Oct. 22 (UPI) — After millions of California residents were put in the dark last week by Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility says it may have to cut electricity to much of the state again this week — as a measure to prevent accidental wildfires.
More than 200,000 customers in 15 California counties were notified Monday they could lose power this week, for as long as 48 hours. The utility said the second round of blackouts will mostly affect the Sierra Foothills and the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area.
PG&E pre-emptively turns off power in areas where there’s the greatest risk of power lines or other infrastructure creating a wildfire. The utility was responsible for multiple wildfires last year, including the Camp Fire — the largest in state history — that killed more than 80 people.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized PG&E for the blackouts two weeks ago, which left as many as 2 million people without electricity. He said the utility should reimburse those affected who are inconvenienced — businesses that have to close and residents who have to stay in hotels and pay other costs of living.
During the last planned blackouts, PG&E’s website crashed under the strain of residents seeking updates. The utility’s call center was also overwhelmed. Newsom said he was “outraged” and the utility later said it wasn’t prepared for the unprecedented power outages.
PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said Monday despite the inconvenience of the last wave of blackouts, they likely prevented a major wildfire.
“If you look at where the damaged occurred on the system, it was exactly in the area where we turned off the power,” he said. “We might have turned it off a little quicker than we needed too, but the scope I think was correct.”
Johnson also warned that residents should get accustomed to these types of preventative measures — for the next decade, in fact, while PG&E makes its power lines and other infrastructure more resilient.
The utility’s chief executive also suggested allowing state agencies the final say in the future on whether and when “public safety power shutoffs” are needed.