The big Unplug

[SF Native]

Hey any California friends, my power is scheduled to go off in half an hour.
Got some cold beers, my girl, and a great view ready for the great unplug. Enjoy the adventure and see you on the other side. Warm air and high winds are coming. Be safe friends.
No baseball for this kid tonight!

[JonLeBlanc]

Oh I hope you stay safe! Horrible images coming out of CA, like people on highways fleeing their cars! I'm so glad I'm not of an eschatological-dispensationalist-millenarian outlook lol

[SF Native]

All is well in my area.
Power went out Saturday night. Spent a warm night sitting on my girlfriend deck eating a nice meal and drinking cold beer. No wind in my area which is funny as her deck blows like crazy all summer.
Wind picked up by Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon the grocery stores opened up and gave away all the cold stuff as it was clear it would go bad.
The winds north of here were a steady 90 mph on some ridges and even clocked in at 102. The Kinkade fire was already raging. Wind like that in warm dry conditions leads to the tubbs fire or paradise fire. My buddy says he drove through the tubbs area of Santa Rosa and it was like 10 miles long of nothing but ash and concrete foundations sticking up like tombstones. At least 20 minutes of steady driving and just destruction. That was 2 years ago. Paradise was last year and it was the same. I think shutting us down is a good idea. This was not handled in a sophisticated way. Hopefully pg&e will get better at this.

We expected another wind storm Tuesday but it never materialized. Power came back on for me late Tuesday, which was good as it got really cold and I have no way of heating other than running the gas stove.

[JD Spydo]

I've been following the strange debacles of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company in regards to the intentional power outages and other internal problems of the State of California. I've been looking at it for a couple of months now and I'm finding some very conflicting information in regards to those problems.

I was listening to a lady who is an activist in California that has had some interesting input on the state's problems of late dealing with the power outages and wild fires. The lady's name is Deborah Tavares and her website is www.stopthecrime.net There is a lot of conflicting information about the P, G & E problems in the state of California. The problem seems so big that you would think that the Federal Government would intervene at some point??? :confused:

I find it interesting that Pacific Gas & Electric who might be the biggest utility company on the planet with vast resources but yet seem helpless or maybe apathetic to want to do much to remedy the problem. The problem is so big that there truly needs to be help on a national level it would seem. Or am I looking at it wrong>> and if so maybe some of you California brethren can set me straight on it?? :confused: :confused:

[James Y]

SF Native,

Glad everything turned out all right for you. Every year now, especially around this time, these fires have been happening on a larger and larger scale. A couple friends of mine who live up in Grass Valley had their power off for about 5 days. Luckily they were OK, too, and had a generator.

I used to want to move up north, but now it often seems the fires up north are getting bigger and even worse than the ones down south.

The area I’m at is one of those spots that’s about as far away from wildfire risk as you can get, but as we all know, anything can happen anywhere.

Jim

[SF Native]

In Two years before the mast, Richard Henry Dana talks about sailing up the California coast in 1834. When he gets to Santa Barbara it was clear to him that there had been a massive fire that burned all the way to the beach. He talks about the crazy strong fall winds to the point that they took special care to not let them tear the boat apart when anchored. This is not new. It might be getting worse, I will let others prove or disprove this with solid evidence that I don’t have.

It would be very expensive to make all of the lines underground at this point. The idea being that downed power lines cause fires in dry conditions. But we basically lost cell/ phone service and all internet access. If there was a fire, first responders would have to inform us to evacuate in person. I think some infrastructure and communications needs to be fixed or added to make this a safer situation. More homes will probably have generators or solar power and back up generators next time around.

Btw, I keep hearing that if there was more logging or land management, this wouldn’t happen. That’s laughable. Southern California is a desert with scrubby little brush and they have fire problems. Northern California is mostly open grassy rolling hills with some oaks or areas of manzanita brush. Real forests are not common or widespread. And for land management, which areas of the 160,000 square miles should we manage? It’s just too big.

[James Y]

Also, putting the power lines underground still wouldn’t address the problem of fires that start from people who toss their cigarette butts out the car window, or fires started at homeless encampments, or by kids or arsonists. A few years ago, a huge local fire was started by a girl of about 13 which burned several homes. The girl had thought it was funny, and when she was (surprisingly) shown in court on the news, she had a blank, almost smirking, expression. She ended up getting a slap on the wrist.

Another local fire was started by a big, out-of-shape guy who had gone hiking, got lost, and decided to start a fire in the brush so someone would see the smoke and find him (it was not a wooded area). Well, that ended up becoming a huge fire that destroyed many homes, and IIRC, killed some people who were trying to escape it. When he started the fire, he was only a few hundred feet away from a highway. I’m not sure, but I think he might have gotten off lightly, too.

Of course CA has had fires throughout history. But around where I am, since 2003, there have been worse and worse fires, because everything has become drier. Not super-big fires every year in my area, but when they do happen, they’ve been getting bigger. I remember some big fires here in the early ‘70s, but back then, fires of that size were few and far between. They’re not so rare anymore, so from my observation (and the observation of many others, including local firefighters), there most certainly is a difference.

Jim

[The Mastiff]

Fires themselves are pretty natural and really don't have anything to do with climate change. They are gonna happen now and then. Stopping and preventing them for a century has brought us to where we are now in some places. If you want a nice house in a fire prone area then either build it fireproof or accept the costs of occasional rebuilding. It's the same thing as living on the ocean in storm prone areas.

Underground lines sure help keeping utilities up during storms like the line that just came through here. When I first moved here in the early 80's we had power outages with almost every thunderstorm. It's getting much rarer with so much of our lines underground now but there are still going to be times it goes.

BTW, the northern California I saw was pretty forested. Not at all like the south and central parts. When I lived in Tarzana in the 1979 (?) time frame the hills near LA were on fire. It made the smog pretty terrible. The air left a bad taste in my mouth. Even in the day on the beach it was bad but nights were windy and cleaner on the beaches itself.

Joe

[cabfrank]

I'll just add that it really sucks. Five days of evacuation from home, no power where we evacuated to, then no gas for four more days when we got back. Over a week of work missed, then throwing away all the food in the refrigerator, as well as all the food in the separate freezer, including the special 23 pound turkey for Thanksgiving. It's just frustrating, and inconvenient, to say the least. Then, to know this is the third straight year of these type of situations in Northern CA, and to assume it will now be an annual occurrence, at least once a year in "fire season"... just UGH! It is hard to afford to live here, two jobs, and this just makes it that much harder.

[The Mastiff]

I feel bad for you. It is like that here when having to evacuate the coastal islands for hurricanes. Not knowing what is going to be there when returning makes things pretty stressful. We have had people come up to Raleigh to get away from the storms only to have fire, floods and tornadoes up here also. We had a whole motel of evacuees have to be rescued from their flooded motel which was like an island with the whole first floor inundated. Not to mention no power, no gas and no open banks or even working cash machines.

If you stay there it might be worthwhile saving up and getting a small pop up trailer or other way to have some comforts while away from home during emergencies. Knowing you will have a place during times like that should help reduce stress a little.

Joe

[Ankerson]

I thought the ocean was supposed to have risen enough to put out the fires by now... Must be waiting for high tide maybe...

Or was it the ice age or global warming, or climate change, oh that's right it's the ice age again now. Next month it will be global warming again.... It's hard to keep up with all the changes you know...

In all seriousness though I do feel for those who live out there and are effected.

[kiwisailor]

South East Queensland, Australia is also being burnt out again.
Family have evacuated 2nd time in 2months.
Their B.O.B sure is becoming familiar..

[cabfrank]

The Mastiff, thanks. A small older trailer or motorhome is definitely something I thought of, after all of this, and am considering. I know a small generator, at least for the refrigerator, and some decent solar panels, are mandatory now. I figure I have just under a year to get ready for next time.

[The Mastiff]

A small older trailer or motorhome is definitely something I thought of, after all of this, and am considering. I know a small generator, at least for the refrigerator, and some decent solar panels, are mandatory now. I figure I have just under a year to get ready for next time.

I read about one well known generator company making record sales in the state. That sort of reminds me of how Y2K was around here. Pretty much everything related to self sufficiency was backlogged including flashlight batteries, DC powered coolers, DC powered TV's,propane camp stoves, pretty much everything. I'd bet the large chains ( Lowes, Home depot, etc.) are stripping their stores nationwide to meet the generator demands in California.

I had a customized chevy van that I traveled around in when I was working construction and it became my home for 2 spring and summers. I kind of liked being able to move my home wherever I needed it to be. All I needed was a parking space. :)

Joe

[cabfrank]

Yep. I moved from WI in a 1978 Ford, 23 foot motorhome. I sold all my stuff, and spent 6 months living and travelling in it. I loved it.

[Wartstein]

Hey any California friends, my power is scheduled to go off in half an hour.
Got some cold beers, my girl, and a great view ready for the great unplug. Enjoy the adventure and see you on the other side. Warm air and high winds are coming. Be safe friends.
No baseball for this kid tonight!

Hope you´re safe man and the wildfires are (mostly) over now!!
While I heard a lot about the recent hurricane in the US, here in Europe there was not much written about that fires