Third round
Anger mounts with more PG&E blackouts
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — With no electricity for the fourth straight day Tuesday, chef and caterer Jane Sykes realized she would have to throw out $1,000 worth of food, including trays of brownies, cupcakes and puff pastry.
She also had little hope of getting a good night’s sleep — there was no way to run the machine she relies on to counter her apnea.
“I don’t think PG&E really thought this through,” she lamented.
Frustration and anger mounted across Northern California on Tuesday as the state’s biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, began another round of widespread blackouts aimed at preventing its electrical equipment from sparking wildfires in high winds.
Millions of people have been without power for days as fire crews raced to contain two major windwhipped blazes that have destroyed dozens of homes at both ends of the state: in Sonoma County wine country and in the hills of Los Angeles.
Across Northern California, people worried about charging cellphones and electric vehicles, finding gasoline and cash, staying warm and keeping their food from spoiling. They donned headlamps at home and parked their cars outside due to inoperable automatic garage doors.
Some ended up at centers set up by PG&E where people could go to power their electronics and get free water, snacks, flashlights and solar lanterns.
PG&E said Tuesday’s blackouts — the third round in a week — would affect about 1.5 million people in 29 counties, including 1 million still without power from a shut-off over the weekend. By 5 p.m. about 435,000 customers — or nearly 1.1 million people — were without electricity as restorations were made from Sunday’s shut-off and new outages continued from Tuesday’s wind event, the utility said.
The outages have made people like Linda Waldron, a mother of two who lives north of San Francisco in San Rafael, realize the things we take for granted.
She discovered she was low on gas and began to panic as she drove around looking for an open gas station. She wound up driving to San Francisco, about 20 miles away, before she found one. She also stocked up on cash after realizing she had only $1 in her wallet.
“What if we needed to evacuate and I had no gas in the car?” she said as her 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son cavorted at a playground. “I didn’t even think about gas and cash because I’m too busy with these guys.”
In Placer County, Angel Smith relied on baby wipes and blankets to keep her 13-month-old son Liam warm and clean. The family has been without power since Saturday night and cannot draw well water without electricity.
She ran a cord from her neighbors’ generator to keep her phone and tablet charged so the two could watch movies. Temperatures were expected to drop below freezing overnight in parts of Northern California.
“The hardest part about this for me has been making sure I keep my son warm as it gets cold here,” Smith said.
After the weekend shutoff, some people were led to believe the power would come back Monday and that the next round of outages would avoid Mendocino’s most populous areas. But Angelo said she learned
Tuesday that the outage was still in effect because of two damaged transmission lines dozens of miles away in Marin County.
If people knew the lights would be out for a week they could’ve planned accordingly, she said. It’s been especially troublesome for those who need oxygen. Some of the trucks that resupply oxygen have been caught in long delays for gas, and some patients have been admitted to the emergency room as a precaution, she said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and top utility regulators have accused the company of mismanaging its power system and failing for decades to make the investments needed to ensure it’s more durable. He and others have also complained that the utility has botched the outages by not keeping the public adequately informed.
PG&E Corp. President Bill Johnson says he talked to Newsom Tuesday and told him he agreed with his suggestion that the company give credits to customers who’ve been hit by preemptive power shut-offs. Newsom had suggested $100 per household, or $250 per business.