Plan B Forum

It's too bad there is not a regulatory agency overseeing this utility . . .

POLLOCK PINES, Calif. -- Northern California fire officials say a man dependent on oxygen died about 12 minutes after Pacific Gas and Electric shut down power to the area as part of a massive effort to prevent fire.

El Dorado County Fire Chief Lloyd Ogan said Friday that fire personnel responded to a call in Pollock Pines that came in after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.


He said crews arrived to find an unresponsive man in his 60s and were unable to revive him.

RELATED: PG&E CEO Bill Johnson apologizes, responds to criticism of Public Safety Power Shutoff

Ogan said the man's oxygen equipment required power but could not say whether the shutdown was related to his death.

PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said it has not been able to confirm the accuracy of the report.

The utility started turning off electricity early Wednesday in Northern and Central California in advance of strong, dry winds.

BoSoxGal wrote:... Yeah I’m sure it had nothing to do with the power going out. I’m angry at PG&E, but also where were his family, friends, neighbors? Why didn’t public health officials plan to check on people reliant on ventilators when PG&E warned of the planned outtage?

liberty wrote:The solution is simple: Everyone switches to solar, problem solved.

If PG&E cuts power Saturday, much of Bay Area will be in dark

Pacific Gas and Electric is closely watching the weekend forecast for a severe wind event that could lead the utility company to turn off power to nearly 400,000 Bay Area customers in eight counties to reduce the risk of wind-damaged equipment sparking wildfires. Another 450,000 customers in 28 other counties may go in the dark, impacting a total of 850,000 Northern California customers.

PG&E said in a statement Friday that power outages could begin Saturday in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara Solano and Sonoma. The outage maps show much of the Bay Area in the dark.

Below is a rundown of the cities in each Bay Area county that could go in the dark as well as the estimated number of customers impacted.

Alameda
Total: 57,360
Medical baseline: 1,302
Albany, Berkeley, Canyon, Castro Valley Dublin, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Oakland, Piedmont, Pleasanton, San Leandro, Sunol

Contra Costa
Total: 48,824
Medical baseline: 1,610
Alamo, Antioch, Brentwood, Byron, Canyon, Clayton, Concord, Crockett, Danville, Diablo, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Hercules, Kensington, Knightsen, Lafayette, Martinez, Moraga, Orinda, Pinole, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill, Port Costa, Richmond, Rodeo, San Pablo, San Ramon, Walnut Creek

Marin
Total: 86,813
Medical baseline: 1,574
Belvedere, Bolinas, Corte Madera, Dillon Beach, Fairfax, Fallon, Forest Knolls, Greenbrae, Inverness, Kentfield, Lagunitas, Larkspur, Marshall, Mill Valley, Muir Beach, Nicasio, Novato, Olema, Point Reyes Station, Ross, San Anselmo, San Geronimo, San Rafael, Sausalito, Stinson Beach, Tiburon, Tomales, Woodacre

Napa
Total: 11,294
Medical baseline: 248
Angwin, Calistoga, Deer Park, Lake Berryessa, Oakville, Pope Valley, Rutherford, St Helena, Yountville

San Mateo
Total: 64,932
Medical baseline: 1,293
Belmont, Burlingame, Daly City, El Granada, Emerald Hills, Half Moon Bay, Hillsborough, La Honda, Loma Mar, Montara, Moss Beach, Pacifica, Pescadero, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, San Gregorio, San Mateo, South San Francisco, Woodside, Unincorporated Communities in Southwest San Mateo County

Santa Clara
Total: 27,093
Medical Baseline: 823
Coyote, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, Redwood Estates, San Jose, San Martin

Solano
Total: 10,232
Medical baseline: 545
Fairfield, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo

Sonoma
Total: 92,877
Medical baseline: 2,695
Annapolis, Bodega, Bodega Bay, Camp Meeker, Cazadero, Cloverdale, Cotati, Duncans Mills, Forestville, Freestone, Geyserville, Glen Ellen, Graton, Guerneville, Healdsburg, Jenner, Kenwood, Larkfield, Monte Rio, Occidental, Penngrove, Petaluma, Rio Nido, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Stewarts Point, Valley Ford, Villa Grande, Windsor

PG&E hasn't released a time line for when outages will begin but it said the weather forecast indicates damaging winds are expected to develop between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday and the utility will turn off power several hours before the gusty conditions pick up.

Once again Frisco thankfully isn't likely to be affected, but I see Joe's Redwood City on the hit list, and I believe Dale's stomping ground may be on there as well...

California enters uncharted territory: Massive blackouts, historically dangerous winds

SAN FRANCISCO —

Northern California braced for a weekend in uncharted territory as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. prepared to shut off power to more than 2 million people amid forecasts for 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 evening and last until Monday morning, longer than the windstorms that fueled the three most catastrophic fires in California history.

“This is definitely an event that we’re calling historic and extreme,” said David King, meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Monterey office, which manages forecasts for the Bay Area. “What’s making this event really substantial and historic is the amount of time that these winds are going to remain.”

PG&E warned the power outages could be spread across 36 counties from Humboldt to Santa Cruz to Bakersfield.

The wind conditions predicted for this weekend are much like those before the devastating wine country fires of 2017, said Craig Smith, a former PG&E weather expert and now a fire scientist with the consulting firm Jupiter Intelligence. Those fires killed 22 people in Sonoma County and nine in Mendocino County.

The area of highest risk includes the Bay Area and points north, including the northern Sierra Nevada foothills and California’s North Coast region, said Daniel Swain, climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It’s been particularly unusual that the North Coast, the wettest part of the state, is still so dry at this point in autumn.

“This is the kind of event that makes me personally nervous, as somebody who has friends and family living in the fire zones in the Bay Area, and I don’t say that about all the events,” Swain said. “Hopefully, we get lucky and there are no major ignitions. But if they happen, it’s going to be really hairy Saturday night and Sunday. It’s looking really, really extreme.”

PG&E has called some of this fall’s past winds extreme when that wasn’t necessarily the case, Swain said, but “this one really is meteorologically extreme.”

By Friday afternoon, the Kincade fire had destroyed 21 homes and scorched 21,900 acres. With a temporary lull in the wind, firefighters had still managed to reach only 5% containment.

“We’ll most likely see the fire spreading once again” Saturday evening, when gusts are expected to reach up to 75 mph, said Drew Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw gusts between 80 and 85 mph.”

And that apparently is the good news, because:

Then on Sunday, he said, conditions will worsen. The winds are expected to head downslope, reaching urban areas as far as Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento.

BoSoxGal wrote:Working with ventilator dependent patients as I do, I can’t help but think of the folks living at home with serious medical issues who need electricity to survive. Yes, most such folks have generators in place, but for how long should they be expected to rely on that backup system? And what about folks at home who couldn’t afford to put such systems in place?

Is there no technology available to deal with sparks flying off power line connections other than shutting off the power? Or does the technology just cut too deeply into profit margins and shareholder returns?

Joe Guy wrote:People need to consider how long they intend to live in a home before investing in solar panels. That, along with the inability to afford the initial cost, are likely reasons that a lot of people don't consider doing it.

ex-khobar Andy wrote:No solar energy is not a panacea: and anyone who says it is, is letting their heart rule their head. Unlike, say, climate change deniers, most environmentalists see the world as it is and not how we'd like it to be.

There are environmental costs to building solar panels: heavy metals, solvents and so on, but most of the environmental cost benefit analyses I have looked at are positive - the eventual benefits (less use of fossil fuels, CO2 and CH4 emissions, less transmission of high voltage power) outweigh the costs. A combination of wind, wave, hydro, geothermal and solar power will minimize GHG emissions and save fossil fuels - use of which cannot be eliminated in a generation or two - for our great grandchildren. There are people walking the planet now who will be living, breathing, sentient and functioning human beings well into the 22nd century. That of course depends on us making some decent decisions now.