Marin braces for new blackout
Estimate: Wind gusts could prompt outages for more than 23,000 meters
Marin officials began preparing Monday for another potential public safety power shutdown by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. later in the week.
PG& E notified Marin and 21 other counties that they could be affected by a power shutdown that would begin around 4 p.m. Wednesday and continue until Thursday morning at around 8 a.m. The power will remain off for another 24 to 48 hours after that, however, because PG&E will need to inspect its lines before switching the power back on.
If it occurs, the power outage is expected to affect about 264,000 PG&E customers, including some
23,440 in Marin. The areas of Marin most likely to be affected are: San Rafael, Novato, Mill Valley, San Anselmo, Fairfax, Bolinas, Forest Knolls, Inverness, Lagunitas, Marshall, Muir Beach, Nicasio, Olema, Point Reyes Station, San Geronimo, Stinson Beach and Woodacre.
Marin officials, however, cautioned that the situation could change before Wednesday.
“It’s a very fluid situation for a lot of reasons,” said Tom Jordan, coordinator for the Marin County Office of Emergency Services. “We’re getting some inconsistent information from the utility. A lot depends on fluctuations in the weather.”
In a weather forecast it posted Monday, PG& E said a strong north or northeast wind event is expected to develop late Tuesday into Thursday affecting the northern half of its territory. The utility said wind gusts in excess of 50 mph are possible across the elevated terrain in the North Bay and northern Sierra foothills. Winds are expected to decrease by Thursday night with lighter winds expected for the rest of next week and next weekend.
The National Weather Service on Monday issued a “red flag” warning for 4 a.m. Wednesday through 7 a.m. Thursday for Marin County.
While high winds are not expected in Marin over this period, Marin County fire Chief Jason Weber said the risk of fire in Marin remains very high.
“We haven’t had the rain we typically have a this point in the year; our live fuel moistures are at critical levels,” Weber said. “Any kind of wind added to that is problematic and that is our concern.”
According to PG& E’s weather posting, if no rain occurs in the northern Sierra for the remainder of November, it would be the driest start to the water year in 60 years and tied for second driest in the past 100 years.
Marin County Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke said, “If at all possible schools will remain open.”
Burke said Marin County’s school districts have developed a countywide protocol to help guide decision making on the issue of when to close schools during power shutdowns.
“Protocol indicates that if power goes out during a school day, the students would continue at the school site for the rest of the day and return to school once power is reinstated,” Burke said.
A power shutdown this
week would be Marin’s third in the last two months. The first in early October affected about 10,000 Marin customers; the second, which lasted several days, affected virtually the entire county.
Meaghan Carroll, who manages the trauma program at MarinHealth Medical Center, said that between Oct. 26 and Oct. 29, during the second power shutdown, 21 patients were taken to the hospital for treatment for injuries from falls. She said most arrived by ambulance and all but four were hospitalized. She said many of the fall victims were seniors.
Carroll said that is about three times the number of people injured in falls over the same period in 2018 when there was no power outage. She suggests that people install special lights in wall plugs that switch on during power outages so they don’t injure themselves searching for flashlights or candles.
Gabriella Calicchio, director of the county’s Department of Cultural Services, said a performance by the Marin Symphony at the Marin Center’s Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium and an Italian Film Festival screening at the Showcase Theatre had to be canceled during the first night of the last power shutdown on Oct. 26. Calicchio
said this time a Mark Day School performance at the Showcase Theatre could be affected as well as some meetings scheduled at Marin Center.
However, Calicchio said, “We won’t cancel until we know for sure there is going to be a power outage.” At this point, it appears that the Marin Center might not be affected by the power shutdown.
Meagan Moore, chief administrative officer at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, said the institute has two diesel-powered generators that keep the lights on there.
“They are there predominantly to protect the data,” Moore said. “We’ve got quite a large underground diesel storage tank that can keep us going for roughly four days.”
The Buck also has a vendor on call that can refill the tank as needed. Moore said during an internal post mortem on the last power outage, she commented that there was plenty of time to implement lessons learned since the risk of power shutdowns were over until next year.
She said, “Clearly, I was wrong.”
IJ reporter Adrian Rodriguez contributed to this report.