PG&E initiated a rolling blackout through Sonoma County starting on Aug. 9th, which has caused a lot of talk about their reliability. Over the past four years, during which fires have ravaged northern California, PG&E has been with little discretion, shutting off power to conserve energy or prevent wildfires.
COURTESY// Presidio of Monterey: DLIFLC & USAG
PG&E is a company being held together with tape and staples, after causing massive destruction in Sonoma County, Paradise, and eight other fire-ravaged towns. The company is paying an estimated $18 billion to the citizens whose lives they burned.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a phase in which it focused on restructuring its company to become profitable again. But instead of focusing on making a better infrastructure or paying to upgrade their equipment to prevent fires, the solution PG&E has come up with has just been to turn off the power on their paying customers.
A statement on the PG&E webpage says, “All PG&E customers with current contact information on file were notified Monday by call, email, and text to alert them to the possibility of rotating outages,” said the utility company. “If rotating outages are needed, PG&E will post information [on their webpage] to show the order in which PG&E will likely proceed if ordered by CAISO to turn off the power.” The company goes into stating that the estimated restoration times are two to three hours after the outage starts, all the while customers were boiling in 100-degree temperatures or higher.
Due to the shelter in place orders set on the state because of Coronavirus, the electricity demand is high. As rolling blackouts began mid-August, working from home continues, and most schools are virtually back in session across the state, and a heatwave that created record temperatures makes the perfect recipe for the overuse of electricity.
Genevive Medina, a junior at Sonoma State, commented, “I don’t think it’s fair the outages should repeatedly inconvenience the community. It’s insane that they expect people to deal with no power, especially during a heatwave and terrible air quality from the fires, we can’t open our windows to air out [our homes] without the risk of letting toxic air in.”
The Senate continues to bail out this shifty company by putting together a billion-dollar relief fund that can be borrowed in order to help pay for wildfires that companies are responsible for causing. For individuals who don’t earn $2.5 million a year, like the CEO of PG&E, are forced to sit with their lights flickering, turned off even, with no say in the matter. If they cannot afford to fix the problems with their equipment correctly and by not having to cut the electricity of their paying customers, then why do they deserve to have the power over our own.
PG&E is crying wolf that they are out of power and out of options other than shutting off people’s electricity for one to two hours between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. to converse power. If there had been proper investing and care for their customers, then there would have been actual money invested back into their company. With that, they could make sure California has enough power to withstand a few hot days and stop them from burning down the state.
