PG&E just cut power to 5800 upper Napa Valley residents

[Auggie]

Fire danger from high winds. Welcome to the new normal.

BTW, I’m not against this. But consider: it’s cheaper to inconvenience customers than upgrade technology. Or invest in tree-trimming. Or bury power lines.

Corporate America and climate change cannot coexist. Not when there’s a profit motive. This is just the start.

[CentralMass]

1. This sound like a safery measure.

[lapfog_1]

2. My ultimate plan is to off grid ASAP

and, hopefully, with only a gas powered gen-set as emergency backup.

Lower usage, battery storage, solar... and possibly a wind turbine (likely homemade).

[Haggis for Breakfast]

4. Good luck with that.

I had a neighbor who went to the length of solar and hydro (of his own property), and the power company - legally - charged him more for it than if he had just used their power.

It was insane. He fought in court and lost.

Don't think that the power companies will allow you to go completely off the grid. And the politicians they pay for will pass the laws necessary to keep you paying through the nose.

[TexasProgresive]

3. Buried power is OK for distribution but not transmission.

Also it is tough to bury power lines 4 feet deep in places with shallow soils over rock. Where feasible there is always the danger of leakage causing the ground, fences and other metal objects in contact with the ground becoming energized. It is not a cure all.

[Auggie]

10. I agree -- it's not a cure-all. Just do it where it will work. n/t

[JayhawkSD]

5. Actually, it's not "tough" to bury transmission lines.

It's impossible. Those things carry 500,000 volts. Insulation for undergrounding them is not even remotely possible.

It's not about tree trimming, either. The power lines expand so much in hot weather that they sag low enough to touch shrubs and even grass. There is nothing that can be done about this. It is a trade off that is the price of bringing electric power to where we can use it. If towers were built higher the cost of building and maintaining them would be prohibitive. Consumers would not pay the price.

Sometimes nature, in the form of hot weather, is more powerful than the works of man. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and act with a modicum of humility.

[Liberty Belle]

6. No this is NOT okay. SDG&E has been doing this in San Diego's inland area; it's playing with fire.

Without power people cannot get emergency notices if a fire starts and won't know to evacuate. No TV. And land land line phones won't work either. Cell phone chargers that plug in quickly go dead (better get a solar charger!). Reverse 911 calls won't go through. Traffic lights won't work, causing congestion if people need to evacuate fast.

Those with medical life-saving equipment such as ventilators could die.

People can be trapped in their homes if their garage door is electric; many old people are too weak to open these doors manually in an outage especially in the dark. Last year several people died that way in northern CA.

Electric well pumps don't work so they can't feed their livestock in rural areas, and if a fire does start, they can't pump water to fight it. Neither can the firefighters. And some municipal water pumps shut down, too.

Burglar alarms won't work leaving homes unprotected, and street lights off are an invitation to crime.

When your refrigerator goes off for more than a few hours, you lose all the food in it.

In some towns people had a dozen or more power outages over a two month period and some lost food over and over again.

The utility company gave them NOTHING for this claiming it was an act of god (fire weather) that forced them to do this. Of course this was after the utility was held legally responsible for fires caused by its lines. It's all about saving their shareholders money not protecting public safety.

[Auggie]

8. It's necessary when there is no other alternative but FIRE ...

Northern Napa County is very rural, BTW, and as I mentioned, the outage affects only about 5800 customers. They were alerted 24 hours in advance this could happen and advised to make necessary plans.

Did I say it was the perfect preventative action? Nope.

[BigmanPigman]

7. I believe the gov just signed a law that will allow gas and electric companies

to pass the cost of fires onto the customers.

Lines can't be buried due to earthquakes...they will break. In NYC they had tons of outdoor wires that would snap under the weight of snow and ice and snap from the freezing temps, so they put them under the streets and they were destroyed by the flooding during Hurricane Sandy. The weather and modern man do not get along together.

This week S. Calif is having Santa Ana winds after getting only 25% of the average rainfall for the year. Our two worst fires lasted a week each: 2003 destroyed 3,000 homes and 2007 destroyed 2,000 homes. Both occurred the last week of Oct.

[Auggie]

9. Lines are buried in our neighborhood and didn't break during our 6.0 quake

No floods in the hillsides and mountains. Snow is rare and when we do get it doesn't accumulate much or last very long.

Buried lines work in conjugation with other measures -- better technology, upgraded structures, tree-trimming, for example. Multiple measures working together.

Yep -- Jerry Brown and the Senate is allowing PG&E to pass along their fire expenses to ratepayers.

The gist of my post, to reiterate:

Climate change is not going to work for many publicly-traded companies. If utilities were owned by the state more money would be reinvested in upgrades and fire prevention rather than paid in quarterly dividends. Wildfires in high-risk areas might be more preventable.

[BigmanPigman]

13. I agree. Put it in the state's hands and it is up to them

to upgrade. Puerto Rico just finished restoring most of the residents' power but I heard that they used the former technology and plans and system and didn't improve it to endure another, stronger storm in the future. How shortsighted of them. I bet they did it because it is cheaper short term, however long term it will end up costing them more when this one gets destroyed and has to be rebuilt again! I hope the people in FL and other places who are rebuilding will build with climate change in mind. All new construction should be: roads, buildings, homes, utilities, etc.

[Mr.Bill]

11. The biggest problem with what PG&E did

was that it was done with only hours of notice. I seriously doubt this was an idea they just thought of yesterday. Why were we not informed of this possibility days if not weeks ago? This would have given people with special circumstances more time to prepare. Also, the way the notice was worded, people were led to believe that the power for everyone in a number of counties was to be turned off.

I live in a mobile home park for seniors, and many of these people have medical devices requiring electrical power or medications requiring refrigeration. It scared the hell out of some of them, unnecessarily because our area was not to be affected. But finding this out required going on the internet and logging onto a website, a capability many here don't have.

[Auggie]

12. UPDATE: Outage affects 12 counties, as many as 87,000 customers

Tens of thousands of people in 12 counties were bracing for power failures in the Bay Area and Sierra foothills Sunday night after Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced it would preemptively shut off electricity in anticipation of gusty winds, bone-dry weather and dangerous fire conditions across Northern California.

The plan was to shut off power to as many as 87,000 customers in extreme fire risk areas in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Sierra, Placer, Nevada, Butte, Yuba, Plumas, Amador, El Dorado and Calaveras counties.

The blackouts were scheduled to begin as early as 5 p.m. PG&E announced that power had been cut to parts of Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties at 8:03 p.m.

The move was unprecedented for Northern California, where the impacts would be felt from remote towns, to cities such as Santa Rosa, Napa, Oroville and Auburn, and to popular tourist getaways such as Nevada City, Calistoga and Healdsburg.

MORE: https://www.sfgate.com/california-wildfires/article/PG-E-warns-it-may-shut-off-power-amid-red-flag-13306256.php

Much wider than I thought.