[snopercod]

why there wasn't an announcement is beyond me

No it's not. You know exactly why there wasn't an announcement.

somebody refused to dump load when they should have

I'd bet money on that. It happened once before, remember? I'm pretty sure that it was the City of Lodi that set the trend. I can't find the article on FR, sorry.

[snopercod]

This is a perfect example of why FERC is insisting the Gov. Davis's hand-picked Cal-ISO board of governors has to go.

They clearly have been squelching these Stage II emergency alerts for political reasons (e.g. to get Davis re-elected).

In doing that, they run the risk of bringing down the entire grid in the Western States.

[Robert357]

Your are right on both points. I do know that the ISO is under strict control of Gov Davis and his re-election committee.

As to Lodi, they did refuse to dump load when told to do so and shocked all kinds of folks. Lodi felt that their contractual and generation rights didn't requirement to shed load, so they weren't going to turn power off.