Outrageous Outages (updated 10oct19)

George Rebane

Our power here in western Nevada County went out at 315am.  We set our phone alarms and got up at 630am, and started the generator.  Turning on our local KNCO, we were advised to remain calm, safe, and that everything in the region was canceled for the day.  A PG&E lady came on to read some prepared pap and informed us that power “may be restored” starting tomorrow noon.  Another local politico advised us all to “be patient”.

I have been continuously checking the winds, both current and predicted, and found that there was no wind, measured and predicted, in the Sierra for the next 48 hours that exceeded 10mph.  Whatever ‘high winds’ (20-25mph) there were to be, were on the central valley floor.  In fact, the entire northwest of the US is unusually calm, save for that small Sacramento Valley floor pocket of light winds.  Here in the Nevada City region it is DEAD CALM as is seldom seen – not even a leaf moving.  You can do your own checking here.

For all intents and “public safety” purposes, there is no evidence that power needs to be shut off in these foothills.  The outage, predicted and delivered, appears purely for punitive political purposes that is endorsed by a progressive leftwing government whose longstanding MO has been to get Californians to accept more and more abusive government control over their lives without so much as a murmur.  In a state where a free and independent people dwell, government and their monopoly utilities would at this time have turned power back on while broadcasting apologies for having turned it off for no reasonable purpose.

But long ago that ceased to be California, where we have been taught to hunker down and accept everything from the most onerous and useless/stifling environmental regulations, highest gas and fuel prices in the Union, sky high taxes, piles of human shit and needles covering our city streets and sidewalks, crumbling roads and bridges, welfare/homeless/illegal alien capital of the country, broken public education system, corrupt (and unfunded) public employee pension system, historical exodus of companies and middle-class wage earners, …, and more of the same on the way.

We now have an under-educated ‘woke’ electorate who are fed a daily diet of pap from our lamestream outlets, putting the blame for their dire straits on the state’s successful businesses and the well-to-do who can still afford to live here.  These are guilty of taking from the poor and giving to the rich, and according to all Democrat politicians (especially those in Sacramento and running for president) they must be squeezed much much more in order to redistribute their ill-gotten assets and achieve social justice in a fundamentally transformed America.

And now we are being conditioned to patiently accept the power distribution schedules of third-world countries as the latest new norm for our once golden state.

[10oct19 update]  California’s historic Great Blackout continues.  The people are finally getting sufficiently pissed since no one has seen any dangerous winds in NorCal that might affect public safety.  The PG&E officials are keeping a stiff upper lip and passing the bullshit. (more here)  Here in the Sierra foothills there has been no wind all night, and looking out my window at our forest, there is not a single leaf moving – dead air.  Our politically punitive punishment continues (The Federalist agrees).  Which brings us to the whole deal about the National Weather Service and NOAA.

These guys (again) totally blew it on their prediction of high winds.  You have to understand that these are our crack meteorologists, weather mavens, and, yes, climate scientists who run a pot load of computer models, all of which basically operate the same way.  They solve a bunch of hairy atmospheric heat transfer and circulation equations numerically in an iterative manner.  That means that there is no set of equations that take in current weather station data, and a specified future time – e.g. tomorrow at 6pm – and give you the weather (say, temp, humidity, wind speed/direction) in a one-shot solution.

Instead you have to divvy up the atmosphere into small cubes (smaller is better), use some physics to make sure they all tie at a given moment in time, say, now, and then increment time by a skosh, say, a minute or two (again smaller is better), and then compute what happens in each of the little cubes of atmosphere.  Make all the cubes tie again, and then repeat the process for the next time step – this is called iteration.  And the whole shebang is known as numerical weather prediction which is explained in more detail here.

So let’s say that we’re going to compute weather for western US for the next few days, that requires us to look at what’s happening over around 1/8 of the globe, in the northern hemisphere mostly to the west of us.  If we divvy up the atmosphere into 2Kft cubes up to, say, 30Kft, then we’re going to have to crunch the numbers on about 2,575,000,000 of such cubes that all have to fly in tight formation where they touch each other (each cube has six faces).  And that’s only for one instant in time.  Now if we have to do that for, say, every 2 minutes going forward, you get the idea of the magnitude of number crunching that’s needed, and why the job is relegated to super-computers.

It needs to be said, because it’s never mentioned by the climate hysterics, that every succeeding iteration for every cube accumulates error due to a bunch of realworld factors that include weather measurement errors, model equation approximations, finite word length (not enough digits in the crunched numbers), discretization error (the cubes and time steps are too coarse), … .  We won’t get into the existing errors in the equations attempting to capture known science, and forget about the atmospheric science we still don’t know.  The bottom line is that such discretized, iterated models accumulate errors which grow with each iteration.  That’s why it’s almost impossible to have reliable/accurate long term (say, 10-day) weather predictions.  And hopefully this gives you numerate non-techies and idea of why the weather is calm when it is supposed to be red flag windy.  As I’ve mentioned above, the power shut-off policy includes a punitive political layer, which is another whole part of this threatened new norm of turning us into a third-world country every fall.

Let me conclude this diatribe by pointing out that NOAA’s general circulation models (GCMs) all operate on the same computational principles outlined above.  And to predict the evolution of climate, the GCMs have to take into account a whole lot more parameters, many more sub-models of additional (poorly known) physical processes, deal with landmass and ocean effects, cover the entire globe, solve for many more variables, and iterate time out into future decades.  So you can get an idea why none of the dozen or more competing GCMs give the same answer and can accrue enormous errors the further out they project.

After all this is said and done, the final nail in the GCMs’ predictability coffin is that climate is a stochastic process that requires a lot of fancy probabilistics in the equations, and all the GCMs are deterministic number crunchers – they iterate to one answer for each of the cubes, and give you no idea what the error is in the delivered answer.  To attempt to glean an error, you’d have to ‘Monte Carlo’ a given GCM, running a gazillion simulations into the future by sampling its bazillion parameters from their presumed probability distributions.  No one has ever done that because 1) of the scope of the problem (it’s BIG), and 2) it would give us a politically incorrect appreciation for all the bought and paid for climate hysterics that we have heard over the last 25+ years.  Best just to panic with everyone else so you can show them that you too are woke.

Meanwhile, bitch to your elected reps about why you have no power.

[later, 245pm] I tried the PGE website again; this time it was almost working.  Going to my home on their outage map, and clicking on my location, the following 'Outage Details' came up -

As you can see (click on the image), these guys are really idiots in the mold of govt bureaucrats which is what monopoly public utilities become in fairly short order.  They declare that the cause of our power outage is "Unknown", and promise that "PG&E will be assessing the cause."  The biggest mystery is why their top and middle managers are not being quickly replaced today.  This outage should provide their board and HR departments sufficient cause to start looking for some new blood with brains.

Comments

[scenes]

Well, judging from the chart 1/2 down this page:

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-utility-wildfires-20171017-story.html

It appears that vehicles are as much at fault as the power company.

Answer: No cars on road when wind > 5 mph.

[George Rebane]

BTW, to further illustrate what a sorry-ass utility PG&E is, even their power-outage website is down during this historical power turn-off.
https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/public-safety-power-shutoff-faq.page

[scenes]

...you do have to wonder how much extra fuss and fury is added by a power shutoff if an evacuation is needed. Hopefully the proposed NC noise making device will tell everyone which direction to go when the apocalypse occurs.

Obviously this is mostly a bit of brinksmanship between the State and PG&E.

[scenes]

re: George@9:14AM

Yah, I noticed that. I was hoping to see how far spread the emergency was as misery loves company and all that.

Perhaps the crack Obamacare website crew was involved.

[Walt]

I should have invested in a truck load of generators.
There was a line at the local hardware store looking to buy backup power.

[Bill Tozer]

From the shouted down evil Doug LaMalfa:

On the PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff:

It seems as if California, which fancies itself as one of the top world economies, is becoming a third world country. Expecting the power to stay on when the wind blows isn’t that giant a leap for mankind, yet here we are 50 years after the first moon landing having great inconvenience and personal or economic losses for many of our residents. With only a few rare exceptions, there haven’t been such huge problems until the last few years. Decades of frivolous lawsuits, foot dragging bureaucracies, and a virtual ‘no touch’ forest policy have coupled with onerous regulations on utilities on where, when, how, and what kind of electricity to generate. It has all come home to roost. We are all now paying the price for years of mandates and lawsuits that prevent sensible policy in regard to electricity generation and delivery, as well as hindering forest practices that help stay clear of the grid and provide fire breaks and buffers to communities when fires do occur in our forests. I’ve been preaching it my entire time in office.

We passed good baseline legislation through a reluctant California Legislature because I fought for it. Through my efforts in Congress, we have changed laws to speed up clearing dangerous trees near power lines that could cause fires. Now, we need to enable the U.S. Forest Service and utilities to do the work in a legal and timely manner so we can have safe power lines and provide reliable power to all of our homes.

When I spoke with the new CEO of PG&E on Monday, I impressed upon him what they already know – the need for PG&E to improve their transmission lines so that they can deliver power reliably to their customers. I am receiving dozens of calls from frustrated or angry constituents who are perplexed by this situation happening in 2019. It was clear from that conversation these shut offs are about preventing additional fires and the limitless liability that California law has from fires that could be caused.

New laws and funding in Congress are providing the latitude and empowerment to do the common-sense clearing along power lines without the past major delays for permits. This really shouldn’t need an Act of Congress to fix. I will continue to work for solutions as these long power outages are preventable and our utilities should be – and need to be – empowered to do more to prevent potential fires.

[George Rebane]

BillT 927am - Thanks Mr Tozer.

[Walt]

Welcome to life under ECO power ideals.
The kind of life to expect with renewable power. Maybe on,, maybe off. Business comes to a screeching halt.
Can't get you meds, nor food. The computer checkouts are dead.
Not one person knows how to count change anymore.
Now you're really screwed if you have no cash.

[L]

A state that refuses to take advantage of its ample resources to generate its own electricity can expect to also lead the nation in avoidable power outages. Econ 101.

[George Rebane]

Now we're told that power may not come on for days AFTER the winds die down because, in their wisdom, PGE will then start checking their power lines to see if any of them are touching downed branches, and that will take time. If you consider calculating the likelihood of a disastrous fire starting during a calm from an unlikely downed branch, then the solution is to turn the power back on when the wind dies and then complete the checking. I wonder what kind of drone-powered line checking system PGE has set up to speed up and lower the cost of flying manned helicopters up and down power lines.

As all this illustrates again - the cost of removing the last vestiges of risk in any system is enormous. But we've been under-educated to either ignore or accept such costs, because risk must be eliminated wherever woke people encounter it - today there is no tolerable level of perceived risk in our society.

[Gregory]

More evidence of NO WIND:
https://www.aviationweather.gov/metar/data?ids=KGOO&format=raw&date=0&hours=36

Hint:
KGOO 091715Z AUTO 29004KT 10SM CLR 16/04 A2992 RMK A01

KGOO is the Grass Valley/Nevada County airport, 09 is the day, 1715Z is the time (1015 Pacific), wind from 290 degrees, 4 knots.

There was and is no wind to speak of in western Nevada County.

[Gregory]

Drones?

Funny guy. PGE the last time had three helicopters flying making a show of checking the lines, burning jet fuel, including one Blackhawk ... an impressive machine... painted in PGE colors.

The airport sold them a lot of Jet A.

[Robert Cross]

"risk must be eliminated " so that the taxpayers and homeowners pick up the tab for PGE's years of deferred maintenance that went to bonuses and stock dividends. Like most large corporations the customers are expected to take the risks while the company's take the money and run. But what can one expect when the primary motivator and business model is 'profit uber Allas.'

[Bill Tozer]

But if it saves just one life, its worth it.
Glad I don't live in the higher elevations. Cold women and warm beer were always two things I was allegic to.

Walt, during the last power outage the hardware store sold out of generators. Unfortunately they sold out of long power cords first. Opps.

Heard a neighbor in the distance fire up the Generator. It must be a new generator because I've never heard it before. Then I heard the generator spit and sputter and go quiet as it has been for a few hours now. The poor fellow must have run out of gas. Where do you get gas in a power outage? Another big opps. Poor planning and the matrix is not perfect. Variety is the spice of life. Insert :) here.

[scenes]

re: RCross@11:00AM

It's hard to get more .gov regulated than a utility monopoly.

I expect that they appoint the same folks to utility commissions as they do homeless 'nonprofits'.

[scenes]

Public Emergency Update:

Wind speed: 0 mph
Backup power at NC City Hall: none
KVMR: Ms. Reinette prattling on about 5G radiation danger and Monsanto.
Gas: Robinson.
PG&E outage website: Dead
Situation Normal: AFU

The hills are alive, with the sound of generators.

[J. barron]

The PGE plot is predictable. Piss off enough rate payers that demand Sac’to do something. A PGE cad in legislature will propose a bill giving PGE immunity from their fires. Only then willPGE resume regular service. It’s called extortion.

[Gregory]

Here's an oldie but goodie:
http://www.heretical.com/miscellx/boss.html

PG&E is just establishing who's the boss.

[Don Bessee]

Raleys has a generator and is doing massive biz. Good for them!

;-)

[scenes]

Lots of happy customers here:

https://twitter.com/PGE4Me

[Walt]

No jiggered boob? I guess that power wall he was bragging about failed him. Just talked to someone who actually HAS one. Bottom line,,, they SUCK. Good for maybe two hours with just you house lights. Ten minutes if you turn on the stove.
They bought the sales pitch, and it's came back to bite. A nice waste of ten grand.

[fish]

Posted by: Walt | 09 October 2019 at 04:34 PM

Oh no Walt…..it works just fine…..as long as you use it correctly! As a status signaling possession used to show the neighbors that "he" is a better, more noble and more enlightened person!

[Walt]

There might be enough power to run the LED light set on the outside of the house illuminating the "powered by Tesla" LOGO.

[scenes]

re: Walt@4:34

It looks to me like the bigger Powerwall holds about 1/2 of the average Californian's daily use, so you'd best not have an electric stove/dryer/forced air/water heater if you want to make it last all day...plus there's the problem of refilling it. My math could be wrong of course.

I don't mind the notion of the off-the-grid house, but it looks to me like it needs to be purpose-built with lifestyle changes, especially if you're not on-the-grid for propane or natgas.

I like the idea but it doesn't strike me as ready for primetime. I'm afraid that what The Powers That Be really want to cook up is an outrageously complex system where every house is a battery, every house has solar panels, on a grid, with the ability to centrally manage power use. That looks like a recipe for single points of mayhem to me.

Current weather report: Wind 0 mph

[Jig Wiggly]

Sorry Walt-
We have gas. Don't use an electric stove like you simple swamp nutria. I thought you considered yourself a chef? Using an electric stove???

Your neighbor must be almost as dumb as Todd to expect to run durable electric appliances on battery backup. Probably has an electric clothes drier and baseboard heaters too. The PowerWall runs the well, fridge, freezer, internet, garage door opener and 15W power strip to run random plug ins. It had dipped a bit when we woke up, but pretty much even keel after a day being powered by the solar panels. Sorry to disappoint. Have you seen the lines to Robinson's??? Must suck to depend on a gasoline generator.

Blowing pretty hard at Bass Pro, yet all the lights are on and all the gas stations purring away in Rocklin and Roseville. Guess SMUD builds a better grid than PGE.

[Bill Tozer]

Gentlemenn and scumbags, you fail to see the bigger picture. This is all just a continuation of the Back to Earth Movement emerging out of the dope smoking hippy days. Tune in and drop out. Wipe your behinds with leaves, preferablty not poison oak leaves,a rookie flatlander mistake. And no sqeezing the Charmin! The gods will not be happy. They were rather pleased with sacrifices of soft tissue. Grew accustomed to it.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/341758/activists-protest-pg-meeting-say-charmin-tissue.html

[Walt]

Don't believe you jiggered one. LIBS lie.
I got my info from an unbiased source. Your running on a generator like everyone else. Nice try SFB.

It's your ECO crews that want EVERYONE running electric. Just WTF have you been? NO new CNG hookups to new construction.(In Proggy town... Like Berkeley.) Better start pointing fingers at your own, before me and mine.

As for cooking, I prefer an open fire of GOD given wood.(It's renewable you know)

[Walt]

🤣🤣🤣https://www.fastcompany.com/90415333/tesla-owners-in-california-get-a-warning-to-charge-their-cars-before-the-power-goes-out 🤣🤣🤣
"As Electrek points out, most Tesla owners don’t charge their vehicles to 100%, because it’s a bit of a time suck, and the batteries last such a long time that it’s not usually necessary—until the power company cuts the electricity, that is. Of course, Tesla just so happens to have another gadget that can help in the case of an emergency power outage—its PowerWall. Before the lights go out, Tesla is activating the “Storm Watch” feature on its PowerWall to store excess electricity before things go dark.

[L]

No problem believing JW re: emergency back up. If you have nat gas, heat & cooking are A-OK without backup (until Tin Lizzy's ban on fracking eliminates the gas being supplied from elsewhere. This doesn't make the solar system viable for everyday use. Curious about the "15W" power strip to run "random plug-ins". If one of those pulg-ins is an electric wok or table saw, say bye-bye battery. No doubt JW meant a 15 A rated plug strip, which will run all electronics in the house, no sweat. Just don't try powering any real load.

As a professional kitchen designer, electric cooking appliances have many advantages over gas (tho chefs all prefer gas) but they are unknown commercially due to the extraordinary operating cost which has prevented pro cooks from ever having cooked electrically. This won't be changing, but my home kitchens are all electric.

[Gregory]

I'm not expecting power to come back until Saturday at the earliest... the PG&E helicopters are not expected back at KGOO until maybe Friday.

Hey, I got a bright idea... if the winds are gone... the chances of a runaway fire are very low. Just restore power and fight any fire that happens. Probably none.

On the political front... it's reported in the 'frisco Chronicle that DiFi has endorsed for Pres *not* the junior Senator Commalama but Quid Pro Joe hisself.

[George Rebane]

Gregory 655pm - Great bright idea, we agree. Check my 954am.

[Jig Wiggly]

L - 15 amp. I stand corrected. Watching Netflix and all the power I need at the moment. No generator noise. Tesla fan here.

[Walt]

A light bulb and a laptop. Got it. Screw the fridge and freezer.
Must be a city boy on city water. Enjoy the cold shower.

[L]

No, there's enough in the battery to power the refrigeration as long as you don't access it. Properly insulated storage (refrigeration) us very energy efficient.

This is a complicated subject. The problem comes when you need heat and fire is forbidden. Outta luck.

[Walt]

Another "no wind". high wind event. Good job weather forecaster. Yet some still can predict AGW. You can kiss my hairy ass.

[Randy]

Fine example of liberalism causing the opposite of its stated intent. "We can't do controlled burns because ENVIRONMENT, leading to uncontrolled burns in the form of wild fires. Utilities turn services off to avoid sparking said wild fires forcing residents to increase carbon output with their generators, which could also start fires!

[George Rebane]

Has anyone asked the authorities why those of us who live in the alleged 'high wind areas' have witnessed no winds beyond light airs and mostly dead air???? What is this bullshit that YubaNet and others are putting out?

And now we're told that they can't start flying the line check helicopters until the get the all clear from the weather guys - a butt stupid tactic as has been pointed out before. These are the people who know very little about what's ahead about the weather, and will do everything they can to cover their butts, so they will issue the 'all clear' at last possible moment before the embarrassment becomes too much.

[J. Barron]

I don’t entirely agree George. I think this not so much as a CYA as it is a political strong arm to gain immunity (maybe even amnesty) from the legislature. They want to drag this out and make it hurt. How many people need restitution vs how many don’t? The vast majority of PGE ratepayers don’t care about pge’s liability because odds are they won’t be burnt out of house and home. We want our hot showers and TV baseball And we want it now (playoffs coincide with fire season-so inconvenient). Contact your congressman and free PGE. And then we can pay more for FAIR insurance.

[Bill Tozer]

Power up in various spots. Brunswich, South County, Cypress Hill, and near moi...but I am in the dark.

[Walt]

Still blacked out in PV.....

[George Rebane]

JBarron 617pm - That base was covered long ago. My position before they even turned off the lights was punitive politics. Dead air, still dark. Thanks.

[Bill Tozer]

Yep its weird. Greenhorn up, parts of E. Main up, downtown NC up, Smartsville up, parts of Pleasant Valley road up and me and Walt are in the dark.

Personally I don't really care or mind it one bit. I took a nice little drive to Browns Valley today gassed up at the gas station and only had to wait for 1 car. It was a beautiful day out there very pleasant a slight breeze O wonderful fall day. And I got no generator I aint got no magic stuff I just can lay back and roll with the punches. I been down the red carpet with Entertainment Tonight filming the enteance with a starlet on my elbow and I've be lived in a broken down car with two infants and believe you me it's nice to have power but I can just wait it out and listen to the music in my head. Power just makes me grateful for the little things in life. Once I lose that attitude of gratitude I've lost it all.

Just be thankful that the weather is nice and we all survived. Except me and Walt

[Walt]

Well we learned a thing or two. Time to get one or two more of those portable butane stoves. We even baked an apple pie in one of those old Colman ovens I had stashed for years.(still in the original box) Those things work pretty good.
Yes, we have been ruffing it easy. No only if Comcast could get it's act together.
CALTRANS has a guy at just about every stoplight manning a generator keeping the lights lit. Give them a thumbs up as you go by.

[J. Barron]

George
“That base was covered long ago”
Link please. I don’t see it.

[Bill Tozer]

Walt.

I dug out an old perculater that my aunt gave me and I put it on the propane stove and felt like Mrs. Olson with her mountain grown coffee and Folgers in my cup. The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup

[Walt]

I bet that coffee tasted pretty damned good.
Something about the old ways brings out the flavor.
At least you didn't need an old wool sock to strain it through... Or did ya'?

[Bill Tozer]

Nah. I used a nylon from my wardrone to keep in touch with my femine side. Also works good for an emergency fan belt. :)

Just kidding. I used an old sock the dog was chewing on.

[George Rebane]

JB 846pm - My remarks about the outage are all over the place, and I don't publish the communications with my representatives.

[Archie Bunker]

I heard that Nevada County already has enough electricity being generated via hydropower from our local rivers and creeks to power the county. NID could take over those units and create a local energy district but we would still need the PGE grid to distribute it.
Fireside community/neighborhood watch could patrol/inspect lines near their homes.

[Walt]

Go back to bed Dougy.

[George Rebane]

ArchieB 749am - Don't know about the availability of locally generated power and the feasibility of its distribution Mr Bunker, but thanks for opening the discussion of doing something other than the same ol' same ol'.

[Walt]

Maybe he can name all the hydro power, and who owns it.

[scenes]

Armchair quarterback day 1:

If I were Mayor of Nevada City, I would

(a) ask why City Hall and the PD don't have backup power
(b) set up a recharging center for the 90% of the town that still doesn't have power
(c) organize a hippy light parade protest

(c) all day long baby!

[Walt]

OK,, what is the cost per foot to put all the power underground, as some suggest? How many miles of powerline are in Nevada co. alone? (take a wild shot in the dark) Then do the math. Now don't forget to include every house service that's strung up from the pole to the meter.(That's the homeowner's expense.)

[scenes]

re: Walt@8:36AM

I don't doubt that the system could be architected differently. As usual, gains are tough on the margin. Drone line examination, ability to switch smaller subgrids, rerouting, dunno.

Here's a question from someone who doesn't design power systems, why not string the large stuff next to highways (easy access, less trees)?

It would be interesting to know whether the problem is the arteries or the capillaries.

[Archie Bunker]

Here is an example of a local hydro property transfer.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/adviceletter/ELEC_5406-E.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi4n4iMypTlAhUoHzQIHU03AWgQFjAAegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw16CM25bS51SMlNhb8lICjQ">https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/adviceletter/ELEC_5406-E.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi4n4iMypTlAhUoHzQIHU03AWgQFjAAegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw16CM25bS51SMlNhb8lICjQ">https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/adviceletter/ELEC_5406-E.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi4n4iMypTlAhUoHzQIHU03AWgQFjAAegQICRAC&usg=AOvVaw16CM25bS51SMlNhb8lICjQ

[Walt]

Buy'm up Dougy.

[Walt]

So the Rood center was closed due to power outage?
WTF?? With that million dollar solar grid? No excuses there!!!

[Walt]

As I was out and about the past few days, I see solar just living up to the task. Every business that invested in solar, was closed due to the power outage. It was those running on generator backup power, that was open for business.

Plaza Tire in PV was up and running, Generator and a few gas powered air compressors. And people who still knew how to count change.

[Bill Tozer]

Interesting to read comments from people from Vacaville and other parts. They could have been written here in Nevada County. No wind blowing,air is calm and power is shut off. People closer to the Bay are saying that the only winds blowing is on Mount Diablo. We are not alone. Power in numbers and all that stuff.

I have remain mostly quiet on this topic because I've had winds. Wednesday night it was blonde hard enough to wake me up and things were rattling in the house because I left the back slider open which faces due West. My brothers Walt and George were Saying their wares there was nary a breeze, all still, calm. My brother Walt felt nothing and I have been in a pretty good breeze just about every day now but nothing to shut power off over. Talk about living in a little micro climate. Walt live relatively close to me as the Crow flies in and he has as well as doctor Rebame experienced awhole different kettle of fish. Yes, Tuesday night was show com here when the power went out that it would not even blow a leaf a corner and off the railing of the deck. Smoke went straight up and absolutely nothing but dead calm. I must have been picking up the outer edges winds going across The Valley floor as apparently nobody else did. One thing for sure, I do not live in a banana belt but perhaps a micro climate.

[Bill Tozer]

Please excuse all the unreadable typos. I blame fat fingers, small little keys, eating while doing dictation, and recovering from eye surgery. Not to mention failing to preview before hitting post. This is the 1st time I have ever wanted my iPad back

[Walt]

Hope you get better soon! We would hate to have to put you down like the old hound dog.

[scenes]

Just 84 more to go to beat the Camp Fire:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article236043743.html

[Gregory]

Still no power at my place.

I was hopeful yesterday afternoon when the first PG&E helicopter returned a day earlier than forcast, but I've not heard them flying in my neighborhood. They may have moved on to more densely packed screaming customers.

[Walt]

Power back in PV!! Bill should be able to see better now.

[George Rebane]

No power on Cement Hill at 315pm.

[Walt]

We have sent a strike team of fire crews to LA county.

[scenes]

re: Gregory @ 1:43PM

Power to the People!
Power to the People!
Power to the People!

I expect the county needs to vote a little Bluer to get full attention from the 'lectrick company. Once the first F-150 could pass through a working McDonald's drive-thru on the way to picking up a sixer of Bud Lite at Brunswick Basin, PG&E's work was done.

Expect many many generator ads on KNCO along with the brush clearin', fire insurance'in, tree service commercials. It should overtake dope growing and coffee shops as Nevada County's number one donation to the industrial might of America.

[Gregory]

At 1:43pm I wrote that power had not been restored to my house; I was drinking hot, fresh brewed coffee in town (I'd been drinking cold leftover java) and the PGE website that I could finally access told me they expected power to be restored at my place by 11pm Sunday.

I went to the airport and found it taken over by PGE contractor pilots and crew lounging around on a break (am guessing they'd reached their limits). I sat and listened to them for a time, sipping more of the good, cheap airport coffee. but eventually broke into the conversation saying "I'd not had a shower for three days and I hoped the inspection of the trees that hadn't been blowing in the wind was going well".

One of the guys was a young guy, cocky as all hell. Said he could smell me from across the room (no, he couldn't... I had bathed by heating water from Bitney Springs on the propane stove and pouring it into a bathroom lav).

Another guy blamed Gavin Newsom for signing a bill that upped the ante for PG&E.

I came home about 430pm and found PGE had lied on the web site... the power was restored and had been since about 1PM, before I visited the web site. Four hours later, PGE sent an email informing me the power was restored.

[Bill Tozer]

Its not all PG&E

https://www.city-journal.org/planned-electricity-blackouts-california

[fish]

"Soon, outages spread to other utilities, as Southern California Edison began shutting off power to parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. “They should all go to jail,” one Twitter user fumed."

Nothing seems to make a lefty happier than trundling some poor soul off to the Gulag! Or the executioner if ....horrors.....no Latte.

Don't know why Californians are upset.....they keep returning the democrats to Sacramento every election! There will be higher costs (taxes and regulations.....Hi Steve!) and lower quality of services, probably forever. Correct me if I'm wrong....haven't most Californians been clamoring to "go native" and join the rest of the 3rd World in Solidarity?

Or is that just more lefty moral preening?

[Bill Tozer]

Someone wrote on some local site that B&C was selling 5 gallon gas cans for $40.00 bucks! I stopped by Reibes yesterday to get come oil for my leaky dredge down by the river and they had a pallet of 5 gallon gas cans for $19.99, lol.

[Walt]

Think we had it bad?
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/typhoon-earthquake-and-tornado-hit-japan-shutting-down-cities-with-evacuations

[Bill Tozer]

This week in pictures. Q: What did socialists use before candles? A: Lectricty.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/the-week-in-pictures-bolifornia-edition.php

[George Rebane]

BillR 139am - A nice compendium of factors contributing to California wildfires. Unfortunately, what he left out were the copse format of western forests which naturally stopped wildfires from becoming huge conflagrations - trees grew in copses of less than about five acres with open space in between them. If one burned from a lightning strike, it was not likely that the next one would burn. Our insane policy of putting out all wildfires and promoting hundreds of squares miles of contiguous trees gives us what we have. Also omitted was a discussion of why we don’t have a policy of prescribed burns - California is more litigious than most states, and less tolerant of a reasonable discussion of what might be acceptable risk. And the risk discussion should extend to the acknowledgement that if you choose to live in the urban-wild lands interface, then suck it up - your house may burn and no one is responsible for making you whole again. The only answer our progressives naturally gravitate toward is more futile regulations to make living in the woods harder in the hopes that you will be driven to fulfill another of the A21 objectives - urban ‘stack and pack’.

[Don Bessee]

Yup-

https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/10/11/wsj-blame-environmentalists-for-california-blackouts-wildfires/

;-)