Potential Power Outages

Read on Twitter an interesting opinion: that the power outrages are not about preventing fires but rather to absolve PG&E of any responsibility should a fire occur. Ie more about avoiding litigation than actually preventing fires. I’m not knowledgeable enough to cogently argue this one way or another but sounds likely given the precarious financial state of the company. Thoughts?

I'm located in Humboldt county and scheduled to lose power at midnight for at least 36 hours they said. Worst part is essentially I'm off grid. I have water pump and sewer pump so I spent the afternoon setting up the generator. On demand hot water as well. This is all not sitting well with a wife who's 7 months pregnant

Read on Twitter an interesting opinion: that the power outrages are not about preventing fires but rather to absolve PG&E of any responsibility should a fire occur. Ie more about avoiding litigation than actually preventing fires. I’m not knowledgeable enough to cogently argue this one way or another but sounds likely given the precarious financial state of the company. Thoughts?

It is 100% about avoiding liability if a fire does occur. You can’t blame PGE for starting a power line fire if the power lines didn’t have power.

Read on Twitter an interesting opinion: that the power outrages are not about preventing fires but rather to absolve PG&E of any responsibility should a fire occur. Ie more about avoiding litigation than actually preventing fires. I’m not knowledgeable enough to cogently argue this one way or another but sounds likely given the precarious financial state of the company. Thoughts?

I view the outages as more of a big middle finger to California for being held financially responsible for the 2017 fires, but I'm pretty cynical. Yours sounds like a more reasonable explanation. Or maybe a little of both.

Read on Twitter an interesting opinion: that the power outrages are not about preventing fires but rather to absolve PG&E of any responsibility should a fire occur. Ie more about avoiding litigation than actually preventing fires. I’m not knowledgeable enough to cogently argue this one way or another but sounds likely given the precarious financial state of the company. Thoughts?

It is 100% about avoiding liability if a fire does occur. You can’t blame PGE for starting a power line fire if the power lines didn’t have power.

It’s two sides of the same coin.

I'm located in Humboldt county and scheduled to lose power at midnight for at least 36 hours they said. Worst part is essentially I'm off grid. I have water pump and sewer pump so I spent the afternoon setting up the generator. On demand hot water as well. This is all not sitting well with a wife who's 7 months pregnant

City of eureka is saying that water supply will last days but they won’t be able to keep up with sewage pumping. Going to be an interesting few days.

It is 100% about avoiding liability ...

No doubt that's true. But, given the way PG&E maintains things in our neck of the woods, I'd estimate the likelihood of downed power lines at more than 110%. Just on our short 1/10th mile road, there are enough dead branches overhanging the lines to cause a dozen fires.

PG&E is in a hell of spot.  People complain when power lines start a fire and when they cut off power during wind events.  The cost to adequately trim the vegetation around all the power lines would be insane.   They really can't win with the customer.

PGE is building a defense!  They want people to complain about the outages.  It helps their case. 

I wonder if the benefit of the electricity cutoff for fire prevention will be negated by all the people who knowing nothing about setting up a home power source and rushed out to buy generators and gas cans stored who knows where around the home.

Nothing like dropping a deuce in the dark👍😂. Glad I don't have really close neighbors. Fired up the generator at 5 am for coffee

so far so good here in West Santa Rosa

Same here. And not one iota of wind. Not even a breeze.

PGE is building a defense!  They want people to complain about the outages.  It helps their case. 

That’s not really how evidence works.

They might be angling for the legislature to pass an immunity bill.  Or they might be trying to cause massive inconvenience to people to be vindictive.  Or they might be trying to avoid another billion dollar liability Paradise situation.  Maybe it’s a little bit of each.

PGE is building a defense!  They want people to complain about the outages.  It helps their case. 

That’s not really how evidence works.

They might be angling for the legislature to pass an immunity bill.  Or they might be trying to cause massive inconvenience to people to be vindictive.  Or they might be trying to avoid another billion dollar liability Paradise situation.  Maybe it’s a little bit of each.

Exactly!!!!

They might be angling for the legislature to pass an immunity bill.  Or they might be trying to cause massive inconvenience to people to be vindictive.  Or they might be trying to avoid another billion dollar liability Paradise situation.  Maybe it’s a little bit of each.
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I agree with the above statement.  If PG&E through their current actions can create an environment where they are told that they can not shut off power without authorization from a local or State government decree, then they have shifted liability for any future failures.

PG&E does not want another Paradise tragedy and they are doing their part to mitigate it.  When another fire breaks out, PG&E does not want to be looked at as the cause and they definitely don't want to be held liable.  We can argue over motive, but we can all agree that we do not want to see another tragic fire. 

Unfortunately, all it takes is an ignition source and that can be caused by countless ways. 

The way I see it pg&e is trying to get rate hikes approved + immunity bill passed. If they wanted to they could have prevented all of this along time ago by installing the proper infrastructure  ( basically industrial sized gfci's and buried cable where appropriate) but they decided to milk profits and argue that it is cost prohibitive.
Now they are continuing typical corporate raider BS to milk it dry before the state either gives them what they want or we take over with MUD like in Sacramento