PG&E to cut power to 800,000 customers across California after midnight; Marin added to list

[txradioguy]

UPDATE: PG&E confirmed Tuesday afternoon that it will preemptively shut off power to nearly 800,000 customers across 34 counties in California after midnight Wednesday morning.

Cool, dry winds gusting at freeway speeds are expected to start whipping through the North Bay and East Bay hills late Tuesday, threatening to turn sparks into raging wildfires and prompting preemptive power shut-offs that could leave more than a quarter-million Bay Area residents without electricity for days.

Officials in Oakland and Contra Costa County said Tuesday that the shut-offs could begin as early as midnight Wednesday, four hours earlier than Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s initial estimate of 4 a.m. The outages could affect a total of 1.8 million people, Oakland officials said.

Alameda County officials issued an advisory Tuesday morning that PG&E is expected to disconnect power to more than 35,000 residences and businesses for up to five days starting early Wednesday.

Parts of every Bay Area county except San Francisco were included in PG&E’s map of potential outages. On Tuesday afternoon Marin County was added.

PG&E officials said they are monitoring weather conditions but don’t yet know when they’ll be able to announce where power will be switched off and when.

Tamar Sarkissian, a PG&E spokeswoman said the planned outages will probably not all be announced at the same time but as PG&E’s meteorologists and experts determine they are necessary.

”It’s an evolving situation,” she said. “When a decision is made, we will let our customers and our communities know.”

PG&E said Monday that it was considering power shut-offs in portions of 29 of California’s 58 counties, including every Bay Area county but San Francisco and Marin. As many as 650,000 customers could lose their power in the Bay Area, Northern California, the Sierra and Central Valley.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/PG-E-power-shut-off-257-000-Bay-Area-residents-14500945.php?fbclid=IwAR2cJEryZzuFV-kek8SSx-NuYChrlRoGZlyK1IKY78IBXqjnOyEimFW3bTk

[DB]

The state legislature did this. The state deserves what they voted for. Idiocy on steroids.

You can't have power lines in dry wooded rural areas without some risk of starting a fire when high winds are present. The state demanded that PG&E was responsible for the last fire so the only reasonable thing they can do is turn off the power anytime the wind blows and conditions are dry.

In addition the state greatly exasperated the situation by restricting the building of access roads in rugged/undeveloped areas and wouldn't let anyone cut down trees for nearly any reason. So when a fire did start, and the winds were high, the only thing anyone could do was watch because the firefighters couldn't get there until it had grown to being totally uncontrollable.

[Cyber Liberty]

That sounds pretty bad.  They ever heard of clearing vegetation from around their high-tension lines like they do everywhere else in the country?

[txradioguy]

@PeteS in CA is this gonna effect you?

[txradioguy]

That sounds pretty bad.  They ever heard of clearing vegetation from around their high-tension lines like they do everywhere else in the country?

Surely you jest!  You're talking about a state that is in constant drought because state law forbids allowing the snow melt and any rain run off from the mountains from being collected in the state reservoirs.  It's all allowed to run unrestricted right down into the Pacific Ocean just like Gaia initended. 

[Wingnut]

Track this back to Grey Davis.  He sold the grid.  Lost control of everything.

[skeeter]

That sounds pretty bad.  They ever heard of clearing vegetation from around their high-tension lines like they do everywhere else in the country?

Perish the thought. Think of the squirrels.

PG&E is forcing the idiot voters of this state to begin using a little critical reasoning and not just swallow Sacramento and their rat media allies BS hook line and sinker.

Suffering the consequences of mindlessly accepting rat policies and rat rationalizations. This is gonna hurt.

But at least no one will die this time.

[DB]

That sounds pretty bad.  They ever heard of clearing vegetation from around their high-tension lines like they do everywhere else in the country?

You can try. All the counties have weed abatement rules and fines if you don't.

But the simple reality is when you have hot dry 60+ mile an hour sustained winds (which aren't common there) things happen. Tree limbs break, things fly through the air, something can spark. It is the hard cold reality of power lines in rugged country. You can accept the risk or turn off the power...

[PeteS in CA]

@PeteS in CA is this gonna effect you?

Looking at my area on this map of possibly affected areas, https://code.pressdemocrat.com/shared/maps/pge/20191007/?lat=38.44&lon=-122.71&z=11 , probably not. Two hospitals near us (near crossing of SR17 and SR85 freeways), Good Samaritan and El Camino-Los Gatos also look likely to be unaffected.

The basic situation is that for decades PG&E has been restricted via Enviros' lawsuits in how much they can trim back trees, and the State of California has been, often willingly, impeded from clearing back brush and dead trees. And the lumber industry that used to do a lot of clearing has been driven by the enviros, state, and the Feds out of California. That means that winds stronger than the anticipated maximum or idiots shooting rifles at power lines or ?? can cause a sparking failure that touches off a fire that has lots of fuel. So in the immediate sense, a PG&E equipment problem can start a fire, but the enviros and state/Feds have ensured that some will turn into massive conflagrations.

PG&E's legal beagles have induced the company to react very sensitively so that when the next massive fire happens, PG&E will be able to prove that their equipment could not have been the source. WHEN.

[skeeter]

Looking at my area on this map of possibly affected areas, https://code.pressdemocrat.com/shared/maps/pge/20191007/?lat=38.44&lon=-122.71&z=11 , probably not. Two hospitals near us (near crossing of SR17 and SR85 freeways), Good Samaritan and El Camino-Los Gatos also look likely to be unaffected.

The basic situation is that for decades PG&E has been restricted via Enviros' lawsuits in how much they can trim back trees, and the State of California has been, often willingly, impeded from clearing back brush and dead trees. And the lumber industry that used to do a lot of clearing has been driven by the enviros, state, and the Feds out of California. That means that winds stronger than the anticipated maximum or idiots shooting rifles at power lines or ?? can cause a sparking failure that touches off a fire that has lots of fuel. So in the immediate sense, a PG&E equipment problem can start a fire, but the enviros and state/Feds have ensured that some will turn into massive conflagrations.

PG&E's legal beagles have induced the company to react very sensitively so that when the next massive fire happens, PG&E will be able to prove that their equipment could not have been the source. WHEN.

Besides the sensitivity of this state towards controlled burns - they are not appreciated and their use has declined in recent decades - adequate management of public lands is damned expensive.

So is maintaining the army of current and retired state employees. Guess who gets financial priority.

No way to substantiate this, its just my own suspicion.

[DB]

Besides the sensitivity of this state towards controlled burns - they are not appreciated and their use has declined in recent decades - adequate management of public lands is damned expensive.

So is maintaining the army of current and retired state employees. Guess who gets financial priority.

No way to substantiate this, its just my own suspicion.

In the part of the state I was in controlled burns had about a fifty percent chance of becoming uncontrolled burns...

[skeeter]

In the part of the state I was in controlled burns had about a fifty percent chance of becoming uncontrolled burns...

The competence of the average CA state employee is a whole nuther topic.

[Cyber Liberty]

You can try. All the counties have weed abatement rules and fines if you don't.

But the simple reality is when you have hot dry 60+ mile an hour sustained winds (which aren't common there) things happen. Tree limbs break, things fly through the air, something can spark. It is the hard cold reality of power lines in rugged country. You can accept the risk or turn off the power...

I'm south of Vegas an hour or so, and we have a wind/fire weather advisory up of the rest of the week.  My Castle is on a bit of a promontory about 900 feet above the Colorado River below, and we had 30 sustained all day yesterday.  I think the difference here is PG&E got sued.

[skeeter]

Looking at my area on this map of possibly affected areas, https://code.pressdemocrat.com/shared/maps/pge/20191007/?lat=38.44&lon=-122.71&z=11 , probably not. Two hospitals near us (near crossing of SR17 and SR85 freeways), Good Samaritan and El Camino-Los Gatos also look likely to be unaffected.

The basic situation is that for decades PG&E has been restricted via Enviros' lawsuits in how much they can trim back trees, and the State of California has been, often willingly, impeded from clearing back brush and dead trees. And the lumber industry that used to do a lot of clearing has been driven by the enviros, state, and the Feds out of California. That means that winds stronger than the anticipated maximum or idiots shooting rifles at power lines or ?? can cause a sparking failure that touches off a fire that has lots of fuel. So in the immediate sense, a PG&E equipment problem can start a fire, but the enviros and state/Feds have ensured that some will turn into massive conflagrations.

PG&E's legal beagles have induced the company to react very sensitively so that when the next massive fire happens, PG&E will be able to prove that their equipment could not have been the source. WHEN.

Lovely. According to PG&E's recent alert my power will be shut off at midnight.

[txradioguy]

Lovely. According to PG&E's recent alert my power will be shut off at midnight.

Do you have any kind of backup power generation?

[Fishrrman]

California -- where they get what they vote for.
Looks like they're gonna get it, but good.

Really, folks, why should we care?

But...
My condolences to the Briefing Room members who are stuck there. Why not get outta that state while you still have a chance...?

[bigheadfred]

Do you have any kind of backup power generation?

Like a windmill?

[PeteS in CA]

California -- where they get what they vote for.
...

No, I have not. I have not been represented in the legislature or Congress for decades. Please generalize more carefully.

[austingirl]

Lovely. According to PG&E's recent alert my power will be shut off at midnight.

Sorry to hear that.

[txradioguy]

Like a windmill?

I was thinking more of a gas powered generator.

[skeeter]

Do you have any kind of backup power generation?

Yeah I have a little Honda generator and a little gas laid up. But from what I hear the power might be out for as long as five days. That’ll be fun.

I’m hoping the map is inaccurate. There’s no reason to cut our power here.

[skeeter]

California -- where they get what they vote for.
Looks like they're gonna get it, but good.

Really, folks, why should we care?

But...
My condolences to the Briefing Room members who are stuck there. Why not get outta that state while you still have a chance...?

Well, for starters we’re not real popular in the rest of the country.

[bigheadfred]

I was thinking more of a gas powered generator.

There are some people here who have one-a windmill. I hear they are expensive. But the power company is supposed to buy the power back from you. This thing doesn't run all the time. I can see it. Not running now and we had a steady wind all day.

Since we are talking California here and they are turning off the power because of the wind, a home use windmill seems to make sense. Who or why would anyone there object?

[truth_seeker]

800,000 Controlled Bums ???

[bigheadfred]

800,000 Controlled Bums ???

Cheeky.