The terrifying experience of escaping wildfire with the power shut off: 'It was pitch black'

[Hunt 4 Blue November]

From the L.A. Times:

Mary and Charles Lindsey went to sleep to the glow of the Tick fire, but they had seen wildfires before, and their two-story home in the Santa Clarita foothills seemed safe enough. All Thursday, they hadn’t gotten a reverse-911 alert, or an emergency email, or a phone call. All had seemed quiet since 11 a.m., when Southern California Edison shut off their power.

It wasn’t until 2:30 a.m. Friday that something — maybe the whir of helicopters or perhaps the providence of God — woke Mary up. She saw the unusual light creeping through the bedroom curtains. “That’s not right,” she thought, grabbing a flashlight.

Outside, a sheriff’s deputy cruising by noticed the flashlight in the window and flicked on his siren, then shouted into the home: “It’s a mandatory evacuation!” The deputy wondered why the occupants hadn’t gotten an alert. She told him that entire section of the Stonecrest community didn’t have a clue. They were all still in their homes. “Oh, my God!” the deputy replied.

What followed, by Mary Lindsey’s recollection the next day at an evacuation center at the College of the Canyons in Valencia, was a pitch-black rush to safety for the Lindseys and dozens of their neighbors — just a microcosm of the unsettling new abnormal confronting residents in California’s sprawling wildfire country: managing emergency evacuations without lights, electrical garage doors, internet-enabled phone lines or air conditioning.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-26/power-outages-residents-miss-fire-evacuation-alerts

"The new abnormal." Sounds about right.

[alwaysinasnit]

1. Thanks for the posting, and welcome to DU. BTW, I like your moniker.

[Hunt 4 Blue November]

5. Thanks

I wanted The and for included, but there wasn't enough space.

[The River]

2. I Had to Evacuate

my home at 3 AM 2 years ago. (Lobo fire)
There was no power and the only notice was someone driving
up and down the streets honking their horn. About 30 minutes later a local fireman walked by saying we had to evac.
With one weak flashlight and a bad leg I managed to round up what I needed and packed my car. I got the garage door open and noticed my elderly neighbor couldn't get his garage door up so I went and helped him.
While driving out of the subdivision (1.5 miles took 2 hours) ashes were falling and and skyline behind me was glowing red.
I've been through earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, divorces and 3 tours of Vietnam. Nothing is quite as scary as a wildfire chasing your ass in the middle of the night.

[Karadeniz]

3. Lord! Would solar or wind turbines have a similar chance of sparking fires?

[Igel]

4. Depends where you put them.

In San Francisco? No, low risk of starting fires.

But put the power generation facilities far out in the countryside, where people don't complain about the noise and annoyance (or don't have the political muscle to make politicians and zoning authorities listen up), and you still need transmission lines to transport the energy.

Notice that something like 30% of Calif's power is non-hydroelectric renewable. And yet this happens.