Free Republic

if you have been paying attention, this was an obvious action by the socialists in California. First put onerous regulations on the Utility Companies, then when the wildfires happen and burn down hundreds of homes, the legal damages cause the Utility Companies to go bankrupt resulting in Government run Utility Companies....which putting the Government in the business of owning utility companies will solve all the problems.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. — For four nights, Eliana Rubin cared for her newborn son, James, by candlelight. The baby, 11 weeks old, is her first. He’s colicky and wakes often, she said. As the latest Pacific Gas & Electric safety shut-off dragged on this week, she lit a flame by her bedside each time the child woke, but was careful to blow it out before falling asleep again. Even more than the dark, she worried about the near-freezing temperatures inside her home in this remote part of Northern California. “The thing is the cold,” she said Tuesday. “I am, like, folding...

The acrid smell of charred wood still permeates the air as Sasha Berleman, a fire ecologist, and I walk along a dirt path up through the middle of a canyon in the Bouverie nature preserve in Sonoma Valley. On the left side, the earth is black as tar, and scorch marks as tall as a person scar the trunks of the mature oak trees scattered throughout the field. But on the right side, the ground is tan and brown, and you have to look hard at the still-green oaks to see any evidence of the fire that raged through here...

Californians know that having tens of thousands of homeless in their major cities is untenable. In some places, municipal sidewalks have become open sewers of garbage, used needles, rodents and infectious diseases. Yet no one dares question progressive orthodoxy by enforcing drug and vagrancy laws, moving the homeless out of cities to suburban or rural facilities, or increasing the number of mental hospitals. Gas prices of $4 to $5 a gallon — the result of high taxes, hyper-regulation and green mandates — add insult to the injury of stalled commuters. Gas tax increases ostensibly intended to fund freeway expansion and...

My part of the California Bay Area (San Rafael) just completed a 2.5 day involuntary blackout. The local utility is taking precautions to reduce their power in areas of ongoing fire, or windy weather. They have already declared bankruptcy due to past mistakes and misfortunes. There is nothing I can do about it, but to be ready, more ready the next time. I can be thankful it wasn't longer. Tonight is the first time we have had street lights and traffic lights for a while. I recall gazing from my back terrace at the nearest avenue. All was pitch black....

Former Governor Jerry Brown told Congress on Tuesday President Trump and the Republican Party were responsible for the ongoing California fires because of their opposition to drastic climate change policies. “California’s burning while the deniers make a joke out of the standards that protect us all,” Brown told the House Oversight Committee. “The blood is on your soul here and I hope you wake up. Because this is not politics, this is life, this is morality. … This is real.” Brown was testifying against efforts by the Trump administration to rescind California’s waiver that previously allowed it to set its...

The PG&E power transmission system has been allowed to decay (or hasn't been upgraded) so it can't withstand high winds without possibly causing fires. That's why electricity has had to be turned out for millions of Californians during the recent high-wind events. Who was in power over the past decade, as the electricity system has been allowed to languish, without adequate modernization and safety upgrades? Jerry Brown was governor from 2011 to 2019. Kamala Harris was attorney general during the same period. Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, PG&E's largest municipal customer. None of these powerful politicians did anything...

Who cares about something as mundane as properly maintained power lines if something as supposedly epically important — and politically fashionable — as saving the planet from climate change is at stake? Meanwhile, California has had a decades-long aversion to properly clearing forests. The state’s leaders have long been in thrall to the belief that cutting down trees is somehow an offense against nature, even though thinning helps create healthier forests. Biomass has been allowed to build up, and it becomes the kindling for catastrophic fires. As Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation points out, a report of...

Many people are without cell service after PG&E cut power to two milllion people and wildfires burn across California. In Marin County, close to 50 percent of all cell sites are down. In Sonoma County, 17 percent of sites are without power.  "The biggest concern is that when it comes to 911 calls, 81 percent of 911 calls are made from your wireless phone so having cell sites down it's an incredible public safety concern that consumers cannot access emergency services," said Ana Maria Johnson with the California Public Utilities Commission. Johnson said cell towers don't have back-up power systems because cell companies are not required...

Wednesday brought the distrubing and sad news that wildfires were threatening the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California. Well, it was sad news to most people. But that didn’t stop a few prominent liberals in and out of the media from either gloating or blaming conservative inaction on global warming. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and occasional CNN guest Will Bunch used the dangerous fire as an opportunity to hype his anti-Reagan book and to tout this as a what-goes-around-comes-around type situation:

A wind-whipped outbreak of wildfires outside Los Angeles on Wednesday threatened thousands of homes and horse ranches, forced the smoky evacuation of elderly patients in wheelchairs and narrowly bypassed the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, protected in part by a buffer zone chewed by goats. With California tinder dry and fires burning in both the north and south, the state was at the mercy of gusty winds, on high alert for any new flames that could run wild, and weary from intentional blackouts aimed at preventing power lines from sparking more destruction. The blaze near the Reagan library in Simi Valley...

High winds are making things even scarier in California as wildfires are flaring up all over the state. Millions are being evacuated to safer areas and thousands of homes are still at risk. In Los Angeles, there’s a flurry of activity inside the command center and staging area with fire teams on high alert, getting ready for what could be the most crucial and difficult 36-48 hours of their fight. The National Weather Service has issued, for the first time in their history, an Extreme Red Flag Warning. The big concern is wind.

Former California Governor Jerry Brown told Congress on Tuesday that President Donald Trump and the Republican Party were responsible for the ongoing California fires because of their opposition to drastic climate change policies. “California’s burning while the deniers make a joke out of the standards that protect us all,” Brown told the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. “The blood is on your soul here and I hope you wake up. Because this is not politics, this is life, this is morality. … This is real.” Brown was testifying against efforts by the Trump...

California regulators say they will open a formal probe into whether utilities companies violated any rules by cutting power to millions of residents as a precaution during recent periods of high winds and heightened wildfire risks. The announcement on Monday did not single out any utilities by name, but the bulk of 'public safety power shut-offs' under scrutiny were implemented by Pacific Gas and Electric Co, a unit of PG&E Corp, California's largest investor-owned utility. PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January, citing $30 billion in civil liability from major wildfires sparked by its equipment in 2017 and 2018, including last...

Wild fires in California: cue the the knee-jerk reaction from the Warmists. They and they alone know this to be the Apocalypse. I no longer bother to argue with True Believers. Their faith in nonsense is unwavering.They know for certain that climate change causes power lines to catch trees on fire.Just like they know that this mess would have been fixed by now but for the Climate Change Deniers who voted for Trump. And it’s all Trump’s fault!Impeach! Impeach! Impeach! We must pass AOC’s Green New Deal to SAVE THE WORLD! I wonder if her plan includes wildfire mitigation plans?Posted...

Wildfires are continuing to ravage California as they force 200,000 people to flee their homes and threaten celebrity mansions and LA's Getty Center which houses historic artwork. Northern California, which has been hit hard by the Kincade Fire, also reported a minor 3.3 magnitude earthquake on Monday just after 1am local time not far from the wildfire that has forced 80,000 residents in that area out of their homes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the quake. The state has been plagued by at least nine wildfires since last week with the latest blaze to break...

SEPULVEDA PASS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A fire erupted on a hillside along the 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass area early Monday morning. The fire broke out on a hill around 1:30 a.m. close to the southbound side of the 405 Freeway at Getty Center Drive near the Getty Center museum. It quickly burned 75 acres and jumped the freeway. The California Highway Patrol said homes in the area were being threatened and all offramps on the southbound side from Sepulveda to Sunset Boulevard were shut down. Mandatory evacuations were issued for the MountainGate and Mandeville Canyon communities as...

Wildfires are continuing to ravage California as they force 200,000 to flee their homes and threaten the Getty Center which houses historic artwork. NBA star LeBron James was among those to flee their homes. He took to Twitter writing: 'Man these LA (fire emoji) aren't no joke. Had to emergency evacuate my house and I've been driving around with my family trying to get rooms. No luck so far!' Eighteen minutes later he wrote an update: 'Finally found a place to accommodate us! Crazy night man!' He also added: 'I (praying hands) for all the families in the area that...

Tweet from Governor Newsom’s office:You didn’t expect him to call them blackouts did you? Or brownouts?Response was immediate. Even from normally like-minded allies. Tweet from Seth Mandel of the Washington Examiner: Power to the People! Except of course in states that spend all of your money on electric trains to nowhere, subsidies for wind, solar and electric car (that run on, duh, electricity) companies instead of proper oversight of your Public Service Commission that is supposed to be providing oversight of the state’s public utility companies. In case I’m unclear: oversight would include verifying that the monopolistic companies are providing...

After again shutting power to hundreds of thousands this week, California’s utility PG&E disclosed Thursday that it had discovered a broken jumper cable by the ignition site of a wildfire blazing across Sonoma County. The company has warned of more blackouts this weekend and perhaps for the next decade as it refurbishes its aging grid. Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to deflect political blame. “It’s about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. It’s about corporate greed meeting climate change. It’s about decades of mismanagement,” Mr. Newsom declared. But Democrats for years have treated PG&E as their de facto political subsidiary. The...