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California Blackouts Possible With Fire Danger

October 23, 2019
By Jocelyn Gecker and Christopher Weber, The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California's largest utility planned to decide Wednesday whether to black out some half-million customers as dangerous fire weather returns to California.

Pacific Gas & Electric said it could begin precautionary power shutoffs as early as Wednesday afternoon to about 189,000 homes and businesses in portions of 16 counties, mostly in the Sierra foothills and north of the San Francisco Bay Area. The outages will last about 48 hours, the utility said.

Meanwhile, Southern California Edison said it could cut power Thursday to about 132,000 customers in six counties — around 300,000 people.

Edison announced possible outages in Kern, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The utilities say they're concerned that winds forecast to top 60 mph (97 kph) could throw branches and debris into power lines or topple them, sparking wildfires.

PG&E cut power to more than 2 million people across the San Francisco Bay Area in rolling blackouts from Oct. 9-12, paralyzing parts of the region in what was the largest deliberate blackout in state history. Schools and universities canceled classes and many businesses were forced to close.

PG&E's new warning just two weeks later prompted a feeling of resignation among residents and business owners and renewed rushes to stock up on emergency supplies.

"I think it's not panic per se, just, 'Eh, we gotta do this again?'" said Kim Schefer, manager of Village True Value Hardware in Santa Rosa.

Schefer was busy Tuesday directing customers to gas cans and batteries as they prepared for what many see as a costly, frustrating new routine.

Love Birds Coffee & Tea in the old Gold Rush town of Placerville lost about $6,000 in the last outage — a huge chunk of change for a mom-and-pop business and a hit from which the store hasn't yet recovered, owner Garrett Sanders said.

"Working this close to the last outage is going to be a true trial by fire," he said.

This time, Sanders plans to brew up coffee and stock up on handmade pastries before the shutoff, then sell them on the sidewalk — along with a smile — when the power goes on Thursday.

"It's going to be a sober morning for people waking up without their coffee," he said. "We can't do, like, all of our espressos and milk-based drinks but we'll have coffee. It'll be better than nothing."

Sanders said he is sympathetic to the argument that the outages are designed to prevent wildfires, especially since a dozen people settled in Placerville after they were burned out of the town of Paradise by a fire that killed scores of people last year.

"Of course, none of us wants the devastation" of a wildfire, Sanders said, "but I think the measures that PG&E is taking are to the ultimate extreme."

California Gov. Gavin sent a sharply worded letter Tuesday to Bill Johnson, PG&E's CEO, blaming the unprecedented mass outage earlier this month on the company's failure to maintain and upgrade its equipment.

"I believe the unacceptable scope and duration of the previous outage — deliberately forcing 735,000 customers to endure power outages — was the direct result of decades of PG&E prioritizing profit over public safety," Newsom wrote, referring to the number of businesses and households affected, not the total number of people.

PG&E says the shutdowns are not about money.

The only goal "is to prevent a catastrophic wildfire," Johnson said in a Tuesday briefing.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Image: A firefighter gets caught off-guard by a flare up of the Palisades Fire in the Highlands neighborhood in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. (AP Photo/Christian Monterrosa)