]

The largest utility company in Southern California cut power to thousands of customers across higher elevations of Los Angeles, leaving many households without electricity for Thanksgiving.

Edison International’s Southern California utility cut power to 32,036 residential and commercial building structures in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties to prevent wind storms from toppling power lines that would stoke fires in the drought-stricken region. The utility projects up to a quarter-million customers could lose service around Los Angeles and San Diego.

...

Edison warned more customers are likely to lose power, and San Diego Gas & Electric, another local utility, could turn off power to 52,000 customers.

...

There were even reports of a crazed liberal university professor starting fires.

[HKMk23]

My oven is GAS.
My turkey is happy.

[KittyKares]

I’m not sure happy is the word for it. It wanted to be pardoned.

[DoughtyOne]

I came up with a poor man’s way to power my home and my
vehicle.

The state and the power company can go pound sand. Who
needs ‘em?

[353FMG]

YOU are happy, and that is important. No happiness without LNG.

[HKMk23]

“Edison International’s Southern California utility cut power to ... prevent wind storms from toppling power lines”

Da Hell they get these writers, anyway?

They don’t even TRY to conceal the STUPID, anymore.

I found this to be quite a compelling explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc

The leftist phenomenon of reducing every issue to easily-parroted slogans that their drones can remember and chant ad nauseum pegs them as The Stupid, for it is a mechanism far less employed in Conservative circles, because Conservatives mostly recognize that issues are not well-served when reduced to blithe buzzwords and phrases. Consider how “global warming” became “climate change” as irrefutable data conflicted with the chosen slogan, demanding it’s alteration. And look at the narrative surrounding the COVID-19 vax and masking campaign. Where did “social distancing” — a distinctly ANTI-social practice — find its moniker? GUARANTEED it was no Conservative mind that came up with that bit of propaganda.

I could go on back through the years to campaigns about forced school busing back in the late 1960’s as Los Angeles County agonized over how to FORCE a veneer of desegregation in their schools in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

ALWAYS it’s the left.
ALWAYS they’re “agonized.”
ALWAYS the issue is reduced to tripe easily printed on a placard.
ALWAYS they craft phrases easily impressed upon the young.
ALWAYS it’s propaganda.
ALWAYS they LIE.

The DAY they stop, the Sun will set in the East.

[Revel]

Generators have been banned in California.

[Huskrrrr]

Oil change every 100 hours. Has a filter

[Eleutheria5]

Cut the damned brush around the power lines, dumb-asses. It’s called common sense.

[eyedigress]

Accuse it of running over a parade.

[george76]

The fuel should be removed around power lines..

-2- Leftist college professors should stop setting fires.

-3- Fires is a political excuse, as the wind mills can not keep up.. the turbines do not produce enough power once high or low winds or cold weather shut down the wind turbines.

[rey]

Thanks for your kind response.

You are correct concerning everything you said. A lot of the problem has to do with the rules here.

If you go to Florida, South Carolina, New Hampshire, you will see a wide swath cleared for most of the power lines. That doesn’t happen here. In many places, you will see the power lines strung through what essentially is a tunnel of tree branches. I think the rule says 6 foot clearance all the way around. It is insufficient and if anything falls from above it will short.

They do have amazing breakers now that trip very easily, but even the best system will cast sparks. The night our fire ignited, the tree let go with an 80 MPH wind in less than 5% RH. Things ignite pretty easy in that.

PG&E, the power company, has had to have an armed presence to trim trees here because people do not want them cut or trimmed for any reason. They advocate for burying the power lines, but cost estimates are $3-$5 million a mile for that. Also, PG&E isn’t tunneling under trees to lay line. They would likely have to tear up every road in the state to lay line. Also, earthquake damage would put power out for months on a buried line versus an overhead.

After our fire, I was in Lafayette, CA and there were people petitioning to prevent the trimming of trees. It is an area prone to bad fires, just a little east of where the Oakland Hills fire occurred. The roads are narrow and congested. A fire there will be devastating as it will be difficult for people to get out and equipment to get in.

As stated, the company is forced to spend on things not directly related to distribution. They can immediately tell you how many of a particular race or sex they employee but cannot state how much of the system is in need of repair or upgrade.

I was on the Dixie Fire in the Plumas National Forest. The road system, power stations, power lines, and railroad systems through there are absolutely stunning; just incredible engineering feats. None of this is as easy as people think.

My view on the fires is skewed because we had a big, bad fast one literally in out backyard, the Nuns Fire. I also run a contract dozer on fires for Cal Fire. The fires themselves usually do not scare me too much. Some of the terrain scares the heck out of me. On the wrong terrain with a big fire it could be terrifying. I have seen a lot of people completely lose it in the face of these fires, my granddaughter being one the night of the Nuns. I simply would not wish it on anyone, not even a bad person.

We tend to look at things through the narrow focus of our lens of experience. I understand people with medical needs or otherwise infirmed that need power but I also know that those people are not fleeing quickly in the face of a conflagration.

Thanks.

[rey]

“Still, most of us remember when regulated public utilities didn’t have these problems. They really started happening with the big push to deregulate the power industry in the 1990s. The notion of a planned outage to prevent fires was just not conceivable in the industry.”

You are absolutely correct. PG&E can tell us more about the sex and race of their employees than about the condition of their lines but that is not entirely their fault. The public utilities commission dictates where the emphasis lies and for decades it hasn’t been on maintenance.

Add to that people wanting executives to do actual prison time for anyone hurt or killed by their equipment. Put yourself in that position. There is no law that says that you must deliver power but there may be one that says you do time if you do and something happens. I’d cut power in a heartbeat to avoid prison.

ON the other hand, if here is a fire, you are are without power anyway. The Nuns Fire left us without power for 23 days. A Public Safety Power Shutoff leaves us without power for a few hours to 3 days.

It is too dry and there is too much fuel accumulated. The night of our fire we had 80 MPH winds and less than 5% RH. It doesn’t take much.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Wild fires. That’s one cheap way to cook your Thanksgiving turkey or goose!

[GOP Poet]

Amen to that!!!!

[George from New England]

Bought a 21kw Isuzu diesel here. Runs like a charm. Here is 33523.

[AbolishCSEU]

My hubs is a certified generac repairman. We have the 22kw (propane). The 27kws are out now.
Only thing that could use more work is the wifi connection and the app.

[VideoDoctor]

The sooner California DESTROYS ITSELF the better off the rest of America will be.

Sorry to say they're akin to "terminal cancer" and need to eventually be removed.

[Kevmo]

Removed, as in Secession?

From my home page

Secession

It's time for us to jettison those who reject our national values because there's no changing them. Time to secede.

We should extend the invitation to secede on a county by county basis.

While we're at it, since we'd be forming a new country, we should extend the invitation to counties in Canada and Mexico as well.

Note that this option is becoming increasingly popular.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4000029/posts

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[George from New England]

Got a neighbor here that’s an electrician for a living. He put in a generac and hates it.

[AbolishCSEU]

Generac sucks in that they allow anyone to work on their equipment yet require certified Generac technicians to take tests and recertify for a hefty sum every year.
Most were and still are backordered due to Resident Biden’s supply chain chaos.