Caltrans botched its outage preparations
We expected many Californians to be unprepared for PG&E’s massive power shutdown on Wednesday. What we didn’t expect was that state officials, who have known about the potential outages for months now, would be caught completely flat-footed. Especially at Caltrans. The agency’s late and shifting information about the possible closure of the Caldecott Tunnel in the East Bay and the Tom Lantos Tunnel on the San Mateo County coast revealed complete communication and preparedness breakdowns.
The Caldecott is a primary East Bay thoroughfare. Both tunnels are major commute routes, to say nothing of the need to keep them open for emergency responders in case of, say, fire — the threat that set off this entire power-outage exercise. Until Tuesday night, most people hadn’t considered that either tunnel could be closed due to the power outages.
It turns out Caltrans has known all along. Tony Tavares, the agency’s Bay Area director, said he learned about the Caldecott closure potential earlier this year and in June ordered a new backup generator to power the ventilation system. But it won’t be ready until next year.
What’s perplexing is why someone didn’t think about an interim plan or warn the public until Tuesday night.
Fortunately, Caltrans scrambled that night and into the morning to install temporary generators to keep Caldecott traffic flowing. It turned out Caltrans didn’t need to close the Lantos Tunnel because PG&E kept the power on from the Pacifica side.
Meanwhile, drivers on both sides of the bay were left in the dark, unable to plan. The agency waited until late Tuesday afternoon to post notices on electronic roadway signs of possible tunnel closures that night. Then, it took a reporter’s Twitter post about the possible Lantos closure to shake the agency’s PR department into action.
Over the next 17 hours, commuters and journalists were whipsawed by messages ranging from likely closure, to working to keep them open, to the Lantos Tunnel will remain open but the Caldecott might not, to, finally, they will both remain open. The region’s lights might not stay on, but at least the tunnels would remain open.
This was one uncertainty that was totally avoidable. Caltrans needs to get its preparedness act together.