How are the California Rolling BlackOuts affecting you grow?

too larry

too larry

Well-Known Member
mooray said:
I'm in a mountainous area of Northern California and we're usually at the longer end of the shutdowns. I think we had a 4-day, a 3-day, plus a few 2-day shutdowns. We use a generator for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening to keep food from spoiling, recharge batteries/phones, watch some tv and surf the interwebs. We have a small battery generator that will charge phones and run a low wattage led lamp overnight. I'm also working on a small solar setup of around 900w. I do think the fires will cause us to leave this area eventually, maybe the state.

Playing the long game, I think PGE is incentivised to be annoying with their shutdowns as a method of pressuring the state to enact legislation which will reduce or remove their liability. Before the recent batch of outages, they were flying all the lines *twice* with a heli to look for downed trees as part of their newly added safety precautions, but the recent outages were so widespread, that became far more expensive, so they're not doing it anymore. Already back to sacrificing safety in favor of economics, same thing they've been doing for decades.
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Here in NW Florida the power companies contract out line clearing. Every year all the trees close to the lines are trimmed, then the right of way is mowed. Is hanging limbs what is causing the fires? Or are the poles blowing over?
 
Aeroknow

Aeroknow

Well-Known Member
too larry said:
Here in NW Florida the power companies contract out line clearing. Every year all the trees close to the lines are trimmed, then the right of way is mowed. Is hanging limbs what is causing the fires? Or are the poles blowing over?
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What actually initially caused the Camp Fire was one of their transmission towers. The thing was old as fuck, slated to be replaced for decades. The high voltage lines swing like mad when windy and spark fire when shit breaks on the towers.
Trees/hanging limbs absolutely are causing fires too. There was also a secondary fire that day that was caused by this.

PG&E was just getting ready to start clearing shit around their lines right before the fire. They were being forced to finally because of the other recent fires. I had a notice that they were trimming 2 trees on my lot within 10 days. But the fire got to them first.
 
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shrxhky420

shrxhky420

Well-Known Member
too larry said:
Here in NW Florida the power companies contract out line clearing. Every year all the trees close to the lines are trimmed, then the right of way is mowed. Is hanging limbs what is causing the fires? Or are the poles blowing over?
Click to expand...

Line clearing and tree removal happens here as well, just not nearly enough. As @Aeroknow mentioned, failing equipment is a bigger problem and typically the cause of fires. A few years ago the underground transformer across the street blew up. Again, old equipment that was supposedly slated for replacement.

Keep in mind pg&e was convicted of felonies for the san Bruno incident. Ignoring failing infrastructure to show higher profit, in order to get big bonuses...
Pg&e should not get a pass for the fires either

SH420
 
too larry

too larry

Well-Known Member
Our power company is a co-op, so none of those worries. But after micheal, there is a hurricane recovery charge on our bill every month. Our county had 98% without power a week in, so just about everything had to be replaced. It is going to take a while to pay for all that stuff.
 
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