My brother’s area does have places open where one can charge up phones at no charge.
For those who are need power to keep life threatening conditions under control, and who do not resources like money, transportation, family/friends, they have to call an ambulance to an ER, stay in the hospital is what has to be done. My brother volunteers at the fire Dept and he says a number of elderly and disabled were transported. They may well be transferred to nursing homes because, it’s even more expensive and crowded at a hospital ER, and not enough hospital beds available. Not cost effective to be hospitalizing them anyways.
If this is going to be a regular problem, the state, local and federal governments had better come up with nursing home type facilities to house these people during lack outs, or be stuck with high hospital bills. Of stick the hospitals with these bills. I haven’t heard anything about mass mortalities, so those infirm and absolutely needing power to stay alive are clearly finding some way to address their need.
What some forget is this isn’t just fire, it’s also high winds. Many, many times, people don’t have much time to mobilize. Was it this thread where someone linked to an anecdote about the fire ranging 6 (?) miles to their backyard, within about 10-15 minutes? Or did I see that elsewhere? Every year, stories like that.
This all is a fact people live with in these areas. Exacerbated by things like lower rainfall.
If you haven’t ever lived with this, I’m not sure folks can relate. The sense of alarm when one first smells smoke from the distance. Or even when the winds just pick up.
California is the heart of earthquake country and everyone on the Left Coast needs to be prepared for the not-so-Big One that knocks out power, for hours if not days. Those with medical devices need to figure out a way for backup batteries or a generator, or other alternative. When the Big One hits, the “state, local and federal governments” will be days away from help. In essence, they are on their own…
It would be nice if electric vehicles could be used as house backup batteries. A 60kWh electric vehicle battery could power a house for several days. And if some of that energy is needed for driving, or there is otherwise need to get more (e.g. it is too cloudy all of those days for solar panels to refill the battery enough), the electric vehicle could be driven to a charging station where there is power and then driven back with a mostly-full battery for more days of powering the house.
Those of us in isolated HI are even more “on our own.” At least I’ve heard CA shelters provide more than bare walls and a roof!
Medically frail folks are often also poor and don’t have many resources they can devote to preparing for potential catastrophes, no matter how urgent. Some also lack the cognitive ability and executive function to prepare.
I guess this puts a greater burden on social service agencies who may do outreach, if they are able to stretch that far?
My brother says that in his area, there are not very many medically frail people dependent on power who need emergency assistance. Most take care of themselves. Order extra oxygen canisters, get out of area to friend or relative, have back up generator.
The few cases where there are helpless needy disabled folks involved, they are taken to ERd which is a very expensive solution
I’ve read (on the Tesla blog) about some of the electrical engineering types who have done just that, at least on a limited basis. Requires an inverter and gotta tap into the Tesla battery, as well as get the sine wave correct for 240. (Obviously, not recommended by Tesla!)
This is not that new a concept. GM hybrid pickups have had 120V outlets so that contractors could plug their power tools into their trucks at construction sites and the like.
Of course it is not a new concept. But how many GM hybrids are out there and how long can they power a pile driver for a small foundation job? A concrete saw? Our electrical bill for a small project involving that thing was quite impressive.
People had time to prepare for these high winds. The winds had been forecast several days ahead of time. And everyone should know that every autumn California can expect the hot, dry winds. It is an annual weather ‘event’.
We lost internet for a few hours which meant no TV. But we had a battery powered radio at hand to listen for fire news.
The utilities in Southern California (LA & San Diego) have been cutting power to fire prone areas for years. If you live in one of those areas subject to downed power lines, and/or high risk for fires, then you are used to the local electricity being cut off for hours at a time. Our good friend in the next (suburban) town over is one of those and she has a backup generator which she runs 1-2 per year. While we live only ~3 miles away, our power line comes from a different feed, so we have no such issues.
Historically, PG&E has rarely done such a preventive blackout, but given the recent law suits, they had no choice.
It is not that they shut the power off. The bigger issue in my mind is their lack of preparedness for what is to be a massive shut off. They should have been ready for tremendous volume logging to see who is affected for one. They should have had shelters for those in need, etc. Their blackout was more massive than needed probably and longer than needed. It is an event cusing extreme disruption in modern society. They show no evidence they were mindful of that. It sounds like they took a hammer to kill an ant. Besides, have they cleared off dry brushes to prevent spread of fire? That wouldn’t need a weather forecast to get acted on. Sometimes, little things make a big difference. They may not solve the problem but they can minimize and sometimes that is enough.
What the power companies need to do is to spend on upgrading and improving the infrastructure of their lines, transformers and power stations. I did read that PG & E found damage to the lines they had shut off in the windy area. I don’t know whether that prevented wildfires or not.
There is really no excuse why a power company would be spending on anything other than upgrading the system. The line that caused the Camp Fire and killed 85 people was 100 years old, FTLOG! How much have they spent on executive salaries, lobbying, shiny new wind and solar farms, while the rest of the equipment is so old and vulnerable. The Camp Fire should have triggered the kind of outrage that Bhopal or Three Mile Island triggered back several decades. It is simply inexcusable, but they’ll just pass rate hikes on to the consumer and go on their merry way.
That’s what happens when you are the biggest utility company with no competition. Why work when you can coast easy? There’s a proposal the bondholders of PG&E wants to take over and reorganize.
SoCal Edison has now admitted that a malfunction in its power line caused the fire in Sylmar and Porter Ranch.
I surely hope that the next time they do shut off power, which they did not do this time. 100,000 people had to evacuate, many homes were lost, the air was polluted, a nightmare.
Going dark for a day or three is nothing compared to wildfires.