No Electricity

[Sedalia Dave]

I predict that within 18 months the CARB will put into place a whole bunch of restrictions on home generators.

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

Subdeacon Joe, praying you and yours are safe from the approaching wildfires

[bgavin]

5 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

It is my firm belief that if power has to be shut off anywhere in SoCal that it is also shut off in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley and especially Sacramento. 

Sacramento is not on PG&E power.

[bgavin]

1 minute ago, Sedalia Dave said:

I predict that within 18 months the CARB will put into place a whole bunch of restrictions on home generators.

No doubt.
Get a Generac that runs on natural gas from the home supply.
If the NatGas is turned off, people will be in a whole lot more hurt than just a power outage.

[Yul Lose]

7 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

I predict that within 18 months the CARB will put into place a whole bunch of restrictions on home generators.

They’ve already instituted some pretty heavy restrictions on standby generators for businesses. Some have found its easier to remove the generators and do without than to pay the fines and fees and deal with the heavy handed tactics of county and state regulators, that’s one of the big things that pushed my wife and I to sell our mountaintop communications sites.

[Pat Riot]

16 minutes ago, bgavin said:

Sacramento is not on PG&E power.

Doesn’t matter. Power them down. 

[bgavin]

I realize this is arm chair quarterback bitching... but how about they power off your hospital while you were laid up.
That puts the shoe on a different foot.

Not everybody in CA is a bleeding hippie.

[Subdeacon Joe]

38 minutes ago, Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663 said:

Subdeacon Joe, praying you and yours are safe from the approaching wildfires

 

 

Thank you, sir.  At the moment we are a goodly distance from any active fire.  But all it takes is one idjit with a cigarette to change that.

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

3 hours ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

What really caused this was the Paradise fire in Northern California last year. The entire town and about 500 homes were lost because of the fire. Caused by a transformer or power line failing.

Power outage

1 person reported died because they had no power for their oxygen regenerator at home.

No cash, no gas, no food. even if you walked in with cash who's going to have an adding machine to calculate sales tax and can any of the younger generation actually make change from a cash sale?

 Unless grocery stores have emergency generators I wouldn't be buying any meat or frozen stuff from them for awhile!

Oh the real win is home owners insurance. We bought a house last December as the California fires were being put out. Insurance companies wouldn't sell insurance. Found one for $1,795/ year. for a $360K house located at the edge of a national forest. Just got the renewal notice  $8,500 for insurance! I'm shopping.

Ike

 

14,000 single family homes and mobile homes destroyed in Paradise area Camp fire. Several hundred building permit so far and a small number have moved back in.

[Pat Riot]

10 hours ago, bgavin said:

I realize this is arm chair quarterback bitching... but how about they power off your hospital while you were laid up.
That puts the shoe on a different foot.

Not everybody in CA is a bleeding hippie.

Did I say hospitals? I don’t think so. Hospitals get priority as do emergency services. 
 

If more people put pressure on the government perhaps the idiots would open their eyes and see that their actions have consequences. If the state houses had to sit on their asses in session without air conditioning and cold water to wet their gas holes maybe they would understand what effects their decisions have on their constituents. But being a lone voice makes one an bitching armchair quarterback in this day and age. If more people did something perhaps we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in.  
 

By the way, I live in this state and I see that everyone is not a “bleeding hippie” but I am thinking that maybe Prop 65 has merit these days because this state appears to have a greater number of mentally defective idiots than what seemed to be present a decade ago. 

[Matthew Duncan]

12 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

Simpler than that.  We don't have those nice broad, lightly rolling hills, and forested areas.  We have new geology and chaparral.  How many Cats would be lost trying to cut paths like those through places like this?

 

 

Build the fire lanes the same way the power company built the towers and run the power lines.

[Sedalia Dave]

11 hours ago, Yul Lose said:

They’ve already instituted some pretty heavy restrictions on standby generators for businesses. Some have found its easier to remove the generators and do without than to pay the fines and fees and deal with the heavy handed tactics of county and state regulators, that’s one of the big things that pushed my wife and I to sell our mountaintop communications sites.

 

Yep but I predict a lot of new restriction on homeowners that opt for whole house generators.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Keep on making excuses for this and it will never get fixed.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

12 hours ago, bgavin said:

I realize this is arm chair quarterback bitching... but how about they power off your hospital while you were laid up.
That puts the shoe on a different foot.

Not everybody in CA is a bleeding hippie.

Hospitals have back up gennys in place.

Those gennys come under fed regs and not state.

OLG

 

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

Hospitals have gen sets that have a minimum fuel supply for 3 days. They can be managed to 3 stages of need if fuel gets short, or can't be delivered. Life support and fire safety being priority one. Elective surgery's and diagnostics get put on hold. Longer than 3 days they have a priority contract for refueling. Unless they use natural gas which is piped in. Fire and police station also have, or should have emergency gen sets.

Ike

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 hour ago, Matthew Duncan said:

 

Build the fire lanes the same way the power company built the towers and run the power lines.

 

A lot of those are put in with helicopters. Or a one lane path bumped in with a dozer.  They don't build 50 yard wide roads.  And, the self-styled environmentalists would sue them to a standstill if they tried.  
They have blocked just putting in transmission lines from wind and solar farms through pastureland in places like the Altamont Pass and some of the areas in the Tehacapies

[Yul Lose]

1 hour ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

Yep but I predict a lot of new restriction on homeowners that opt for whole house generators.

I agree, they’re scheming on new rules right now for homeowners with back up generators and new restrictions on installing new ones.

[Matthew Duncan]

1 hour ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

A lot of those are put in with helicopters. Or a one lane path bumped in with a dozer.  They don't build 50 yard wide roads.  And, the self-styled environmentalists would sue them to a standstill if they tried.  
They have blocked just putting in transmission lines from wind and solar farms through pastureland in places like the Altamont Pass and some of the areas in the Tehacapies

 

It's possible just not politically correct to do so?

[bgavin]

Something to consider: 
Those regular folks living in areas exposed to power outages should consider a few battery UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

Get one for the fridge or maybe the freezer.
This will delay the destruction of medical insulin, or that elk taken after waiting two years for a tag.

Get one for the bedside.
Those who require a CPAP at night will have a difficult time with the power off.
It is pointless risking a stroke or worse, for the price of a small UPS.
You can also plug the bedside clock into it.

Politicians and elites will never suffer a power outage... only the "little people."
Gov. Newsom lives here in Fair Oaks, which is on the Sacramento Municipal power grid and not subject to PG&E outages.
 

[Pat Riot]

1 minute ago, bgavin said:

Something to consider: 
Those regular folks living in areas exposed to power outages should consider a few battery UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

Get one for the fridge or maybe the freezer.
This will delay the destruction of medical insulin, or that elk taken after waiting two years for a tag.

Get one for the bedside.
Those who require a CPAP will have a difficult time with the power off.
It is pointless risking a stroke or worse, for the price of a small UPS.
You can also plug the bedside clock into it.

Politicians and elites will never suffer a power outage... only the "little people."
Gov. Newsom lives here in Fair Oaks, which is on the Sacramento Municipal power grid and not subject to PG&E outages.
 

These are excellent recommendations. 
 

bgavin, my apologies for my earlier post. I got belligerent. I am sorry. 
 

One thing I will say about UPS’s (uninterruptible power supplies) is one must research the power they have available versus the power draw of what you will need it for. You can get a basic UPS that could run a small medical device like a CPAP for about $100 on Amazon. Larger UPS cost quite a bit more if you are wanting them to protect or support larger items. 
 

I recently took another “Emergency Response Course” for my work. One of the things the instructor said that is very true is “if you have a generator and you have lights on at night and all your neighbors do not, you are going to be a very popular person...or a very popular target!” Very true. I know that for a fact!

 

A UPS for critical items will not attract unwanted attention, unless you hook up a bunch of lights to it. 

 

A UPS has a limited amount of stored energy. Backup UPS batteries may be a good idea as well. 

[bgavin]

As of this writing, I understand some 800k people have their power turned off.
It is very easy to get pissed over this... but one has to keep in mind the perpetrators are never inconvenienced.. only the "little people."

Those with medical equipment, CPAPs, monitors...
Those with drugs that require refrigeration (insulin)
Those with exotic pets that require A/C (mine are now passed on) or warming lamps.
Those with hundreds of $$ in food supplies.

I"m in the computer business and always have various UPS floating around the house.
We are not in the PG&E shutdown district, but in the Third World Power section in Sacramento metro that loses power during big storms.
I am the CPAP and insulin guy and power outages put me in a bind.

[Calamity Kris]

4 minutes ago, bgavin said:

As of this writing, I understand some 800k people have their power turned off.
It is very easy to get pissed over this... but one has to keep in mind the perpetrators are never inconvenienced.. only the "little people."

Those with medical equipment, CPAPs, monitors...
Those with drugs that require refrigeration (insulin)
Those with exotic pets that require A/C (mine are now passed on) or warming lamps.
Those with hundreds of $$ in food supplies.

I"m in the computer business and always have various UPS floating around the house.
We are not in the PG&E shutdown district, but in the Third World Power section in Sacramento metro that loses power during big storms.
I am the CPAP and insulin guy and power outages put me in a bind.

 

One thing you may want to think about is a battery backup for your CPAP.  The ones I looked at on Amazon use a battery pack to run it at night, then you plug it into your cigarette lighter in your vehicle to charge it during the day.  It's not optimal but it's better than no CPAP at all.

[Assassin]

That situation sounds "socialistic" to me.

[Shootin' Shu]

UPS units are a PITA to keep 'ready'.  There is a difference between ups and battery backup units.

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

Our power went off last night during dinner. Luckily, it was cooked and served. So, we could eat (by battery lantern light) before turning on the generator.

 

We finally got the wind early this morning.

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

On ‎10‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 12:38 PM, Charlie Harley, #14153 said:

It’s a mystery to me. 

 

Especially confusing is why somebody thinks that the mere risk of power lines causing a fire outweighs the definite economic losses of these blackouts. 

 

I hope somebody smarter than me thought through through this question, because from my vantage point it looks like a fool’s trade. 

My local IGA supermarket was hit hard and had to toss a lot of food with the first outage. They bought a generator. Then, last outage, that town wasn't turned off. I don't know if they were this time. I doubt they were able to get it hooked up. Our local Generac dealer has been busy.

 

On ‎10‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 4:20 PM, Sixgun Sheridan said:

So the power companies shut off the electricity to avoid being sued. What if a family gets trapped and burned to death because they had no TV or Internet access to warn them of the coming danger?

PG&E calls their customers. We got ours last night during dinner just before it went off. Not much prep time.

 

I assume most people have TVs. In the '70s, I was an Eligibility Worker for the Fresno County Welfare Department. My district, we made house calls once a year, included a large number of Indians who lived on the road to Kings Canyon National Park. I had one client whose house was so rickety that you could see outside through the gaps in boards. There was no insulation or sheet rock. Yet, they had a large TV.

 

 

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

A buddy of mine texted me last night to see if we lost power. We still have it and never were shut down last time. He is in Red Bluff and we are in the Corning area about 15 miles between. We are more in the middle of the valley and they are closer to the foothills.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Power has been out here since about 1715 yesterday.   

 

Wind kicked up good about 2200 yesterday.  There was a lull from around 0500 today to around 0800.  Gusting pretty good now.  Reports of winds 75mph to 90mph on some of the peaks last night. 

 

Mandatory evacuation line is about 70 yards North of us. Again we just missed it.   Fire is still about 15 miles away. 

 

 

[Assassin]

Who lives in the areas affected by the outages? Probably not the folks that voted for the current state administration. Sounds like the power outages are being used as a weapon. 

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

2 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

Power has been out here since about 1715 yesterday.   

 

Wind kicked up good about 2200 yesterday.  There was a lull from around 0500 today to around 0800.  Gusting pretty good now.  Reports of winds 75mph to 90mph on some of the peaks last night. 

 

Mandatory evacuation line is about 70 yards North of us. Again we just missed it.   Fire is still about 15 miles away. 

 

 

Wow! That evacuation line sounds close. I hope you stay safe.

[Subdeacon Joe]

9 minutes ago, Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217 said:

Wow! That evacuation line sounds close. I hope you stay safe.

 

There seems to be preset zones and most use a easily identifiable and well known street as the boundary.  But with the fire still something like 15 miles North I think the powers that be are using an overabundance of caution. 

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

1 hour ago, Assassin said:

Who lives in the areas affected by the outages? Probably not the folks that voted for the current state administration. Sounds like the power outages are being used as a weapon. 

I live in one and I assure you I did not vote for any of them.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Stay safe, Joe.  Keep us apprised if you can - good thoughts to all you folk in the affected areas.  

[Yul Lose]

6 hours ago, Assassin said:

Who lives in the areas affected by the outages? Probably not the folks that voted for the current state administration. Sounds like the power outages are being used as a weapon. 

You nailed it.

[Subdeacon Joe]

7 hours ago, Assassin said:

Who lives in the areas affected by the outages? Probably not the folks that voted for the current state administration. Sounds like the power outages are being used as a weapon. 

 

Sonoma and Napa Counties are so blue the sky is envious.