Our home in the Oakland hills was originally among the 250,000 properties in San Francisco’s bedroom communities that were supposed to lose power at noon local time on Wednesday — joining the half a million that had gone dark just after midnight. Then the winds blew in our favor and bankrupt utility PG&E Corp. changed its mind, delaying our cutoff to 8 p.m. I texted a friend at 10:30 p.m. to say our lights were still on, thinking maybe we were in the clear — and then it hit. After stumbling out of the shower, reality set in.
Related: Californians Learning That Solar Panels Don’t Work in Blackouts
h/t EMS
It’s just a subtle reminder of those aspects of industrial civilization that everyone takes for granted. It should happen more. If people allow litigation of a utility for unpreventable accidents from overhead transmission, then suck it up. They could always spend a whole lot more on underground transmission or a whole lot more again and go off the grid. The poor can just learn to live without electricity in green (can’t clear the brush under the wires) Mexifornia.
Sometimes it seems, you just don’t know, what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
They burned Paradise, and put up with quite a lot.
Funny. Very well done. Somewhere in a mental hospital on a remote BC island, Joni Mitchell is clawing at the bugs crawling on her skin.
Good luck charging all those coal powered Teslas during the blackouts.
The gas pumps at the filling stations are electric powered too. No juice=no juice.
Nope. How much power do you need to generate to power a gas pump? Versus how much power do you need to generate to charge an electric car?
from the link:
“natural-gas fueled” for a split second lOOked like “natural-gas fucked”
‘ol George Carlin said it best, wanna bring a superpower to its knees?
knock out the grid.
californicate gave us emissions stds and all manner of ‘green’ tech. pioneers they are.
is this to be their latest ‘pioneering’ development?
odds are !!!!
Natural gas was the ONLY thing working in my home yesterday. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to make my morning coffee (by candlelight … and with a match, because my cooktop utilizes an electric spark to start). You think I’m hopping mad at PG&E now!? Just imagine if I had to go without coffee yesterday!! Motha fkcuers!!!
Which I was ONLY able to make, because the wife and I were recently traveling and purchased a pound of GROUND coffee that was leftover on the shelf. Otherwise, I grind whole beans every morning … and would have been SOL … if I didn’t have a small reserve of ground coffee.
a humourous aside, and I know your views on pot kenji, no offense whatsoever,
but a new tenant has taken to using my unused coffee grinder . . . . . . . . . to grind pot.
gave me 2 oz of the stuff just for being a nice landlord.
I’m approaching 70, never toked until about 5 years ago, helps me sleep and a bit with the ‘aches and pains’ stuff.
I am NOT in any way an advocate of strictly ‘recreational use’.
hb … for the record, I am in favor of decriminalizing pot. I went to UC Berkeley, where everyone had a potted plant (there’s a double entendre for ya) on their front porch in 1974. Meh. nobody cared. I don’t care. I can even deal with the “secondhand smoke” “contact high” of every R&R concert I’ve ever attended. I’m not gonna die … like every anti-smoking nutbag says about “secondhand cigarette smoke”.
However … “legalization” is a step too far for me. And worse, I believe it will become a “gateway legislation” of a decaying culture slouching toward decadent nihilism. And don’t get me started on kids … under the age of 18 … more legitimately, under the age of 25 destroying their brains on dope.
But YOU? Using pot for its narcotic effects? So long as you’re not driving a school bus, I couldn’t care less.
tq for the clarification.
also,
agree,
agree,
and agree esp the age limit thing. crikey. heralding the age of dementia?
I dont drive a bus, or anything else for that matter (still have my dr lic non-stop 40+ yrs,
I am a safer driver than many others). working @ me brudder’s body shop in ’68 and inquiring about ‘howcum them bulges in the windshield?’ was one of the top 2 eye openers in my life re safe driving.
Sweet! My daughter banged up my beloved little BMW 325i (manual of course) after I had it perfectly repainted and pristine. And then some dipshit ran into me … WHILE I WAS STOPPED, WAITING FOR A LEFT TURN ARROW!!! Wish you (your brother) were nearby, I’d have you fix the three little minor dings and folded fender that make me look like an incompetent driver (I didn’t cause any of em).
Bulges in the windshield? Is that like the fatal accident tow yard I got to witness when a friend of mine in Pacific Grove, CA drove tow truck … and he took me to observe? Lots of human hair and bits of scalp stuck in the holes and “bulges” in the windscreens … gruesome. An absolute horror show.
I can still be classified as an “aggressive driver” … but one who is always focused on the task at hand like a laser beam. One who is constantly scanning mirrors and vistas in all directions to anticipate the next jackhole’s yahoo moves.
You are absolutely right. Canada has been very foolish in legalizing pot. A much more modest adjustment (decriminalization) would have solved the problems. I believe the Liberals thought they would be able to pull in a ton of money in taxes — don’t know why they thought this, as pot dealers were not about to close their doors. They are very competitive. Government sanctioned outlets are losing money.
When I went to grad school, about the same time you went to college, I had a lot of second hand marijuana smoke. I was liberal enough to sit in circles where they passed the roach around and everyone took a toke, except me. I just took it and handed it to the next guy.
Really you didn’t even have to do that. On Saturdays you walk around the grad student housing (what the British would call the village green) you can smell the aroma from all the people drying their marijuana leaves. You can get high just by taking very deep breaths. But I never inhaled marijuana smoke, or got high, and I truly believe it is the “gateway” drug. Part of the problem may be it has been demonized beyond the truth. But part of it, being hallucinogenic, I believe makes much more dangerous hallucinogenic drugs seem equally harmless.
There were three people I have known whom I freely acknowledge as being so far above me technically that they were in a different league. One became the chief engineer of Radars Group, which was just beneath company level at Hughes, and my guess employed engineers in the high thousands. One became a tenured professor of physics at UC Riverside, doing what I aspired to do but could not. The third was so bored with the qualifying exam (which I barely sneaked through, I may tell that story another time) he chose to answer all four questions each session, rather than the requisite three out of four. That he had time enough to do that was incredible already, not to say he still had time left, and that he knew everything, I mean everything, cold was unimaginable. He ultimately fried his brains out on drugs. What an absolute waste of God’s great gift to him.
P.S. I have looked at the CDC report that declared “second hand smoke” as carcinogenic. They rejected the papers with the biggest sample sizes on arcane objections (of course they were all negative.) Of the rest, they could barely get above 50% correlation, and yet found that sufficient to make the declaration. It is all bunk, and truly they tortured the data until it yielded.
California is killing the reason for granting a franchise. Count on them drawing the conclusion that government owned power is the way to go. Off-gridders that pay enough in batteries, or diesel gen or whatever will be set upon by the equity SJWs. Its a death spiral to a pre-electrified age.
Good times.
I just read on http://www.msn.ca that starting last night, wildfires are raging in the San Fernando valley. The Santa Ana winds are blowing so fast and strong, that the fire is consuming approx. 400 acres/hour.
California is a state blessed with natural beauty and you can live almost anywhere. However, after both the black-out and a wildfire (yet again!), I would consider relocating elsewhere and tele-commuting.
As a former interior designer, I enjoy watching some of the HGTV shows. Starting with “Fixer Upper”, based in Waco, Texas, I noticed how many of their clients were moving from California. And now with “Boise Boys” (Idaho) and “Stay or Sell” (Minneapolis, Minnesota), many clients are relocating from California. At some point, the high taxes and the dense population causing long commutes and problems with Mother Nature, just do not make it worthwhile to be in California.
There must be a booming business in selling Honda and Yamaha generators (much cheaper than adding batteries to the roof top solar panels). Pity they add carbon dioxides to the atmosphere. Then there is the issue of people abandoning land lines in favour of cell phones only – the land lines should have worked.
the land lines should have worked
Earlier this week I was at my house in B. C. Monday morning started with snow and a power blackout in my part of town. I couldn’t use my regular phone because there was no electricity to run the base unit. I looked through the house, found a corded telephone, and was able to make some calls.
My local city WARNED against using generators … because of Fire Danger, Co2 … and noise which could upset your neighbors. The government (and public utilities) are the ENEMY.
I am trying to wrap my head around the kind of stupid mismanagement that results in this stuff and all I can come up with is Democrats. Am I being unreasonable?
Yes. My power went out at 10:30p Wed night, and came back on at 5:00p Thur. evening. Less than 24 hr. for PG&E to … “teach us all a lesson”. No, there wasn’t a natural disaster, or accident which knocked down a power pole. There was no “EXTREME” weather, unless you consider a mild Indian Summer day with moderate breezes to be “extreme” in N.CA. in mid October. No, PG&E deliberately with malice of forethought SHUT OFF power in my average, suburban neighborhood. No power for YOU! say the CA Utility Nazis.
The PG&E executives, aided by gleeful cheerleaders in the media and government even created an acronym for this shitshow … The PSPS. The “Public Safety Power Shutoff”. Yeah … public safety. So all those busy intersections normally organized by a complicated sequence of traffic signals are “safer” with no lights whatsoever? The honking horns and half-mile long backup suggests the opposite. And how many $100’s of Billions does this State and local Fire Districts PAY to ensure Fire Safety … despite more “encroachment” of humans on nature? Evidently not enough to overcome PG&E’s criminal incompetence.
No, the politicians in Sacramento (the supermajority leftist Legislature) and the 100% leftist, global warmist, PUC have allowed PG&E to misallocate ratepayer dollars into every pet project imaginable and NOT into basic maintenance of infrastructure. Maintenance is boring. Maintenance doesn’t increase short-term shareholder value. So maintenance has been ditched. A shrinking line item. The chatter in the media and on various social media sites has been along the lines of … “GOOD! our power is being shut off, it’s about time we all learned to live with less”. Behold the products of our leftist public school system. Gleefully wishing us all back to the Stone Age.
I posted the following question last night on our local “Nextdoor” website:
“So what happens, if while the power is OFF and the wind is blowing … one of their poorly maintained lines blows down. The power is off, so nobody knows there is a wire down. Then they turn the power back ON … and the wire (now on the ground) starts arc’ing and starts a fire? So what good was turning OFF the power? No “safety” was accomplished.
No, the only SAFE response to deadly fires sparked by PG&E infrastructure is to FIX that decrepit or under-engineered infrastructure.
This was a very long string on Nextdoor, with lots of people weighing in (all in agreement). This morning, the entire string was taken down. Huh? Imagine that? My simple, logical, statement was REMOVED. Next thing, you’ll be telling me to start my own Nextdoor app … if I want Free Speech in America.
An Internet radio show that I listen to regularly originates from the San Francisco area (Petaluma, I think). The host posted a notice that some programs might be cancelled because of the power situation and, sure enough, this morning was one such case.
Petaluma has it FAR worse than me. I believe their (and others) power has been off for days. In my (mostly urbanized) suburban neighborhood … PG&E just “sent us a message” by shutting down our power for less than 24hr. In fact, our power was SUPPOSED to be shut off at NOON Wed. … but wasn’t shut off till 10:30p. How convenient since most people were just going to bed anyway. Then, the power was off all day while the executives in my community were at work … with power … coming back on … right when the executives came home from work. So a “message was sent” to the upper, upper, middle class residents of my neighborhood … but PG&E carefully managed the inconvenience.
Safety my ass. This was a political … demonstration.
And as to the rubes, and red County Hicks in Petaluma and other Central Valley and Coastal Range residents? PG&E and the State PUC couldn’t give a shit about THEM.
And speaking of California, I watched a you tube video of a guy who lived and did internet business in California. He lived in his van.He was able to move to Las Vegas and buy a house. The mortgage payments were covered by the tax reduction in moving out of CA.
So much for California’s Jetson future, it looks like it is reverting to the Flintstone era instead. Pretty soon hillbillies in the Ozarks will teasingly ask Californians if they have electric lighting, central heating and indoor plumbing –cue modified version of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song–
If the power goes out for too long city/town water goes down too. Just like natgas furnaces don’t work in a power outage, unless you hook up your own generator. I’d love to see how many portable gas generators are sold to California in the next month.
FYI … Not a single zip code from San Francisco to San Jose had their power shut off. Not a single resident in Silicon Valley … not even Christine Blaisie Ford got RAPED, err “sexually assaulted” by PG&E. High Tech survived intact. This despite the fact that Los Altos Hills, Woodside, Los Gatos, Santa Cruz Mountains and other communities are heavily wooded, hilly terrain with high winds and dry conditions (the expressed “cause” for shutting the power down). But the leftist Silicon Executives live in those expensive zip codes … and PG&E wouldn’t DARE shut off THEIR power.
Not surprised. There’s some fairly accurate evidence that the male feminists tend to be abusive to women, the most vocal climate change activists have huge carbon footprints, rich area codes with high social justice activists will fight low income housing…so the “revelation” that those who preach the loudest about the unfairness of privilege and inequality actually insist on and benefit from benefit from class based VIP treatment follows the usual pattern. He who preaches loudest about the sins of others is usually the biggest hypocrite you’ll ever see.
Kenji,
I’ve been out running around the last two days, but am glad to find you safe and sound. Two nights ago I called my sister, who lives in the North Bay and has properties in San Francisco, and she informed me that there were no plans for shut down at either locale. I didn’t think about it, but you are right. The whole thing is just a demonstration to the hoi polloi what powers PG&E has, and you better be good little boys if you don’t want to suffer their wrath.
Is Petaluma actually, gasp, slightly purplish?
Yes OB … Petaluma is filled with hippies making goat cheese … infused with the pot they grow in hothouses. Solid Blue, except for some old dairy farmers and ranchers.
I survived the PSPS (Ha! PG&E’s 3rd world Venezuelan-style power shut down even has its own bureaucrat-speak acronym). PG&E just wanted to “send a message” to my own Purple community … the ACTUAL “fire danger” was … same as it ever was – same as it ever was … same as it was TODAY, after the power came back on. Same as it was the day before the power was shut off.
So all those solar panel homes must now buy batteries for when the grid power goes off?
a) How long to pay out solar and batteries?
b) What about the increased risk from battery fires? Will house insurance rates go up (ha ha, silly me)?
c) for item a) don’t forget in include future taxes on electricity. Cause once you get rid of fossil fuels, the politicians will have to replace the fossil fuel tax revenue some how.
Enjoy the green lifestyle
Gov. Jerry Brown changed the State Building Code so that ALL NEW HOMES in CA are REQUIRED to have solar panels. As if housing costs weren’t already completely out of control. Next: battery backup will be MANDATED.
Can’t escape here fast enough.
Been to California a few times. Found it to be shriveled brown. Never understood the appeal, although the red woods were cool.
How is it that remotely located non-Californians paying modest attention to the world, have know about the stated wind black out policy for California utilities for what 12 months? Since Paradise? How long have we been mocking this? And yet it’s like an invisible hurricane in the actual state, with people completely surprised and unprepared. How is this possible? Why do I think the unpreparedness & eventual work arounds will lead to more risk of ignition sources than live power lines?
Saw a funny comment on the black out at another site: Dems should rebrand as the “Donner Party”. Made me think that they could also rebrand as the “Coup Cucks Clan”, but I digress.
The stark reality is that people are leaving California in droves:
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/10/04/californians-chased-out-of-state-by-bad-public-policy/
Would the last person to leave California please turn out the lights? Oh wait, never mind….
The people (citizens) leaving the state are replaced by illegal aliens (a term that can get you jailed in NYC). The thing is, apportionment is based on the census, which so far makes no distinction between the two. That is what President Trump is fighting. In the meantime, California gets more congressional districts because of the illegal aliens. So in a very real sense, yes, they are represented, as we all damned well know.
It’s funny, America has always been much more of an egalitarian society than Europe, in terms of the contrast between rich and poor. In my youth, before all the hi tech billionaires, they had a survey that asked respondents to list themselves as rich, middle class, or poor. 95% of Americans thought of themselves as middle class. But in California, soon, we will have the hi tech billionaires at one end, and all the illegal aliens and welfare recipients and homeless drawn here at the other, with all the middle class fleeing the state. That’s exactly the kind of stratified society that the progs supposedly rail against, and they are running the damn state.
Just being “counted” as an American is akin to VOTING … illegally. In some ways … even better … as you get to create whole new voting districts in the newly emerging Barrios of Southern CA. No wonder the leftists used the courts to FIGHT for the “rights” of illegals.
It’s an invasion … and … subversion of America.
“Californians Learning That Solar Panels Don’t Work in Blackouts”
That’s not necessarily true. You can charge them with a windmill.
I am a YouTuber who does both vlogs about my life and events I go to and videos commenting on the news and other topics. My home in Humboldt County, California was also affected by this blackout, as was the entirety of Humboldt County. Here is my video of my family’s experience: https://youtu.be/Kmqqc204W4Y
So how long until we see the first lawsuits saying “Jerry Brown knew”
Don’t know if you are allowed to sue governments, government agencies, or politicians in the US.