Findings: PG&E discovered damage after earlier shut-off, possibly averting fires.
While inspecting its equipment after turning off power to millions of California residents three weeks ago, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. found 56 instances of damage that could have ignited fires, the utility told a federal judge Wednesday.
The findings included 44 incidents of vegetation colliding with power lines and 12 examples of infrastructure damage caused by “extreme wind and/or other fire conditions,” PG&E told U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the company’s probation arising from the deadly 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion.
All of those cases probably would have caused sparks if the lines were turned on, PG&E said, though the company’s lawyers stressed that such a conclusion “involves some amount of speculation and is based on PG&E’s
best view based on factors such as the vegetation’s location and the damage the vegetation or infrastructure failure appears to have caused.”
Alsup has been closely monitoring PG&E’s response to devastating wildfires its power lines caused in 2017 and 2018. In April, he expanded the terms of PG&E’s probation to include wildfireprevention requirements. And on Oct. 14, Alsup asked PG&E to detail the infrastructure damage it found after turning off power to 738,000 homes and businesses in 35 counties starting Oct. 9.
PG&E said it found more than 100 instances of damage in total, but not all of them could have started a fire. The company told the judge that 25 cases of vegetation damage and 26 cases of other infrastructure problems would likely not have caused sparks because the line was insulated, for example.
Among the 56 instances of damage that likely would have led to sparks, most of the equipment had been inspected in 2018 or 2019, with a few exceptions, according to PG&E.
One spot in Yuba County had not been inspected for droughtrelated risks from dead or dying trees since January 2017, though it had undergone a routine inspection in March, PG&E court papers show. Four locations in Placer, Shasta and Yuba counties where the company found infrastructure damage had not been inspected since 2015, the court papers said. The Placer County spot had not been patrolled since 2017, either.
PG&E’s Oct. 9 shutoffs proved widely controversial, not only because of their broad impact but also because of the company’s poor communication with its customers, including a website that crashed for an extended period of time. The company has faced much scrutiny from regulators and Gov. Gavin Newsom since then.
Over the weekend, PG&E cut off power to even more people, with blackouts at their peak affecting an estimated 2.8 million Californians. The shutoffs are necessary to prevent power lines from starting fires during fast winds as they have done many times in recent years, PG&E says, but its critics blame utility leaders for failing to maintain their system properly.
PG&E told Alsup it understands “the hardship” its forced power outages have created “for the millions of people affected,” and said it “intends to continue working with all key stakeholders to minimize, to the extent possible, the hardship caused by these (power shutoff ) events.”
At a hearing this month, Alsup told attorneys for PG&E that “the day should come when PG&E has a system that is safe enough to operate 100% of the time,” but admitted that the company is “not there yet.”
Therefore, Alsup said, blackouts may in some cases be “more prudent ... than leaving the power on and burning down an entire county.”