Remarkable!
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-08/pge-power-shutdown-winds-critical-fire-danger
“PG&E should have been doing the proper maintenance for the last decade,” Clarke said. “This wouldn’t have been necessary [if they had], and I think that’s what has got everyone so angry and frustrated with PG&E right now. This is a crisis of PG&E’s making.”
I thought about starting this thread but held off.
In reply to nutherjrfan :
You snooze, you lose! 
I'm sure the gas powered generators will be better for the environment and the spark arrestors won't fall off/taken off.
There was a pretty serious backlash against this when it was proposed. I'm really amazed they went forward with it anyway.
PG&E is indisputably culpable for many of the fires over the last couple years so there's good and bad to this type of mitigation. They also have issues increasing rates because of the way that they need to be approved. Not that its an excuse, but they really need to get their act together to address the aging infrastructure.
My friend will be shut off , he is in the hills behind San Jose ,
At least he has a shop to hang out at , and a VW camper to sleep in ....
But then they are talking that it can be 2 days for them to check the power lines after the winds are gone ,
There are going to be some stinky iceboxes if power if off 2-3 days !
Stay safe
I am a California resident in the middle of this. If you read the article, I feel free to ignore EVERYTHING Jerry Hill says. He is an a barely informed grandstanding pay-attention-to-me politician. I have the misfortune of living in his district. His attitude seems to consistently be government must protect people from all harm and inconvenience no matter how impractical. As politically liberal as I am, he is someone I sincerely wish would shut up on just about everything.
My company has multiple stores and network sites in California.
Everyone is going insane trying to make sure we're covered in all aspects thanks to this.
Typhus, bubonic plague, and now this. California really is a third world country
One thing I always look for in these "big solutions" is the good old: Unintended Consequences
One area likely to be affected is Marine County.... lots of richy rich types... and where the current governor is from...
In case anyone is curious about who this might affect:
This whole situation ridiculous, very 3rd world-y. Lucky for me, my house is just barely outside a zone the got shut down. Most of my town is without power. Crazy lines at the stores and gas stations last night.
I have a feeling that we are being played. California has a history of purposely making things more painful to coax people into opening their wallets. Then like idiots, we vote ourselves tax hikes, fee increases, and more regulation, without getting anything in return. Then they do it again, saying “We has our fingers crossed. We promise we’ll do what we promised last time, just give us more money.” Then they divert the money elsewhere, and hold the tax/ratepayers hostage until they cough up more. We already have some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. It’s not a tough place to maintain infrastructure- most places don’t have freezing, no blizzards. No tornadoes, no hurricanes. Just an occasional earthquake. You can’t build a dog house in CA without making sure it’s seismically certified, yet we don’t have power lines that can stand up to a stiff breeze?
There is no need for such widespread and prolonged outages. It’s to soften up the populace for the upcoming cash grab. This is the same PG&E that wanted to raise rates after they blew up a neighborhood so that they could do the maintenance and inspections on gas lines that they neglected for years. Hopefully they went too far and there is enough outrage. Playing with the power got a governor recalled not long ago.
The cash grab is already partially in place. They passed a law that makes the PUBLIC responsible for paying off the fire damages caused by PG&E.
There is hope... that maybe.... eventually... the voting populace will figure out what a fool they are being made of as the situation become more absurd by the year and that the state representatives are actively doing things to encourage it to get worse. There is some sign that this is happening already, the news seems to be finding it hard to ignore (e.g. homeless) but still seem to play stupid about some of the obvious causes/encouragements.
Where is the "voluntarily" in the thread title coming from? I don't see it in the article in the OP. My dad lives in CA, and he sure didn't volunteer for this.
Bad wording, but I think you can read it as: "The CA government voluntarily cuts power"
The people, not so much.
Does anyone recall the late 90's rolling blackouts in SoCal (maybe beyond too?) that were portrayed as being a result of "real" power shortages. Only come to find out about 10 years later it was fake - the shortages were rigged by the energy traders. The price of electricity skyrocketed that year and they made a lot of money. My small business was severely harmed by the higher cost of industrial power that year. We used a lot of juice in our sintering furnaces.
Oh and then there was that minor detail about how people were injured in their cars as the power was cut to the traffic lights and they got into wrecks in the intersections.
The point of my micro rant is that I tend to side with the other comments that we are probably getting played.
Will said:Where is the "voluntarily" in the thread title coming from? I don't see it in the article in the OP. My dad lives in CA, and he sure didn't volunteer for this.
For those that don't know me, I tend to have a wicked sarcastic streak, and sarcasm doesn't often get parsed correctly on the internet. 
"Voluntarily" was the word I intended to use, and it was indeed meant to be sarcastic.
Wait, I think I got it!
They are going to have to raise rates to cover for the loss of revenue when they cut off the power!
Classic (it's what happened when they mandated water use cuts).
UPDATE (listening to the news): Apparently the winds have not yet quite appeared, yet the power has already been cut in some areas. Also, before they turn the power back on, they need to inspect all the lines... which could take a few days!!
In reply to Sparkydog :
Yes, and the governor at the time freaked out when people got upset with rolling black-outs. So he signed some crazy expensive deal for out of state power that was going to jack everyone’s rates for years. He made a bad situation worse, and the voters were not happy.
They were going to close the tunnels into Oakland today which would have caused traffic chaos. Luckily someone remembered what generators are for and averted disaster.
Well....... that didn't work..... (fires all over the place) Of course, you can never know what might have happened.
Some other notes on consequences of cutting power:
- People in the power areas have far more difficulty in getting news / info. If you don't have cell service with a data plan, you are cut off and have to hope there is a radio station near by that will talk about your area.
- Cutting the power also kills any security systems / doorbell cams. Combine that with the large release of the prison population (another "plan" that they did not considered side effects of).... we will see...
About 100 years ago California imported some eucalyptus trees from australia, that have extremely flammable sap. So much so that older ones will explode sometimes.
Next up in Australias evil plans is importing the hawks that have learned how to start brush fires.
Hypothetical risk masturbation experiment:
How many fires would have been caused by wind without cutting power, and how many of those fires would have caused major damage and how many deaths?
Compared to...
How many fires will be caused by Darwin contestants that fire up sketch generators and/or other related dumb-ass antics as they attempt to cope with the power outages? And how many of the Darwin fires will cause major damage and how many deaths?
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
Our local gas company, Atmos, is trying to increase rates by 13.4% after increasing them already earlier this year/last year.
They say it's for safety, but when you look at the actual proposal, it's for office renos and supplies.
berkeleying hate utility companies.
EDIT: They still do rolling black-outs in SoCal, or at least did during the hotter months between 2010-2012.
Just some info to give you an idea who we are dealing with here:
...Just as Pacific Gas and Electric prepared to cut power to roughly two million people in a fire prevention effort this week, some PG&E employees were enjoying dinner and a wine tasting at Silver Oak Winery, north of Healdsburg, on the company dime. The Chronicle learned of the ill-timed soirée, which involved 10 to 12 top gas employees and 50 to 60 of their biggest customers. PG&E Corp CEO Bill Johnson apologized for the unseemly move in an interview with the Chron, calling the wine dinner “insensitive, inappropriate, [and] tone deaf.”
According to Johnson, he was not made aware of the event until after it took place. However, the event was planned for a year, he said, and was not at the expense of ratepayers, but was a show of appreciation for major gas customers....
https://sf.eater.com/2019/10/11/20909553/pg-e-employees-wine-tasting-california-outages-power
This was also in a winery in the area they cut power. It is open though because they made modification so they DO NOT HAVE TO RELY ON PG&E's POWER!
I love the "not at the expense of ratepayers" part. So where did the money come from captain sh%t for brains? Did some money fairy fart it out? If it came from ANYWHERE in the company, the rate payers are ultimately paying for it!
The fire in the San Fernando valley of LA is at 5000 acres now at noon local time, and was caused by a trash truck !
So with the winds anything can happen !
Stay safe
Well, you can't have these fire-starting trash trucks driving willy-nilly around California. Just gonna have to let the trash pile up.
You'll need to log in to post.
