Public Safety Power Shutoffs

As is not uncommon, my thoughts about the current PG&E Power Safety Power Shutdown (PSPS) are quite complicated.

I am not going to insult your intelligence by telling you what to do about power failure(s) that may last up to five days. Figure it out. If you really need to, ask, and I will be nice about it. But handle your business.

I am going to insult everyone's intelligence by talking about cascading systems failures.

Playing chicken with a complex system is generally a bad idea. It will clock you from unexpected angles.

PG&E's Web site was hammered hard. This isn't a power failure issue per se, the data centers were not browning out, but someone should have anticipated millions of people wanting to look at the PG&E Web site.

Numerous vehicle collisions (NOT ACCIDENTS) have been caused by people ignoring dark traffic signals instead of treating them as four way stops, as required by law.

We noticed an increase of unkind people hanging out in retail stores, especially liquor stores, waiting for the power to go out. I am told that this became interesting and some stores closed early and kicked the would be looters to the curb.

From the perspective of system resilience, an increase in _individual_ and _community_ preparedness can only be a good thing.

This hasn't been a real disaster so far, just a painful training exercise.

My heart goes out to the people who are medically power dependent. This was your warning. Next time you're just dead. Our society has once again failed the vulnerable.

The fire issues so far have been easily managed by a massively mostly behind the scenes commitment of personnel and resources.

The patchwork nature of these outages has made it possible for people to vote with their feet (or gas pedal) and go somewhere where there is power.

We will see what happens when PG&E turns the stuff back on.

Please, please don't take your frustrations out on the PG&E line and field crews! They are doing important work on an impossible schedule. One lineman's shirt reads "Even firefighters need heroes" and it's exactly right. When electrical goes sideways, the fire services call the power company "on expedite."

Welcome to the new normal.

Disaster isn't something that happens to someone else somewhere else.

You're soaking in it.