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California turns off power to millions to prevent wildfires
LOS ANGELES, Oct 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Rolling blackouts affecting up to
800,000 customers began Wednesday in parts of California as a utility company
switched off power because of hot, windy weather that raises the risk of
wildfires.
Pacific Gas & Electric, which announced the three-phase deliberate power
outage, is working to prevent a repeat of a catastrophe last November in
which power lines it owned were determined to have sparked California’s
deadliest wildfire ever.
In that inferno, 85 people died and a town called Paradise was virtually
destroyed. The company has been found responsible for dozens of other
wildfires in recent years, too.
This is peak wildfire season in California.
PG&E said the severe weather incident prompting the precautions this time
— hot, dry conditions and winds gusting at up to 70 mph (110 kph) — is
expected to last through mid-day Thursday in parts of northern and central
California.
The outages could last up to a week in some places. Some 800,000 customers
actually means millions of people will be affected.
The city of San Francisco is not affected by the intentional shutoff but
much of the surrounding Bay Area could go dark including parts of Silicon
Valley. The first part of the so-called Public Safety Power Shutoff began at
midnight Tuesday into Wednesday in northern California in a broad swath of
land that includes the Napa Valley wine country. It will affect around
513,000 customers there, the utility company said.
The rest of the San Francisco Bay area was to start losing power in waves
around noon local time. A possible third third phase could take place later
in the day farther south.
Schools and universities cancelled classes for Wednesday and people
stocked up on gasoline, water, batteries and other basics, news reports said.
PG&E said it expected to start turning the power back on on Thursday but
can only do this after inspecting its equipment for damage and this could
take days in some areas.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1955 hrs