PSA: California - Wed midnight PG&E shutting off electric power in 34 counties

[GGD]

RAMd®d wrote:
I haven't ventured outside today to see what the stores are doing. I don't know that Safeway has backup power. The local McDonald's doesn't.

I went out today, everything seemed normal. Went to Costco, normal lines at their gas pumps. In the store they had Duracell batteries on sale, plenty of supply, no crowds.

Went to Fry's hadn't been there in a while, it looked like a ghost town.

It's 8:35 PM now, last word was that my power was supposed to go out sometime after 8PM. Also saw reports that power restoration should start around Noon tomorrow. This is for Santa Clara County.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

GGD wrote:
Went to Fry's hadn't been there in a while, it looked like a ghost town.

Speaking of that: https://www.dailynews.com/2019/10/07/fry...-how-long/

[hal]

I just got home from a backpacking trip near south lake tahoe. I knew nothing of this, but drove through the affected area. There are no roving gangs of madmax types. I stopped at a usual place outside of Placerville on HWY 50 - one of the few routes the crosses the Sierra.

The stop light at the offramp didn't work. The restaurant was closed. It was then that I learned about the blackout from the sign on the door. Good thing that I didn't need any gas right then.

[GGD]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=GGD]
Went to Fry's hadn't been there in a while, it looked like a ghost town.

Speaking of that: https://www.dailynews.com/2019/10/07/fry...-how-long/
Really looked like they're circling the drain, and this was at their Sunnyvale store, more or less where it all began (the store grew and moved twice since the very first store).

When I go into a Microcenter it reminds me more of what Fry's used to be like. They left the bay area several years ago when their rent got too high, but I go to their store when I'm in NY.

[Speedy]

What, no solar, no Powerwalls, no plug-in hybrid electric cars with inverters and a full tank of gas with another five or ten gallons in cans?

[Speedy]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-rus...?.tsrc=rss

Tesla Rushes to Keep California Blackout From Busting Batteries

“(Bloomberg) -- Before PG&E Corp.’s massive blackout swept across Northern California, Tesla Inc. issued a politely worded but urgent message to its many area customers: charge up your car, now.

Customers tweeted photos Wednesday of the notice popping up on the touch screens of their electric cars, advising them to top off their batteries while they still could. Utility owner PG&E began shutting off electricity to parts of the region early Wednesday to prevent its power lines from sparking fires during an expected windstorm.

“A utility company in your area announced they may turn off power in some areas of Northern California beginning October 9 as part of public safety power shutoffs, which may affect power to charging options,” the notice read. “We recommend charging your Tesla to 100% today to ensure that your drive remains uninterrupted.”

The notice wasn’t Tesla’s only response to the outages affecting the automaker’s San Francisco Bay Area home. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted that the company was adding solar arrays and batteries to its charging stations as fast as possible.”

[norse]

I like how Gavin Newsom came out yesterday and said "Californians should be outraged".

Then I found a YouTube interview just a few days ago when a reporter repeatedly ask Newsom why he accepted over $200K from PG&E towards his governor election (after the San Bruno gas pipe explosion and the Camp fire). Newsom could not answer and tried to avoid the persistent questioning.

[Bill in NC]

Racer X wrote:
most cpaps and bipaps will run off 12V

Yep, I bet many CPAP users will end up sleeping in their (running) vehicles.

[GGD]

I woke up to still having power this morning. I had received calls at 11:30 PM last night that the shutoffs had begun in my area. As of this morning PG&E says that they've completed Phase 2 which includes Santa Clara County, and anyone who has power now will continue to have power.

Was finally able to get their outage map to load this morning, and there were shutoffs VERY close (walking distance) to my house, on my street, but my house was just outside their impacted area.

The actual shutoff area was much smaller than the earlier maps that showed the areas that they were intending to shut off (which did include my house).