So. California Power Cut ON PURPOSE on Thanksgiving Day

[redhawker]

"...the howling wind forced Southern California Edison to take action.
The power company cut power to communities in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties throughout the day due to the extreme fire danger.
"These are all public safety power shutoffs. It's a measure we take," said David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesperson. "A measure of last resort that we take to ensure the safety of our communities."..."
Maybe in the category of damned if you do damned if you don't but shutting people off for as much as 24 hours on Thanksgiving day? I wonder how many Thanksgiving turkeys didn't get roasted and how much food ended up thrown out because of no refrigeration? Screwed up a bunch of peoples' Thanksgiving I'll bet.

One more reason to put on the list of reasons to leave this screwed-up state.

 

[cowboycopus]

California, what do you expect?

 

[Colonialgirl]

Just DON'T move to Florida !!

 

[Pps1980]

Just DON'T move to Florida !!

We don't want them either here in GA.

 

[Selena]

Isn't this one of the states that is going to ban gasoline powered cars for electric?

 

[FFguide]

Too many in The Big Sky State.

 

[Fox Mike]

Isn't this one of the states that is going to ban gasoline powered cars for electric?

Yep. It is call forward looking. Hopefully all the fire trucks and ambulances will have a full charge by that time so no problem.

 

[contender]

The stupidity of some people "in power or control" knows no bounds. But,, the same can be said for the people affected.

I understand the derned if you do, derned if you don't mentality. Locally, we had a recent situation just like that. A few months back, one of the hurricanes that was supposed to bring heavy rain to our area. As such,, the powers that be over the lake here in Lake Lure drew down the lake to better handle the excess water we were supposed to get. It was to prevent flooding the lake, and the people downstream. Well, the rain was nothing like forecast. And following that event,, we went into another dry spell. The lake didn't refill for several weeks. It caused people to not be able to get their boats out & use them. It caused one business to not be able to give tours of the lake. It caused several real estate agencies to not be able to take prospective buyers out on the lake.
The "lake people" screamed & complained severely.
But if the town had NOT lowered to lake,, and it had flooded,, the very same people would have been screaming that the town didn't protect them.

Derned if you do, derned if you don't.

But,, electricity is MUCH more essential to daily life than our lake for sure. And I know the essential places (hospitals etc.) have a back-up system. But I feel in this case,, due to the necessary nature of the needs for electricity should have been a stronger factor in deciding whether or not to cut power. Yes,, fires which destroy everything are much worse than the loss of convenience or even a planned special dinner.

California really needs to SERIOUSLY work on their necessary infrastructure. They have a very strained water & electrical infrastructure that needed fixing long ago. Yet they fail to properly address the needs & the potential dangers for everyone.

Oh, and this thread is NOT about folks from Ca relocating to other places. Besides,, if a California resident is a gun owner,, he's much more welcomed to many places than the anti-gun people.

 

[Snake45]

History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of man....

--Blue Oyster Cult, "Godzilla"

 

[4896worker]

After seeing how much PG&E electric company had to pay for fires that their power lines started in Northern California when the wind blew it is in th tens of Billions of dollars.

I can't blame the power company's for turning off the pier during a wind event.

 

[Jeepnik]

California, what do you expect?

The power companies were forced to do this. After a couple of fires were blamed (though never proven) on lines arcing in high winds the companies instituted the policy. The bad part is these are transmission lines so areas far removed from the shut down and e effected.

This is what happens when fools decide to get rich suing others.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

People (regulators) do the best they can. They are people just like you and me. After getting burned (literally) by forest fires PG&E and other power companies have taken to shutting off the power before something bad happens. When they didn't they were held responsible and fined huge sums of money for negligence. In this area we have lots of problems with water regulation but for the most part they are right on.

 

[caryc]

I live in Southern California and am under Southern California Edison. Last Thanksgiving we did get our power shut down for the whole day and night. But, we didn't lose power this Thanksgiving. We did have some of the strongest winds I've ever experienced here.

On SoCal Edison's behalf I need to say that for the last year they have been updating their equipment here and I think that's why we didn't lose power during these winds. I live in the hills of the Lakeview Mountains here.
They have changed out all the wiring to insulated wire and have also changed a lot of the power poles that were wrapped in a fire proof stuff. One of these poles sits about 30 feet from my place. They have also installed big knife switches on the poles so that individual poles and wire can have the power shut off from them so a whole string of poles need not be shut down. They can use these switches to shut down power to each individual home. These are manual knife type switches and have to be manually operated. In some places they have switched the poles to fiberglass poles. One of those poles is a couple hundred feet from my place. They have done a lot of work here which I guess has cost them a crap load of money so it's not like they are not trying to make things better. It was like everywhere I went in the area there would be a line of maybe 7 or 8 trucks working on the lines. They have also switched out the wire holding cross beams on the poles from wood to metal.

 

[Xrayist]

Kind of weird that a state that is a proponent "green energy", of which wind power is a form of, panics when it gets windy.....

 

[caryc]

Kind of weird that a state that is a proponent "green energy", of which wind power is a form of, panics when it gets windy.....

Southern California Edison is not the state.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

FP&L has been continuously hardening the power poles and lines and putting lots of electric services underground. In fact this year our electric was put underground in front of our house with a new service hook-up. Maybe no more power outages after a hurricane.

 

[Selena]

Perhaps, but until they start to practice basic forest management California is going to have fires whether the electric is on or not. Here in Indiana REMC and NIPSCO doesn't allow any branches to cross over their easement and have crews on the payroll that do nothing else but trim trees along the transmission route and run the branches through a chipper. However if you catch the crew in the act they will saw the larger branches to stove length but you have to haul them yourself that day.

 

[caryc]

SoCal Electric sent crews out in my area a few months ago. They did trim a couple of my trees then cleaned up by using the chipper chopper. They're not actually Edison employees. They contract out with Edison to do the trimming.

When they replaced the pole in front of my place, they asked me if I wanted the old pole and of course I said yes. They cut it in two pieces when they removed it. They did ask me if I'd like them to make any more cuts on it but since I have my own chain saw, I passed. Now to figure what I'm going to do with that pole. It's not in my way or anything so I'm in no hurry to do anything with it.

 

[dobegrant.45]

Stay out of Arizona,already too many here

 

[caryc]

Rattlesnakes, scorpions and HEAT...ok, don't worry, I'll pass on Arizona.