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California - Back to the 1880's!

If I could I'd be there tomorrow.

As it is we just made reservations at a Holiday Inn for a couple of nights starting this Saturday. It's in San Mateo which is right across the hills (aka Santa Cruz Mts) from Montara near the airport. Lots of great restaurants (Izzy's Steak House comes to mind) and cool bars. Get to take long, comfy naps and get in some reading time for my current fav series "Marius' Mules."

Loss of power is seriously inconvenient, but does not necessarily have to be uncomfortable. It's good to be "retired guy."

I expect the airport would sell you tickets to Nashville. Then you can confirm that more people per capita in Nashville wear their sunglasses on the tops of their heads after sundown than anywhere else in the country. If I noticed it after the amount I drank there then you KNOW it's obvious.
 
I, in Oakland, am scheduled to lose my power to tomorrow through Monday. Regularly scheduled programming (aka gaming) to resume on Tuesday.

Are you guys getting credit on your electric bills? Are burglary calls going up? How long before the criminals just follow the rolling blackouts? Might wanna relax those gun control laws out there fellas and adopt the castle doctrine.
 
To be (sort of) fair to PG&E its not just the lines. CA rarely gets rain except for 3-4 months of the year, when we get a lot. This spurs massive plant/tree growth. Then comes the loong, dry summer months turning everything into massive amounts of very dry kindling. Then, somewhere, a branch/tree falls on a power line and...:eek:.

Then you add in the tree-huggers and PG&E's complete and total mismanagement and here we are.

What you say is true. Having said that, many Western states are like this.

A good friend of mine was a contractor for PG & E. He says that their power lines are "fair weather" powerlines. I asked him if those lines could stand up to a good Midwestern Ice Storm and he just laughed.
 
What you say is true. Having said that, many Western states are like this.

A good friend of mine was a contractor for PG & E. He says that their power lines are "fair weather" powerlines. I asked him if those lines could stand up to a good Midwestern Ice Storm and he just laughed.
Yeah, midwestern, Great Plains, Ohio Valley and Northeast design and build to heavy ice and wind loads, Cali, East Coast and SE build to medium or light loading, so yeah, I get why the PG and E guy laughed..
 
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CA PG&E lines, usually, don't have to deal with "heavy loads" unless you consider a tree falling on them such.
No one is complaining, or has a problem with, the power lines in the Sierras during the winter.
Heading for major power blackout Saturday night and it looks like maybe 80 mph winds on the mountain peaks. Of course, at my house, not a wiff of a breeze (yet).
 
So who lives on mountaintops that you have to build power lines to? Simple solution, don't build stuff on mountaintops you have to run powerlines to...Not to mention it ruins the view.
 
You've tapped into another source of problems in CA. Over the last few decades more and more people have chosen to move/settle in previously almost inaccessible forested areas. Thus, when wildfires do breakout now they are more destructive to life and personal property than they used to be. Before, it was just burned shrubs and trees. Now it can include multiple crispy critters.

Well, packing a bag and getting ready to head out "over the hill" for at least two days and likely as many as four. Wife loaned me her extra iPad so at least I'll be "lurking." Power outage could start soon as three, two, o...
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What's the difference between California and the Titanic?
When the Titanic went down its lights were on.
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Only in California is power generated by the wind encouraged and then when the wind blows the power is turned off.
 
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So a few years back I worked for a firm that was designing fiber optic networks and we would do pole load analysis for the installation of fiber optic cables onto existing utility poles. So here isa some NESC pole loading and pole strength stuff. Notice that the light zone allows for higher wind pressure than the medium and heavy zones.

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In a nutshell, yes, I believe so. Keep in mind that the midwest often times has ice in conjunction with high winds. That's not to say we don't have power outages, we do and in an urban area, it's from tree limbs or trees coming down. But lines do come down in rural areas under severe load conditions, poles snap, etc. The longest I have lost power because of ice was 6-1/2 days and that's is mainly because they got to my circuit last. I also am at the very end of the longest circuit in Overland Park, roughly 1-1/2 miles long and in an older part of town with heavy tree cover. But Judt last week I witnessed an arcing on the top of a pole that produced sparks while driving down the street. No wind, no bad weather, there was just pop and arcing and sparks. Not sure what failed but I can see that if we were excessively dry an incident like that could create major issues in dry areas.
 
Ah. I am from Michigan originally. We used to have howling winds and ice storms. The power very rarely went down. In CA it fails all the time.
 
Possible fire danger from you getting so irritated you're putting off heat?

You know, you could spin this having to be away from the house as a justification for buying a gaming laptop. Just saying...might lower the fire danger...
 
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You've tapped into another source of problems in CA. Over the last few decades more and more people have chosen to move/settle in previously almost inaccessible forested areas. Thus, when wildfires do breakout now they are more destructive to life and personal property than they used to be. Before, it was just burned shrubs and trees. Now it can include multiple crispy critters.

Well, packing a bag and getting ready to head out "over the hill" for at least two days and likely as many as four. Wife loaned me her extra iPad so at least I'll be "lurking." Power outage could start soon as three, two, o...
-----------
What's the difference between California and the Titanic?
When the Titanic went down its lights were on.
---
Only in California is power generated by the wind encouraged and then when the wind blows the power is turned off.



You know the old saying.....

A DEVELOPER is a person who wants to build a home in the deep, wild forest.

A CONSERVATIONIST is a person who already has a home in the deep, wild forest.
 
PG&E restored power at home yesterday only to advise more wind coming so will shut it off again this pm. Gambled that’s what they would do so we reserved another three days at another hotel. Irritation level approaching red zone. Possible fire danger.

I wonder if getting a whole house stand-by generator would be an idea for your situation. We and all our neighbors have them way out here in the country in the Midwest. We go without power for a few days at a time during the year especially in the winter when we are also sometimes snowed in. Even the well pump runs on electric, so no power = no electric or water. Since it is a stand-by generator it comes on automatically. No trying to start the thing in the middle of the night during a storm like back in the day. The generator we have runs off one of our 500 gallon propane tanks. Some friends in town have their generator hooked into the natural gas line system. So they don't even have propane trucks making deliveries like we do. We are very happy with our generator. I've heard that some places have a lot of regulations and red tape so not sure if you are allowed to have one but if you are it might be worth looking into.
 
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