The ‘new’ fire prevention effort for northern California is to have the utilities turn off the power!!!
Citing the potential for extremely dry air and steady winds of up to 30 mph, with gusts that experts said could be twice as strong, Pacific Gas & Electric announced it was considering a public safety power shut-off for 29 counties between Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon.
Full article, HERE.
Now ‘my’ question is, what about those folks who NEED power to run medical devices, keep things like…oh… Insulin cold, and other meds??? Or charge their wheelchair, or charge that Tesla or other electric car they depend on?
And what about cell towers? Do they have 48 hours of battery backup? I don’t think so… 24 hours maybe a little more. And Kommiefornia, in their ‘infinite’ wisdom have told the Ham radio network they are no longer needed!
What about the people that telecommute? Are they going to get paid, or have to relocate to work? How about on call/volunteer fire/EMS? Those towers require power to work…
Sigh… Rather than actually DO what needs to be done (tree removal, controlled fires, etc.), cutting power is the answer… Would the last American out of California please bring the flag? They won’t need it anymore…
Yeah, those medical devices would be missed. Mom (RIP) needed an oxygen generator in the last year of her life (pulmonary fibrosis), she would have likely expired after the emergency shoulder mounted unit ran out of juice.
CPAPs too would be missed. When I sleep without mine, I am very groggy the next day.
Here in Idaho we’re expecting night time temps in the teens this week. Two days without an operating furnace could get “interesting.” I suppose if one has a wood fired stove, one could use that to keep warm, assuming the ecocrazy overlords in Sacramento haven’t decreed burning wood for heat both illegal and immoral.
The ATMs may not have two days of power for operation and communication, either.
Time for those rule-makers to be sent out as the skirmish line in front of firefighters, equipped with a shovel. Just dig a firebreak, that’s the Good Answer.
You don’t just dig a firebreak in the PDRC! You need a permit, and then an environmental impact study, and then you have to file all the papers certifying compliance with minority representation, and probably pay a Firebreak Tax. *Then* you can dig the firebreak…
Jeez, if they let people go out digging anywhere they wanted, there’s no telling what kind of trouble they’d get up to!
I don’t really blame PG&E on this one (there are other opportunities for that…). They can’t trim the trees (tree huggers). They can’t make enough money to maintain the equipment (State bureaucrats and popular pressure to keep rates low). And if a fire starts, the lawyers will be out in force to sue them even before the fire fighters get there.
What Ian said.
PG&E can’t win here.
Truly. And what’s sad is PG&E used to be able to trim, clearcut the lines, and replace. Then the Cali utility commissions started whacking at them.
And then threw them under the bus for the Paradise Fire. Which is more believably set by homeless people or illegal marijuana grows, which have set most of the other non-naturally caused large fires in the last 5 years in California.
We apparently need to add, “Return of the Primitive” to the NOT INSTRUCTION MANUALS list.
California has completely earned this one.
“So what about all the people who may potentially die or lose income? The snail darters and spotted owls are much more important than mere humans.”
Don’t let Californication spread to the rest of the nation more than it already has. Seriously. We need a big beautiful wall…Make your CALEXIT while you can (read the manual – book).
I sat and watched our local power company blast through a neighborhood with what the realtors call “mature trees” with equipment designed to provide minimum safe distance from power lines. All I could think was how satisfying it was to watch. Huge saws on robotic arms carving a channel through the trees while workers walked behind picking up limbs and throwing them into the mulcher. Sure it leaves a huge bit of tree carved out in an unnatural shape, but I bet no one in the neighborhood would trade their house or their neighbor’s house just to have a nicely shaped tree on the edge of their property.
Northern California? Isn’t that where most of the state’s non-socialists live? I wonder.
This is a case where you CANNOT have your cake and eat it too…
There are conflicting values at work there in California and we have reached the point in time where the incompatibility of the ideas are now in the direct light of day.
Only a self deluding hypocrite would presume that they can both be uber eco green and also live in a technology rich environment. Lord help the city folk. I imagine the country folk have a better chance of surviving.
California was once the garden basket and golden state of our nation. Now it is heading downhill at the hands of a bunch of eco zealots that have painted themselves into a corner. Time will tell what the cost of this latest self imposed disaster is.
I seem to remember about, twenty-five years ago, a tax or fee increase in CA to pay for tree limb clearing around power lines. Wonder what happened to that money… California is starting to sound more and more like Venezuela.
I left Cali a long time ago and have never looked back.
It went down the same corruption hole as the gas tax increases to pay for roads, the property tax increases to pay for new schools or fund existing ones, the air quality tax to pay for new research on air cleaners for cars and industry, the, the, the, the, the…
We have the same issue here in Alachua County, FL. We have a tax to replace single wall gas storage tanks with double wall, even though the responsibility has always been on the owners, we have collected huge amounts of road tax that has gone into not fixing the roads.
In the City of Gainesville, additional taxes have gone into not repairing the roads but painting fake brick crosswalks to ‘make the city quaint’ which start peeling up in a week, to beautify the entrances to the town on the east side, where they are destroyed or defaced in no-time at all, to nature parks and rails-to-trails so the hoodlums can gain access to all parts of the city…
Yay, taxes. And to think our founding fathers were bitching about a little 1% tax on tea and other luxury items…
Kill the power right before the EBT accounts are set to fund and see how that works out.
When we escaped to Texas, I brought the red, white and blue flag with me that I have owned since the 1970’s–red field, crossed blue bars, white stars.
“Kill the power right before the EBT accounts are set to fund and see how that works out.”
My word, they’ll have to spend their booze-gambling-tobacco-weed-&more money on NECESSITIES!* I like it!
* Once worked at a convenience store and some folks squawk about not taking EBT like the (non-franchise) stores in $BIG_CITY did. But they weren’t in $BIG_CITY (but could have been?) and sans EBT “magically” had CASH to spend on… booze, lottery tickets, tobacco…
The areas impacted are probably full of Deplorables the California government would like to see dead.
Hey Old NFO;
The people affected are mostly conservative Californians. PG&E can’t win, this is the effect of uber liberal california policies that “bother” the rural folks and leave the city liberals alone. This highlights the divide. The Liberals have the power and act virtuous and stick it to the country people. More of them will start fleeing california.
All- Thanks for the comments, and yes, that is the more conservative area of Cali.
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Some areas have already been enduring this. One interview I read the person said that they’d go for up to a week without power. A neighbor had a well with a back-up hand pump, and allowed the neighbors to pump their own water. The folks were rural, and seriously ticked.
I would like to see all power lines put underground. Don’t know if its possible. That would solve the wind problem and the icing problems. Don’t know about maintenance problem. Can only hope there’s a better way
It’s hard to do transmission underground – that’s the really big from generator to distributor lines. The energized field around each line is like 5-6′ or more from the line itself.
It can be done, in cities, but it costs a whole hella lot more, and it’s even harder to maintain.
Underground is great for distribution, until it isn’t. Aerial is the easiest to maintain overall, as long as you cut the damned vegetation back.
Power lines are not the first item on the list of Things in California that I’d like to see six feet under.
ONFO: can you cite a source for the hams being declared superfluous? BTW, the International Space Station has a ham station and they used it during a comm failure.
My electrician landlord worked on some cell towers and informed me they’re required to be able to run four hours on batteries. Dunno about backup generators.
My big worry would be water. You can live without a smart phone.
The entire issue about Amateur Radio and Kommirfonia has been blown out of proportion.
From the ARRL Section Manager:
”
The State of California has not made any determination we can find “that Ham Radio [is] no longer a benefit.”What happened is that CAL FIRE has transferred responsibility for its communications sites to its property management department. That department has the significant task of evaluating each site, its condition, use and tenants. If a repeater not known to be associated with the emergency management function of a local jurisdiction is found in a CAL FIRE vault, the default action is to move it out or subject it to commercial rental rates.
Our contact in the California Office of Emergency Services suggests that, if any affected repeater is in any way involved with local emergency or government support activity, they should ask that agency to engage with CAL FIRE concerning the repeater. If the agency makes the case, there is a good chance that the repeater will be unaffected.”
So for now, things are continuing as they were/are.
All- Thanks! Talked to PP this morning, they are on intermittent generator for the fridge to keep hubby’s insulin cold. Other than that, they have gas, so they can cook. Appears all the gas stations are closed, most if not all restaurants, and apparently ONE grocery store open, but cash only basis. As she said, “Fun times…” Robert- https://youtu.be/lv2sb4LJq2g
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Hah. We heah in the South have Publix, which after the 2004 hurricane swarm cost them multi-millions in food loss, now has a big-arsed genset at each store capable of powering each store for a week or more.
Sucks that Cali is hurting all the retirees and medically challenged people that moved to the country to escape all the city bullscat.
Ye Aulde Styrofoame Cooler and a stack of “blue ice” packs will keep insulin cool for a long time.
There’s also Ye Aulde RV Refrigerator, which will run for weeks on a tank of propane.
One of the Peltier Effect 12v cold boxes and a solar panel would probably work, but you’d need a pretty big panel since Peltier devices aren’t very efficient. Or use the car or a 4-wheeler to power it intermittently.
I have a big inverter so I can run my CPAP machine from the car during power outages. Fuel efficiency at idle isn’t good, but on a scale of 1 to 5, my sleep apnea problem is about a 6.5…
TRX: If your CPAP can run off of 12v dc, a deep-cycle battery of proper capacity and a larg-ish solar panel might work. We’ve done it while camping with no issues. Although, the sound of the CPAP cycling air makes it harder to hear bears sneaking up on you 🙂
No, my insurance wouldn’t cover any of the machines that would run on 12V, and though I was willing to pay the difference, apparently just the thought of it made their accounting system hide in a closet and cry. So I bought a big inverter and an extension cord long enough to make it from the car to the CPAP.
Our local power utility got bought by some out-of-state outfit a few decades ago, and they closed all their business offices, contracted out basic maintenance to other companies, mostly also out of state, and as the piece de resistance, stopped trimming trees along their right-of-ways. Which means any time there’s some ice or hard wind, the power goes out. Sometimes for days at a time. I don’t even *remember* the power ever going out when I was a kid… somewhere after 1990, it became a regular thing, and worsening.
Wow. Big-ass solar panel to keep the battery topped-off without using the car during the day? Oh, wait, you’d have to stay up at night and sleep days. Nevermind. Was doing double-shifts recently and brain is still a bit fried. I worry- if the power goes out, my disabled clients will die. Ugh. (I’ve already decided we’ll eat the skinniest cat first and save the fatest for last. Clarification: clients are human, cats are their pets.) Good luck, TRX.
I think PG&E is doing this in self-defense. The leftist governor
needed a scapegoat for one of the most destructive fires in American
history, so they sued PG&E for billions of dollars. The real cause
of the fires in this dysfunctional state are its insane forest management
policies that allow deadwood to accumulate on the forest floors.
This policy of benign neglect is reinforced by laws that prohibit
the collection of deadwood for use in fireplaces.
In the past, you could fill your pickup with all the deadwood you
wanted. The brush and dessicated deadwood become tinder and
kindling for the trees. This will happen again, and when it
does they will not be able to blame downed powerlines which
were the result, not the cause of the fires!
The next spate of fires will be blamed on saboteurs, wreckers, and kulaks
Our company came through and removed everything within 10 feet of the lines on either side. No exceptions. It was just done.
All- Good points. PH, yep, but they value serving their customers over the ‘pristine’ environment… Sigh…
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Wait until the wrongful death lawsuits start due to medical devices not working or the insulin that no longer works properly do to getting hot.
But they saved snail darters and spotted owls, and mere humans are insignificant compared to that.
Besides, all those old and sick people would have perished in the resultant fires if they hadn’t cut off the power.
(It’s sad that it’s so easy to come up with these things.)
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All- Thanks for the comments.
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I helped install a cell phone tower on the Oregon coast about twenty-five years ago and we installed a backup diesel generator with a large fuel bunker.
We are finally recovering from power out for 3 days. Had a generator to keep our fridge/freezer cold enough, and to charge batteries. Thank goodness that when we re-built after the Valley Fire, we went for extra insulation for the house. We were a little chilly in the mornings, but otherwise okay. Lost about $100.00 in food, the fridge half was not quite cold enough. I have friends that have lost a lot of food due to the fact that they could not run a generator due to physical issues. I wish I could have helped them, but right now I am not physically able to. And the reason for the shut-off, the high winds? Never materialized. It was dead-calm. There is actually more wind right now than during the whole shut-off. I was packed and ready to go if a fire did come. I think I might just keep my go bag in the car at all times from now on.
Wow. Big-ass solar panel to keep the battery topped-off without using the car during the day? Oh, wait, you’d have to stay up at night and sleep days. Nevermind. Was doing double-shifts recently and brain is still a bit fried. I worry- if the power goes out, my disabled clients will die. Ugh. (I’ve already decided we’ll eat the skinniest cat first and save the fatest for last. Clarification: clients are human, cats are their pets.) Good luck, TRX.