California enters uncharted territory:
Massive blackouts, historically dangerous wind
Los Angeles Times,
by
Phil Willon*
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
10/26/2019 11:09:18 AM
SAN FRANCISCO — Northern California braced for a weekend in uncharted territory as Pacific Gas & Electric prepared to shut off power to more than 2 million people as the region faced one of the worst periods of fire weather in a generation. It’s a perilous combination that left many anxiously planning for blackouts and the potential for more destructive wildfires, fueled by 36 hours of intense winds. Some fear they will have to confront fires without power, an experience those who fled this week’s Sonoma County fire described as terrifying. The Diablo winds are expected to pick up Saturday
Reply 1 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/26/2019 11:12:05 AM (No. 218131)
The blackouts are the power company’s prophylactic CYA in advance moves. The one in Sonoma didn’t work because a wire that was different from the one involved in the grid was left out and caused the fire there this week. (Techies: I am not one. My explanation is thus rather simplistic and incomplete.)
4 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/26/2019 11:14:17 AM (No. 218132)
(hit submit too soon)
The power blackouts are having unintended consequences. Fire crews are having to haul in generators as some of their firefighting ability relies on electrical power. For example, many areas are on wells. Wells require power to pump water. Electrical power.
11 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
seamusm 10/26/2019 11:33:48 AM (No. 218149)
While I pray no one is physically hurt, I hope they otherwise suffer terribly for having created this situation at the ballot box and in the courtroom. Californians have no one to blame but themselves.
23 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Donna M 10/26/2019 11:40:56 AM (No. 218167)
Will this blackout area include SF and Silicon Valley? In that case, leave the lights OFF!
16 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
greggojo 10/26/2019 11:40:57 AM (No. 218168)
Excellent column in the WSJ (which I can't post here) pointing out that PG&E has been forced to subsidize the various Leftist agenda items, and thus the utility has been unable to invest in maintaining its equipment.Then there is the matter of California's mismanagement of its forests, refusing to clear or back burn as the pioneers successfully did for the hundred years before the progressives took over the state. Newsom is hardly the hero in all this, he is just another progressive who will not accept responsibility for the consequences of progressive policies and instead deflects with yells about greedy capitalists.
29 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
dbdiva 10/26/2019 11:51:56 AM (No. 218175)
Gavin proclaims a new day of accountability for those who did not do their jobs but oddly failed to look in the mirror. But as we have come to learn, the buck NEVER stops on any Democrat's desk.
This is highly unfortunate for those who are affected but maybe, just maybe they will learn a much needed lesson from this and finally....... Vote a different way!
Or use it for a successful recall of of this SJW Governor.
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Plex 10/26/2019 11:58:30 AM (No. 218181)
Californians that i know (I used to live there) put all blame on PG&E not maintaining power lines. They have no idea that their "conservation" agenda leaves forests as fire hazards.
20 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
beancounter 10/26/2019 12:07:12 PM (No. 218190)
I’ve lived here nearly 60 years and there’s nothing unusual about high winds and dry weather in Northern California in October.
The other thing that isn’t unusual is government-induced blackouts. We had a bunch of them 20 years ago.
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 10/26/2019 12:09:14 PM (No. 218193)
Totally agree with the poster. There has to be a better way of handling this. Turning the power off to 2 million people is not a solution. Wonder if this will be added incentive towards breaking up California.
6 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
davew 10/26/2019 12:15:23 PM (No. 218197)
There has to be another solution
So what has changed? We had overhead power lines and high winds and fire seasons for decades and yet rarely did PG&E shutdown the power. The answer says a lot about the law of unintended consequences when you are dealing with tyrannical leftist government that doesn't accept the concept of shared risk.
The devastating fires that have occurred in the last 2 or three years in Northern California were fueled by years of overgrown forests as a result of the states environmental over regulation of the logging companies. The tree huggers also like to live close to the trees so they built homes in more remote areas close to the overgrown forests. When the inevitable happened and the forests began to burn they took out thousands of homes in the communities that were built close to the forests.
PG&E was insured up to a certain affordable limit against their liability for this but the damage far exceeded their cap and they were on the hook to pay the difference. As a responsible company they agreed to pay but they wanted to be able to recoup their massive losses by distributing these to the ratepayers who had built their homes close to the forest over time. Because they are a "big greedy company" the leftist state regulators said you have to eat it all, buddy, and they refused to let them pass on the excess loss. Given this "heads you lose, tails you lose" proposition from the state, the people who negotiated PG&E back from the brink of bankruptcy decided that they could not afford a repeat of this kind of loss in the future so they literally "pulled the plug" on areas where they might be held liable for fires during windy conditions. If they had been able to operate their business normally and pass on their excess costs to their customers by sharing the risk over time none of this would have been necessary.
17 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
bad-hair 10/26/2019 12:17:40 PM (No. 218200)
And just when you thought it couldn't get worse the San Andreas Fault chucked the whole rat infested SH smeared drug injecting mess into the Pacific Ocean. Dang global warming anyhow.
3 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
droopydog 10/26/2019 12:30:04 PM (No. 218209)
This is NOT "historically dangerous wind". I guess the LAT has to get some sort of climate change, climate chaos worked into any story. As a Southern California native, I call it October.
16 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Italiano 10/26/2019 12:32:06 PM (No. 218211)
Sky-high gas prices
Power outages
Crumbling infrastructure
Inner cities that resemble war-torn Beirut in the midst of a sewage spill.
Beto O'Newsom as Governor.
No whining, Democrats. You elected these morons. We're stuck with them, and you. Until SHTF.
14 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Smart11344 10/26/2019 12:37:04 PM (No. 218215)
Wake up, California.....God works in mysterious ways.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
BigGeorgeTX 10/26/2019 12:38:14 PM (No. 218217)
They still fail to recognize that it's a self-inflicted wound.
15 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
couchguy 10/26/2019 12:55:30 PM (No. 218233)
So Gavin will have to light some more fires to get that sweet sweet federal money. He just declared a disaster for the last fires.
3 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
rockeysroomie 10/26/2019 1:01:16 PM (No. 218240)
Fecal matter, homeless, special blended gasoline, fires. California is leading the way! (Lived in California all my life. The Democrats have ruined this state). And what #11 said.
12 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Highvoltage 10/26/2019 1:06:04 PM (No. 218244)
A Democratic state and a state in disarray. All of these disasters such as fires, water shortage (save the fish) and power outages falls at the feet of the Democratically run state. The state has hamstrung PG&E (thus government intervention) of the state's utility to the extent they can't make market decisions in running their business in a safe and profitable way.
7 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/26/2019 1:27:54 PM (No. 218258)
There seems to be a misunderstanding about the blackouts. Those are the PG&E’s decision and don’t have anything to do with the state’s government. Brought about by PG&E’s having to go into bankruptcy because the fire that its downed wire caused wiped out the entire town of Paradise, CA. The blackouts are not government-mandated. In fact, Gavin-baby has condemned them.
0 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/26/2019 1:30:18 PM (No. 218263)
These are wildfires - grass and brush fires - not forest fires. Once again, those who live elsewhere are underinformed.
3 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
bad-hair 10/26/2019 1:50:20 PM (No. 218281)
If they could print their own money they'd be Zimbabwe.
6 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Mike22 10/26/2019 1:56:52 PM (No. 218292)
Poster #3 and others -- The people that "suffer terribly" including - burning to death - are the deplorables of the sierra foothills and the central valley. The people who cause the problem live in LA and the San Francisco bay. They are the ones that forbid logging the forests and clearing the brush in the name of "saving the planet". They are the ones allowing the fire roads to become brush clogged and eroded to the point of being unusable by fire equipment to save the planet somehow. They are the ones controlling the electric rates - you can't fix equipment without money for parts and labor. They are the ones that siphon off money from the electric utilities and the state water project for their SJW projects. They are the ones that file the lawsuits that flush massive amounts of water into the ocean to save bait fish while rationing the water to irrigation districts destroying central valley farms. (The fish vanished anyway, probably into the bellies of the cute sea lions and otters the city dwellers love so much) They are the ones that forbid building new reservoirs while inviting in every potential illegal on the planet into the state to help consume what little is available.
Their power is not cut off. They control the distribution of water. Bay area air is clean since the ocean breezes push all the pollution into the central valley. Bay area liberals drive the agenda. LA provides the useful idiots (legal and otherwise) that vote for the democrat politicians. San Francisco sits smugly with all the water it wants since they take all the water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and they do not share.
However, if you deplorables in the red states and red congressional districts would push Washington to implement and enforce mandatory real ID for voting in Federal elections you might find out that California, New York, Illinois, Nevada are not as blue as you think they are. And Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida would probably be red states and not battleground states.
11 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
panther361 10/26/2019 2:26:07 PM (No. 218324)
I am one of the ones in the middle of this Sierra Club induced conflagration. Two years ago I had a generator installed at my humble cabin in the Sierras. As far as I can see at night, very friggin' dark, I have the only lights when they cut the electrons. I have heard but one item slip through the LSM news that mentionef PG&E not being allowed to maintain the vegetation around their lines for decades. Now the piper is being paid. The real fun will begin when the commie governor decides to take it over "for the people". We have yet to hit bottom.
9 people like this.
The consequences of decades of voting Democrat. That's the inconvenient truth.
9 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
MOAB 10/26/2019 4:27:52 PM (No. 218413)
That is what you cheese eating liberals deserve for suing the utility company with your last big fire. Hope you are in the dark for weeks.
5 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 10/26/2019 4:31:50 PM (No. 218415)
This isn't historic. This is simply another result of corruption and misspent Fed dollars coming home to roost. Gray Davis did the rolling blackouts as well. Unfortunately, Oregon decided to help them out, with the result being our utility bills doubled and tripled overnight. Cali needs to stew in its own juices and stop expecting the rest of us to bail them out.
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Omen55 10/26/2019 5:01:31 PM (No. 218431)
It's a sign!
0 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 10/26/2019 6:21:00 PM (No. 218474)
Kalifornia has voted itself into the situation that they are now in. Maybe one day they will learn that liberals are not about the people but about control.
3 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Periwinkel 10/26/2019 6:31:44 PM (No. 218479)
I doubt the velocity of the wind has increased to dangerous levels. There would be fewer problems with fires if the forest managers were allowed to clear the dead wood from the forests and scrub lands...but no...once again those wacky enviros know more than anyone else. This will stop when the home owners get together and sue the state of California and the environmentalists responsible for the fires. (Notice I didn't call them wildfires? That is a term used by liberals, as in "rain forest" etc.)
0 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
bighambone 10/26/2019 6:43:30 PM (No. 218489)
No problem the California socialist government can just blame President Trump to escape liability.
1 person likes this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 10/26/2019 7:20:14 PM (No. 218515)
There has always been large fires in fact some of the tress in the forest depend on fires to spread their seeds. I'm not so sure the big problem is not thinning the forests or clearing around power poles. No I think its more from the fighting these fires for the last 100 years. The fires used to do all the thinning and clearing. In the past fires would burn for weeks or months. Now everyone wants to live among the trees which is sure to result in the house burning every 50 or so years. The large trees can often survive a fire, a house no so.
1 person likes this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Trigger2 10/27/2019 2:26:26 AM (No. 218704)
It's not unchartered territory. It's socialist/communist utopia. If actual history was taught in schools, all those snowflakes and kool-aide drinkers would recognize it immediately.
0 people like this.
You were warned. You chose to live in a fantasy of your own making. Reality bites.
0 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
RedWhite&Blue2 10/27/2019 3:05:02 PM (No. 219160)
And at their next board meeting the PG&E execs will vote to raid the maintenance fund to give themselves raises and bonuses.
THAT is why we left the once-golden state.
It’s going straight to hell and we got off that train to HADES!
All Democrat rule in Cali makes for HELL on Earth!
Hey GQ boy...GFY!
0 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
DVC 10/27/2019 5:30:30 PM (No. 219324)
None of the rest of the country has intentional blackouts when the wind blows. Only Cali. PG&E has been forced to spend money on foolish leftist things, and cannot afford to put it's critical lines underground, buying overpriced power, by state law, running up electric bill and neglecting infrastructure.....BY LAW.
Sinking ship of state. And the Dems are furiously drilling holes in the hull, and smashing the pumps.
0 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
seesfarwoman 10/27/2019 10:02:12 PM (No. 219504)
PG&E is a utility and therefore is highly regulated by the State of California. A lot of blame to go around here.
0 people like this.
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There should be a better way to handle this. Plenty of places in the world are dry and windy, and don't need to turn off the lights.