Nesrie
4414
Sandy did that. There is now water where houses stood and the houses will not be built there again. The ocean moved, and you don’t win against that.
Also, deregulation allowed them to build there in the first place, but people / businesses wanted more breach front property.
Timex
4416
I do what i want!
Besides, Rorschach was fairly recent anyway. Science robot was longer.
CraigM
4418
Meanwhile, in Portland, we are very nearly hitting historic lows. Was 35 this morning in the Tualatin valley.
antlers
4420
Not just in DC, either. Global temperature charts show a big blip to higher temps during the WW2 years.
Nesrie
4421
Yeah it’s pretty cold here, and it seems early for it too.
That’s because the devil was winning in 1941. Maybe that’s what’s happening today as well.
You mean the Soviet Union?
PG&E shutting down power to 800k customers tonight and tomorrow around the SF Bay Area due to high winds expected over the next 48 hours. As is usual for CA, it hasn’t rained since April-ish, so the risk of wildfires is high.
Power may not be restored to some communities until Friday or Saturday. I do not know if I’m impacted.
Just to make sure I understand (not being a Californian), they’re cutting the power in order to avoid live wires getting downed and setting off fires?
I’m close to, but outside the shut-off zone. Sigh of relief. I was gonna have go dig up my little generator.
Yes. This is PG&E’s response to the Camp Fire. The cynic in me goes, “Oh, you’re going to blame that shit on us? Then I guess we’ll just have to turn off everyone’s power next time, bitches.”
I don’t even think that’s cynical. PG&E can’t afford another fire.
The Camp Fire did kill 85 people. And not too long ago PG&E blew up a neighborhood near San Francisco. So, yeah, they can’t afford another fuck up.
It might seem a little bizarre but considering what’s happened in the last few years and how PG&E’s grid works, it’s the only thing they can do to prevent getting sued should a fire start from downed lines. It’s not overly cynical; dry conditions, warm temperatures and high winds are forecast not just for the Bay Area but southern california as well, replicating conditions that have caused massive fires in the past.
PG&E’s biggest issue is that, among other things, its ability to restrict or cut power to specific areas sucks balls. It has no capability to limit outages to extremely specific areas (such as a particular valley or town), but only in large geographic areas, affecting people that wouldn’t normally be in danger. It also frequently didn’t attempt to clear brush and debris around power lines, despite the obvoius dangers. Annnnnnnd it needlessly used an automatic re-surge system to test if lines were down in an area. The problem: it could cause fires. D’oh.
So yeah while the fires around Santa Rosa and the wine country were generally not due to PG&E (well, most of them anyway), the Camp Fire defintely was, and because of that and the bankruptcy, no way will they not protect themselves. They’ve been doing this for a little less than a year now.
— Alan
