Power is being shut off to nearly 800,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers in Northern California due to the threat of wildfires, and in some areas, officials declared emergencies and curfews to deal with the blackouts.
A state of emergency was declared for Santa Clara County as the area prepared for additional outages on Wednesday, according to KRON-TV. Meanwhile, in the city of Morgan Hill, a curfew was in place from 7 p.m. Wednesday night until 6:30 a.m. Thursday as authorities worked to reduce the possibility of crime in blackout areas, according to the Associated Press.
Driving is permitted during the curfew in the city of about 45,000, the report added.
Schools and universities were closed in some areas and residents stocked up on groceries, batteries and gas ahead of the blackouts, which PG&E said could last as long as five days.
Some 540,000 homes and businesses in northern California were already without power as of 7:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us. PG&E’s website had crashed due to high traffic.
The preemptive outage stands to be one of the largest in the state’s history as windy, dry conditions raise the risk for wildfires in the coming days. Many of those affected are in the San Francisco Bay area and the northern part of the state, including San Jose, Oakland, Fremont, Santa Rosa, Hayward, Berkeley and San Mateo.
The shutoffs started at 12 a.m. PST Wednesday morning, with the first phase expected to impact about 500,000 customers in 22 counties, PG&E said in a news release.
A second phase was expected to start at noon with another 230,000 customers affected, but PG&E announced that the shutoffs would be delayed until later in the day. A third phase covering about 40,000 customers is also being considered.
In all, parts of some 34 counties in northern, central and coastal California face blackouts. The utility said the shutoffs were being considered based on a fire weather watch from the National Weather Service. Winds up to 65 mph were expected in some areas, prompting the NWS to issue alerts for elevated, critical and extreme wildfire chances across large swaths of the state.
Windy conditions can cause power lines to spark fires when they are blown down, or to come into contact with trees or other vegetation. PG&E power lines have been blamed for several high profile fires in recent years, including the blaze that killed 86 people last year in Paradise, California.
Researchers have such said catastrophic fires could become more common as climate change leads to warmer weather and longer fire seasons.
While the outages will impact 800,000 PG&E accounts, many more actual individuals could be affected. Millions could face days without electricity, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated.
Hospitals, municipalities and other agencies across the affected areas were prepared to have generators on stand by and were warning residents to stockpile supplies. Those who use medical equipment that relies on electricity were being warned to prepare for the outages and call for assistance if needed, and residents were being told to have go bags and emergency kits on hand.
Local police departments were warning drivers to beware of nonfunctioning traffic lights.
Elected officials and residents expressed anger over the blackouts.
“People should be outraged, as we are,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “No one is satisfied with this. No one is happy with this. But we have to get through this fire season.”
Newsom has called on PG&E to upgrade infrastructure to make it less vulnerable and prevent massive outages such as this one.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf asked residents not to flood 911 lines with non-emergency calls, the AP reported. The city canceled all days off for police officers days in preparation for the outages.
“We all know the devastation that fires can cause,” Schaaf said.
PG&E says safety is its first priority.
“This is a last resort,” Sumeet Singh, head of the utility’s Community Wildfire Safety Program, told the Chronicle.
At the Dollar General store in Paradise, the town that was mostly burned to the ground by the Camp Fire, shoppers were grabbing candles, gas cans, ice, flashlights, batteries and canned food. Ice chests were sold out Tuesday morning, manager Ben Humphries told the AP.
Humphries, who lost his home in last year’s blaze, saw some irony in PG&E’s aggressive preemptive power outages in the area now, after the company opted not to turn off the power ahead of the Camp Fire.
“I understand their concerns. But in my opinion, it’s too little too late. We already had our town burned to the ground,” Humphries said.
In addition to the 800,000 or so PG&E customers who could be impacted, more than 100,000 Southern California Edison customers in eight counties could also see preventive outages in southern portions of the state, according to the AP.
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-10-09-california-power-outages-wildfire-threat
Fkm….. I hope all those fags start eating each other.
I suspect with the power out…..It might be a good idea to have a….well a …firearm.
I mean…, you can only call 911 so many times before your battery runs out.
Maybe they’ll just get lucky and burn to death.
Yeah…..
I’m trying to show some compassion here.
FKm.
🙂
Now Edison will shut power off. Thing is, people living there are reporting that there are NO high winds.
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2019/10/09/power-outage-southern-california-edison-socal-shutoff-red-flag/
Just my opinion but I think they are testing for reaction. A pretext to gun confiscation perhaps?
Sounds completely possible to me. How about rounding up, or worse, the homeless. No one allowed on the streets after 7pm -6am.
Bingo!
Yeah, also conditioning: Look what we can do to you. We can make your world come to a halt.
Yeah, okay, off-grid, but most of us ain’t. It will be such a kick to one day own and operate the power companies. We can leave the Christmas lights up ’till February.
🙂
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if you look at the counties where they shut power off you will see that they are for the most part conservative counties.State of Jefferson type of counties. As far as the insulting comments to fellow American Nationals in california? The country folks like us were not affected much by a power outage. We were shown by a Rothschild owned power company that they are trying to punish us. Big DEAL!! If this is all they can do to us the omming dust up isn’t going to amount to much, They put soldiers on the roads in rural areas that will get our attention. Not wise to get our attention in that manner. People judge Californians by the Freaks they see in the big cities. Majority of us who are American nationals are nothing like them. We hold to the bill of rights are ARE anti-Federalist patriots and totally get it. We are totally State of Jefferson. Its an error to condemn us all. I’ve met some real freaks in other states too. Met some good ones too. Mostly good in fact. Leftists its fun to insult and shout down, and run off. They’re leftist freaks. Good sport for now. 🙂 People need to concentrate on fighting the enemy, and not spending energy fighting American Nationals who are from California. George Patton was form San Gabriel.
There are no leftists, there are no rightists, no democrats, no republicans, no liberals, no conservatives, there is just the law or there is not, and right now there is not.
I have heard more than a few speak from the State of Jefferson movement in California and what I hear is a people that advocate for voting their straw man vote to take control of the corporate apparatus away from the communists and have it for themselves. You know, to return to the good ol’ days of the Masonic dirty church cabal.
The united States of the Americas and its Constitution have been subverted, as evidenced by the United States Corporation and the 14th Amendment being created and implemented, in violation of the 9th Article of the Bill of Rights, which is the supreme law of this land. (See USC Title 28, definition 15)
The corporate state of California, et.al., is in gross violation of the American nationals’ ratified law via violations of the 9th and 10th Articles in legislating violations to the people’s law, which is prohibited by the 9th and 10th Articles.
You call yourself an American national, the 14th Amendment declares you subjugated by both the federal and state corporations.
Donald Trump is a traitor and an international communist in league with the Jewish mafia and the Judeo Christian traitors in this country to subvert our law. Every individual working for the corporation at any level is a traitor.
This fight is simple, it is the 14th Amendment and slavery vs the Bill of Rights and freedom under the people’s authority and common law jurisdiction under our ratified law, which even a legitimate government has no part in.
The Libertarian Party is incorporated and no better than the Republican and Democratic secret societies.
Do not expect American nationals who understand what has been done to them and how it has been done to be the power to revitalize the treasonous Libertarian corporate party.
If you are truly an individual free sovereign national for the united States of the Americas, your fight is to enforce the absolute ratified law of this country and the people’s authority and jurisdiction. It is not to recapture the unlawful corporate apparatuses that removed our common law courts in an effort to rule over us themselves, which allowed for the communist invasion, as the tool for the final check and balance in a peaceful manner had been removed.
The state of California is in a state of insurrection against the people and the people’s absolute law and it will stay that way until the people rise up and use the 2nd Article for that which it was intended.
Any vote is a straw man corporate vote and it is aiding and abetting the enemy. We will stand and fight for our liberty but we will never fight to reinstate the old guard traitors that are responsible for putting us in this position. It is just not going to happen.
I appreciate your comment here Henry. There are two groups of people here…those that hold dear to the rule of law -The Bill of Rights (Supreme Law) and those that are traitors to it, period.
From one who shares your last name:
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”
— Lysander Spooner
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They really dont want you to know how Fkin broke this state is , and who they plan of fleecing to keep their charades going , those idiots out there just keep voting..lol
definitely shit in the game , hard to feel sorry for them though
the amount of corruption graft and greed in this state makes all the others look like childs play , yet the tax payers just keep taking it up the a**
one of these days…pow right in the kisser
‘one of these days…pow right in the kisser’…….lol……..you’re gonna go to the moon Alice…damn, I’m old 🙂
I’m older.
🙂
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🙂
I probably got you both beat in age
Maybe
From the sounds of it maybe not
I did once post here, many years ago, that I was at Woodstock.
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