November 8, 2018. That date in time is one that I'm sure many people who live in Northern California will not soon forget for years to come. This particular day most likely started out like any other day for those who called the area home at the time but by the end, it was anything but normal.
If you have not figured out what day I am referring to by now, that is the day that Camp Fire started in the town of Paradise, California as a result of some faulty equipment failures and questionable maintenance and management procedures by the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility company. The ensuing aftermath of the fire would make that day one of the saddest and most destructive ones in the state's history.
At the time that the fire happened though we were still living in the Southern California area so we weren't directly affected by it at the time. Since we have moved up here though, we have gotten a pretty good idea of what the love hate relationship is like between the general public in the local area and the people in charge of PG&E is like. The short answer to that question is that the overall relationship is not a very good one.
Following the events of the fire, PG&E enacted what would seemingly become the company's standard operating procedure known as the Public Safety Power Shutoff or PSPS for short.
To this point, they have done these PSPS events when the weather conditions have been forecasted to be very windy and dry. When that weather combination is present it can mean that the chances of a fire being sparked somehow are very high.
Our first experience with one of these power shutoff events happened in October of 2019. Leading up to our first power outage event at the time, you could go to PG&E's website to check out the latest news and updates on any potential outages.
To do this there was a new feature on the website where you could look up your address and it would tell you if a future outage was expected to happen in your area. For the first few times that there was a PSPS Event that was forecasted to take place our local neighborhood was not included in any of the affected areas. That run of good luck changed during the weekend of October 25 through the 27 of 2019. That was when we were notified that there was a good chance that our power would possibly be shut off due to a previously scheduled PSPS event.
During this time we would go to PG&E's website periodically to check on the status of the PSPS event that would possibly affect us and the other residents of Ione. The funny thing was that after a while, our power outage event status went from being just a possible outcome to a definite thing at some point later during the weekend. At that point our weekend turned into a very frustrating and stressful one when you take into consideration that even though we now knew that our power was going to be shut off at some point, we didn't know exactly when that was going to happen. Add to that the fact that I was now starting to worry and get anxious about when the power might get shut off which made things even more difficult for my parents and I to have to deal with.
One of the aspects throughout the whole situation that was the most frustrating was the waiting game that occurred as a result of our power possibly being shut off. At first the PG&E website indicated that our power would possibly be shut off within a certain time frame of a few hours. As the day went on our forecasted window of time kept getting pushed back even more. It finally got to the point where it was time for us to go to bed at around 11 P.M. and we still had electricity. At this time I felt like there may have been a good chance the power was not going to be shut down after all. About an hour or so later though, my hopes were dashed when everything went dark at around midnight on a Sunday.
Once the power was out, a couple of the numerous things we had to take into consideration concerning my overall caregiving needs were what to do at night when we went to sleep since I now use a CPAP machine for my sleep apnea condition and how to keep my power wheelchair sufficiently charged during the duration of the outage.
To address the first concern, my parents let me sleep in their room with my mom at the time while my dad slept in one of our other rooms. For the second issue related to my power chair we decided to go to a temporary emergency resource center that was set up by PG&E in our local area.
After having some back and forth dialogue with one of the staff members my dad was able to help me somehow squeeze in to a crowded and tiny tent where we parked my chair at a table near a power outlet area to plug in the charger that charges my chair. After about an hour or so of charging time we left the emergency resource center to go home.
One interesting thing that we saw on our commute to and from there were the helicopters flying above us that PG&E had brought in flying above us to inspect the power lines for any potential damage that may have occurred.
In a side note from our trip the emergency resource center, my dad saw another gentleman while we were there who was charging a portable power station that can be used to power certain devices for a few hours in the event of a power outage. My dad's interest in the power station was piqued so much that he decided to buy a couple of them for us to use for future outages. The good news is that so far we had had to use the power stations only a couple times since then during an outage to use the Internet, my CPAP machine and charge my chair while we went on one of our hiking trail walks. The bad news is that it turned out we could only use it for a couple of hours before it ran out of energy due to a low battery during a recent outage.
Besides those experiences that we had with the power outages during that time, there were some good things that happened as well. Before the start of the outage we went to one of our local pizza joints called Paisano's to have a free lunch buffet since the owners didn't want whatever food they had go to waste once everything in town went dark.
We also used the time after the outage was underway to sit in our recliners at our house with blankets to cover us up when the ambient air temperature got really cold because our heating and air conditioning did not work as a result of what was going on.
At the time I think that was the only place or area in town that still had their power on Finally one time when it was really dark inside our house, we went outside on our front porch to drink some wine with our next door neighbors at night to pass the time.
After all that we went through for a couple of days, I think our power finally came back on during the late afternoon on a Monday at approximately 4 P.M. At that point I think we all breathed a huge sigh of relief and moved on with our lives until the arrival of the next power shut off event. When that happens hopefully we will have a generator in our house by that time.
(Postscript: We had a new, natrual gas powered, whole house generator installed recently that should keep us from going dark during the next power outages - Ed)
Tim Musick
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Is that a Generac system, I've been looking into this for my home. Is there monthly maintenance required?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. An annual maintenance is required during the warranty period (7 years).
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