BLACKOUT ALERT: Humboldt County Says to Plan For Shutdown

P G & E ADVISES THAT ALL CUSTOMERS IN Humboldt County will lose power early afternoon, Saturday, October 26, 2019, due to a Public Safety Power Shutoff. Extreme fire weather conditions affecting portions of Humboldt County and surrounding counties will cause dangerous conditions for power transmission lines. Please prepare for an outage up to 4 days.

Our power was shut off last month for this very reason and yet it didn't stop the many fires burning right now and the homes that have been lost. Last outage we were warned of four days also though it ended up being 10 hours at my house. PG&E playing the power game again.

a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

Pardon my ignorance but how are the power lines causing fires, is it from high winds?

I heard PG&E cut power some place and a transformer may have started a fire anyway.

WHO is making these blackmail decisions anyway 🎱

a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

Dang... Some of my favorite marijuana comes from that county/area... I was hearing that certain areas were experiencing such high winds that areas the size of a football field were burning up every 3 seconds, spreading incredibly fast.. Hopefully they can get all these fires under control..

Maybe I am too practical, but why not just bulldoze around the powerlines and dump some gravel fifty feet on each side of them...or just make a gravel road on each side basically. Gravel does not burn, neither does sand. If the lines do fall down, they usually stay within fifty feet, sparks do not shoot more than fifty feet either usually. I can see that the dry grasses around power lines could act like tinder, so just make gravel roads, maybe even pave them in some areas as backup highways between towns.

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

Pardon my ignorance but how are the power lines causing fires, is it from high winds?

Precisely..

PG&E Admits Its Electrical Equipment May Have Sparked Destructive Kincade Fire in Sonoma County

ktla.com...

a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

P G & E ADVISES THAT ALL CUSTOMERS IN Humboldt County will lose power early afternoon, Saturday, October 26, 2019 , then have ALL their " Smart Meters " Explode and Start yet Another Major Brush Fire in Sunny Cali Forn I A .

a reply to: rickymouse


That thought crossed my mind. Here's a map view of lines going through agricultural land (farming). So I'd imagine private land owners might get upset. Eminent Domain?

a reply to: jhn7537

yes Humboldt errhemmm best I thought back in college.

a reply to: Bigburgh

I don't think that the Farmers would mind a nice solid road along side the powerlines. The power easement already is wide, it might mean there may be expansion of easement in some real problematic areas.

Around here you cannot grow anything right under the powerlines, we had an easement on my mothers land. That is what the easement said, grass and weeds were all right, but no crops or trees, the easement had to be accessable.

What is worse, a few hundred people mad or two million customers mad. Expand the easement and pay the effected people more.

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

Pardon my ignorance but how are the power lines causing fires, is it from high winds?

In my state, we have competent companies that keep their electrical line easements clear of trees, we also have a state that(unlike california, to my knowledge) does controlled burns and removes dangerous fire conditions(forest floor "kindling") from potential areas with regard to forest fires.

California has neither of those things, I think god also plays a roll too(I'm atheist), but he seems intent on trying to burn that #hole off the map with the yearly widespread forest fires that everyone else in the country has to pay millions to fight because california is a incompetent dumpster of a state.

a reply to: MisterSpock

They keep the powerlines pretty decent around here too. There are lots of raspberry plants and weeds on them, not many blueberries anymore, that agent white they spray to kill the trees seems to kill the blueberries.

originally posted by: MisterSpock

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: SilentWindofDoom

Pardon my ignorance but how are the power lines causing fires, is it from high winds?

In my state, we have competent companies that keep their electrical line easements clear of trees, we also have a state that(unlike california, to my knowledge) does controlled burns and removes dangerous fire conditions(forest floor "kindling") from potential areas with regard to forest fires.

California has neither of those things, I think god also plays a roll too(I'm atheist), but he seems intent on trying to burn that #hole off the map with the yearly widespread forest fires that everyone else in the country has to pay millions to fight because california is a incompetent dumpster of a state.

You see I'm in KS lived here all my life and here we have a problem with twister taking out the power, other than that if you lose power it's cause you didn't pay your bill.

Cali has had this problem for how many years? It would seem like they would of corrected the problem by now. Maybe more small power plant line structuring of the grids?

a reply to: PhilbertDezineck

Buzzing, brain cancer lines should be buried.

I read a story once about a multi-million dollar insurance payout and subsequent investigation.
A bunch of race horses were killed.
It turns out the claim was legit, they were all hanging out under the high voltage llines and there was a dense fog that night. The electricty made an arc across the fog, hit the horses and traveled into the ground, killing them instantly. Scary stuff.

My point is they could probably light brush and trees up in a dense fog.

This must be part of PG&E 10 yr Blackout program. Shaping up to be an interesting Halloween for Humboldt County.

originally posted by: Mandroid7
a reply to: PhilbertDezineck

Buzzing, brain cancer lines should be buried.

I read a story once about a multi-million dollar insurance payout and subsequent investigation.
A bunch of race horses were killed.
It turns out the claim was legit, they were all hanging out under the high voltage llines and there was a dense fog that night. The electricty made an arc across the fog, hit the horses and traveled into the ground, killing them instantly. Scary stuff.

My point is they could probably light brush and trees up in a dense fog.

I agree totally all high power transmission lines should be buried, but that cost to much so it will never happen where transmission line above ground have been a established.

Im in Cali, and I have 3 generators ,60 gallons of gas, a solar array and a battery bank. Bring it on!

originally posted by: visitedbythem
Im in Cali, and I have 3 generators ,60 gallons of gas, a solar array and a battery bank. Bring it on!

Wow...you're one #ed up little girl.

Are you......german.....

originally posted by: visitedbythem
Im in Cali, and I have 3 generators ,60 gallons of gas, a solar array and a battery bank. Bring it on!

Are you off the grid or is this a backup array?

a reply to: rickymouse

PG&E was required to maintain the easements under their power lines and maintain the lines themselves.

But PG&E is a corporation, and over the decades they paid more attention to providing their stockholders with dividends than they did maintaining their lines and lands.

Now PG&E is bankrupt and it will likely fall on the State taxpayers, one way or another, to clean up the company’s mess.

And it is a huge mess. PG&E’s transmission system length has been estimated to be equal to 2x the total length of the US interstate highway system; and a lot of it is in mountainous areas - the areas most affected by the shut downs.