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Power Shuts Down in Northern California
I’m writing this early Wednesday morning, trying to post while I still can. The good news is that BART and the freeways going through tunnels will still be operable, and all of San Francisco will remain powered up. But parts of all of the surrounding areas will be affected.
The TV news is fun. They’re warning viewers that home alarm systems won’t be working, so report suspicious activity with your remaining charge on your phone … but the cell towers won’t be working either. The radio has been full of public service announcements.
Our governor feels our pain. He says we should be outraged. At something not specified. I’m outraged at him. He was Lt. Governor for the last eight years and in local government for 20. PG&E is a creature of government with its freedom of action controlled and constrained by government. He is and has been the face of government and this happened on his watch.
Although California has the most expensive electricity in the US, it is delivered with third-world safety and reliability.
Published in General
I suspect that the power company’s grid is in only fair condition and therefore more likely to be affected by high winds.
Actually, it’s the opposite. PG&E has always been a private company, a corp. They have been regulated to the point that they’re pretty much the equivalent of a government agency, but they aren’t, they’re somebody who can be blamed for the outrages of government, and forced to take the rap.
Their powerline corridors have been scrupulously managed in accordance with government regulations. But here’s a question that I don’t believe has ever been addressed: how much blame should be affixed to, say, a builder who builds to code – say it calls for withstanding the strongest earthquake that reasonably be expected. Say, a Richter 6. Then a Richter 10 hits. and the building fails. Is the builder to be blamed for something he wasn’t supposed to build in the first place?
I live in the northeast area of San Diego County in a mountainous and remote area on the eastern flank of Palomar Mountain. SDG&E has turned the electric power for a large area up here in the back-of-beyond off several times in the past few years whenever there has been a “red flag” warning about wind conditions. On at least one occasion the wind speed never topped 30 mph and was certainly not a threat but they turned off the power before the predicted high wind period was predicted to start.
It is actually SDG&E’s announced policy to cut power for this area in high wind conditions, no need to pretend about not wanting to pay out billions for perhaps being responsible in starting a wildfire. One time the power was off for three days. Recently SDG&E has been doing some maintenance in cutting back trees and vegetation, and powerline upgrades, so perhaps this won’t happen as frequently but it’s not clear yet.
Now there’s a new fire-related thing happening with some of the household insurance companies cancelling fire insurance in this area. The letter I got from my (former) insurance company said it was due to the rugged terrain and remoteness even though there is one fire station less than a mile away and another six miles in the other direction along a highway which never has any traffic (and no stop signs or lights so it’s six minutes away). Several fires have started recently and been put out quickly by air assets dropping chemicals and scooping water from the lake in my housing development so even though it is remote here it seems like something else might be behind this. There’s a program called “California FAIR” which I don’t yet understand completely but which appears to be insurance companies pooling fire liability so I think my company and others are acting in concert to force people into the pool.
Funny, no one wants to make the state pay for the fires its forest management and its water “conservation” efforts have had. Instead, it’s someone else’s fault.
One of the problems of highly regulated utilities is that in order for the utility to charge its customers for something, the state, in the form of a Board or Commission, has to approve what goes into those rates. What’s often excluded from rates are basic infrastructure maintenance and replacement work, for various reasons, meaning they’re not recoverable (generally) and considered part of operational expense (OpEx).
So: If California, in the form of Californians, were interested in upgrading their electrical infrastructure to better withstand high wind damage, build fire breaks, store water, etc, they could do so – but they’d have to pay for it, since nothing is free.
Unless you’re a fat lazy hippie or this idiot below. Then everything’s free, if someone else pays for it.
Well my shares of Generac stock went up 7 dollars a share today on this stupidity, so I’m chuckling.
I think I did a brochure for them once.
After last years hurricane in NC my wife went from “it’s a needless expense” to ” I want to do commercials for them” when our power was out for 10 days….
Why don’t we gather up bums and hippies and stuff them on treadmills to generate power?
My niece is a salesrep for them
Where are you in NC? Which hurricane? Florence?
Supposedly they could put up five dams in the Sierra Nevada mountains for water and electricity.
The dewpoint in the East Bay SF is 20° right now.
Of course you would! It’s a too-little recognized fact that regulated utilities like being regulated. Failing to sell a few kilowatt-hours of energy because of a shutdown is a small price to pay to be free of competition and to receive a guaranteed rate of return on investment — including investments to mitigate risk of wildfire.
I heard that they shut down power to 2 million people to prevent fires????? This can’t be right?!?! Something is seriously wrong…..a huge restaurant owner on the radio said he was losing huge amounts of food and business – no cell phone towers? No emergency numbers?
The last time there was a wind storm some of their power poles fell over and started a fire and the power company got sued (billions) for the damage caused and loss of life. They are now being proactive so that no fires will be started by their equipment if poles fall over.
Cell phone and landline companies have their own backup power systems.
Yeah Florence. We live in Wilmington, we’re a couple miles from Wrightsville Beach where the storm made landfall…
PG&E filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a result of being held liable for recent fires, and is still going through the process. I have to assume that’s a factor in this decision as well, either:
Many things here. It’s not that they weren’t forewarned. Granted, it isn’t easy nor cheap to set up backup power for something like a restaurant, but I started getting warnings of this very thing from PG&E well before the fire season (Our gas comes from PG&E, our electricity doesn’t, and we got the notifications anyway in our bills). So there’s a degree of cost / benefit / risk calculation on the part of the restaurant owner. This time he lost the gamble.
The majority of cell sites have backup power, although I have no knowledge how long they can function without service (read fuel). People who haven’t prepared are likely to have their cell phones die before the cell sites. One other thing: On cell phones, the data (think texting) side is much more dependable than the voice side. Even if you don’t normally text, and texting isn’t included in your contract, know how to text. With no plan, it might cost you a dime or so per text, but if it comes to that, you’ll be glad to spend it.
The bigger story is VOIP. I forget what percentage of people have their home phones on their internet provider, via VOIP, but it’s huge. And here, unless you’re well – prepared, is the problem. Even if your ISP maintains connection to your house, if you lose power to your house, then you will shortly be without “landline” phone service.
If you live in an area that might be affected by these power outages, then my advice: Get prepared, one way or another. And consider getting your ham license. Because it’s an old saw, but it’s still true: “When all else fails, Amateur Radio.”
Large utility grids are nothing but a system of government theft, one way or another. We don’t need them anymore. We need compact nukes on decentralized grids. They will be run economically, not politically.
“Ruined California”. This specific problem with PG&E, power lines, liability, and wildfires is just a generalized symptom of something the “enthusiastic majority” voted for that “ruined California”, and therefore the whole “place” (California) deserves it. Amazing to read this on a conservative website.
Have the voters of California tossed out the governing entities that have ruined San Francisco?
How are those homeless encampments in LA doing?
Water systems and irrigation dams doing ok, or are they being run for the benefit of a few “endangered” fish?
The problems in that state go far beyond power systems and wildfires. And you guys did it to yourselves.
Our sister office 40 miles away went VOIP, and they love it when it works. But we’re in the Permian Basin and in recent years the oil boom has been at such a level that the power companies only now are getting the problems under control, and area residents have had to endure series of spot blackouts because the grid of the moment couldn’t handle the demand. That’s when their VOIP was useless. We stayed with the land line when we upgraded our office system two years ago.
As noted at the beginning of this thread, San Francisco and the main coastal urban core did not lose power, and that’s the key. If the population majority along the coasts is kept happy, they’re going to keep voting for the same people, because periodic rolling blackouts aren’t their problem (and you can be sure 12 months from not the state’s pols are going to hold PG&E’s feet to the renewable-energy generated fire not to black out any of those areas in October, right when early voting begins. Outlying Red areas can stay dark the whole month, as far as they’re going to be concerned).
If I, personally, am responsible for the state’s problems then you, personally, are responsible for Obamacare.
The people of My state did vote for Obama in 08 and 12, so you’re correct. Just as the people of your state voted for the people that are destroying California.
But We at least had the good sense to also elect Scott Walker.
There is some room for hope that this first PSPS (Public Safety Power Shutoff) will act as a wake-up call to some members of the Blue team, because I believe that the Blue team is feeling pain through power outage. That is, contra to the note quoted above, the pain is not exclusively among the Red team: the Gold Country is sort of Californian “Appalachia,” and they are taking a hit, but Scott “Dilbert” Adams is in a Bay Area rural town that was supposed to get an outage, yet as of this morning it had not. On the other hand, the Oakland Hills seems to have an outage, as have the Berkeley Hills and the UC Berkeley Campus: three Blue citadels.
PG&E might be a little more egalitarian in sharing the pain within the region this year, because there are no major elections. My guess is going into high wind and heat season next October, the utility gets a few phone calls from Sacramento letting them know which areas would be preferred for outages, if outages are required.
And the bad sense to elect Tony Cadaver.
That is, if you believe that election was legit. And I don’t.
Well I have lived in Calif. off and on for most of my life. I certainly don’t like the trend. but to write off everyone here is disingenuous . After all more people voted for Trump in this state than in any other state, even knowing that their vote wouldn’t count toward the electoral college. I think it would have more if predictions were for a closer outcome.
My son lives in the area affected by one of the fires and I went thru a week after. Being held responsible for all that damage and lives lost I cannot blame PG&E for trying something. I believe they are responsible for the damages when power is lost too.