Second Round of Blackouts Begin in California, With More on Horizon
October 23 2019 - 3:23PM
Dow Jones News
By Jim Carlton
SAN FRANCISCO -- PG&E Corp. said it would begin shutting off
power to 179,000 customers in 17 California counties on Wednesday
afternoon, its second major intentional blackout this month meant
to head off potential wildfires.
The shut-offs were expected to begin at 2 p.m. local time in the
Sierra Nevada foothills and 3 p.m. in some counties north of San
Francisco. More are planned for 1 a.m. Thursday in parts of San
Mateo County, between San Francisco and San Jose, and Kern County,
in the southern part of the state's Central Valley.
The bankrupt utility cuts power when high winds that could knock
down power lines and spark wildfires are predicted. The winds
forecast for Wednesday and Thursday are milder than those earlier
this month that forced the utility to unplug 750,000 homes and
businesses for as long as four days.
As a result, this week's blackouts are expected to last a
shorter amount of time, with Northern California counties
potentially getting power back midday Thursday and Kern County on
Friday.
Blackouts could hit Southern California starting Thursday as
well. Officials at Southern California Edison officials said they
were considering shut-offs to 163,000 customers Los Angeles.
Affected counties include Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San
Bernardino.
And PG&E said more blackouts could be on the horizon for a
larger number of its customers as soon as this weekend, when
stronger winds are forecast.
At a press briefing late Tuesday, PG&E officials said they
would try to make this week's shut-offs less disruptive than the
last mass outage in which the utility was widely criticized for
poor communication with customers and local officials.
PG&E Chief Executive Bill Johnson said steps had been taken
to hopefully address most of the concerns. The company's website,
which repeatedly crashed during the last shut-offs, has been shored
up to withstand heavy traffic, he said.
As of late Wednesday morning, it was working.
Mr. Johnson said PG&E's goal was to prevent the kind of
catastrophic wildfires its equipment has been found responsible
for, including the Camp Fire last year which killed 85 people and
leveled much of Paradise, Calif. Paradise and its surrounding Butte
County are included in the latest round of shut-offs, as they were
earlier this month.
"Our sole intent is to prevent catastrophic wild fires sparked
by electric equipment in the conditions we find ourselves in," Mr.
Johnson told reporters at the briefing at PG&E's San Francisco
headquarters.
Mr. Johnson added his company has accepted an offer from Gov.
Gavin Newsom to call on state resources for help, including top
state emergency officials who are working with the utility on
managing the outages.
Asked about to a call by the Democratic governor for his company
to reimburse customers for losses they sustained during the last
shut-off, Mr. Johnson said he hasn't yet had time to review
that.
Local officials in communities targeted fort the shut-offs began
making plans to handle the expected disruptions, especially to
traffic. Officials in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, issued
an advisory that multiple intersections would be without power
during the afternoon rush-hour commute in cities including Santa
Rosa and that stops signs were being deployed at the busiest ones
to help facilitate traffic.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 23, 2019 15:08 ET (19:08 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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