Blackouts in the USA

 

More blackouts for California

Over 1 Million Californians 

May Be Affected By 

Imminent Fire-Prevention 

Blackout

Zero Hedge,

23 October, 2019

Californians will once again get to 'enjoy' a pre-industrial lifestyle this week as state utilities gear up for another round of intentional blackouts aimed at reducing the risk of fires, according to Bloomberg, while PG&E claims that over to 1 million residents may be impacted by the shutoffs. 

On Wednesday, PG&E will begin cutting power to approximately 179,000 California households in 17 fire-prone areas, beginning at 2pm. The outage includes Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Kern, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo Sierra, Sonoma, Tehama and Yuba counties.

zerohedge@zerohedge

PG&E: 1.2 MILLION POWER CUSTOMERS IN FIRE WEATHER WATCH AREA

Every time the wind blows California will become Venezuela

233

1:33 PM - Oct 22, 2019

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Further south, Edison International's Southern California utility announced that 162,276 customers may be affected by a similar blackout, while Sempra Energy may cut power to 24,000. 

The potential for an outage comes at a time of year when the landscape is dry and fires spark and spread easily. Northerly winds are expected to pick up Wednesday evening into Thursday morning in the hills of the East Bay and North Bay, delivering critical fire risk. Winds between 35 and 45 mph with some 55 mph gusts in localized areas are forecast for Sonoma and Napa counties.

The National Weather Service has a Red Flag Warning in effect for the North Bay mountains, valleys and coast, noon Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday; the East Bay mountains and valleys, 3 p.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday; and the Santa Cruz Mountains, 7 p.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday. -SFgate

PG&E had originally planned on cutting power to more than 209,000 households before dialing back the figure. They have provided the following website for those who may be impacted. Hopefully it doesn't go down this time. 

The decision to shut off the electricity services, a precaution over concerns about high winds, raises the question of precisely how PG&E has been spending its rate-payers’ money. And the answer isn’t pretty: While neglecting safety upgrades and investments in its aging infrastructure, PG&E has instead been lavishly rewarding shareholders and buying political influence.

Over the last year, reporters have highlighted the large lobby spending and billions of dollars in dividend payments to investors by PG&E, while the company avoided necessary investments in its aging transmission towers — some of which are among the oldest in the world and were known to the company to be a potential fire hazard. The aging transmission lines caused the Camp Fire wildfires last November, the most destructive in California history, that left 86 dead, over a dozen injured, and caused at least $16 billion in damages.

The Intercept has identified even more money spent by PG&E on lobbyists and image-makers, including previously unreported filings made public through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that began in January.

https://theintercept.com/2019/10/11/pge-power-shutdown-california/?fbclid=IwAR22DNs-omWqdqHF5UQfUvm0zIM-mkTxw-URlEw_NNXSM1fgd8kLg5TNvrY

What's happening to the state of California?

EMERGENCY ALERT!! MAJOR INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES COULD BE HAPPENING NOW

Under a long-term deal sealed by the Obama administration, a Chinese Communist company was set to control the second-busiest container port in the United States. In an unreported Trump administration victory, the Communists are out after a drawn-out national security review forced a unit of China-based COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. (Orient Overseas Container Line—OOCL) to sell the cherished container terminal business, which handles among the largest freight of imports into the U.S.

It all started with a 40-year container terminal lease between the Port of Long Beach in southern California and Hong Kong. The Obama administration proudly signed the agreement in 2012 giving China control of America’s second-largest container port behind the nearby Port of Los Angeles. One of the Trump administration’s first big moves was to get the Communists out of the Port of Long Beach. After a national security review and federal intervention, the Long Beach terminal business, which handles millions of containers annually, is finally being sold to an Australian company called Macquarie Infrastructure Partners. That essentially kills China’s decades-long contract with the Obama administration.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/trump-rids-major-u-s-container-port-of-chinese-communist-control/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/california-power-outage.html

POWER GOES OUT IN CALIFORNIA!! 2 MILLION PEOPLE IN A STATE OF PANIC!!

Blackouts in Venezuela

Venezuela blames nationwide blackouts on ‘electromagnetic attack’

RT,

23 July, 2019

Preliminary probe into the incident has suggested the “existence of an electromagnetic attack 

that sought to affect the hydroelectric generation system of Guayana, the main provider of 

this service in the country,” the minister told state channel VTV.

While authorities are struggling to resolve the crisis, the US-backed opposition leader Juan 

Guaido has used the power outage to once again attack his political opponent, accusing 

President Maduro of “destroying” the country's electrical system.

Venezuelan minister shows scorched power plant, blames 'terrorists' for blackout (PHOTOS)

Venezuela blackouts: Maduro blames the US, but is it 

possible?

In March, Venezuela suffered two major blackouts that sent the country into darkness for days. At the time, Caracas blamed it on cyberattacks on the Guri Hydroelectric generation and distribution 

system and accused the US-backed local opposition of sabotaging the power grid. Maduro 

also accused Washington of waging an “electricity war” to bring Guaido to power

More blackouts in NYC

Nothing yet on this that I can see in the media

Major Power Outages in

 Brooklyn and Queens - LIVE 

COVERAGE

Major power outages in Brooklyn and Queens have left over 40,000 people without power. Other NYC residents are being asked to not use major appliances

Massive grid failures everywhere

First NYC, Then DC... More Power Outages Are Looming: Could Your Area Be Next?

Zero Hedge, 

17 July, 2019

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

Anyone reading this probably knows that our American electrical grid is like a groaning, arthritic old man who just keeps on pushing through. We’ve had more than just this one article about massive grid failure.

It seems like we’re seeing more and more power outages this summer for “no reason.”

Last week there was a blackout in NYC.

Last week, New York City suffered a blackout in the heat of summer. Con Edison, the city’s power provider said:

Con Edison said the blackout that plunged parts of Manhattan into darknessSaturday night was due to a substation’s relay protection system that “did not operate as designed.”

The utility company said the faulty system was at its West 65th Street substation.

“That system detects electrical faults and directs circuit breakers to isolate and de-energize those faults. The relay protection system is designed with redundancies to provide high levels of reliability,” Con Edison said in a statement on Monday. “In this case, primary and backup relay systems did not isolate a faulted 13,000-volt distribution cable at West 64th Street and West End Avenue.”

Con Edison said the blackout that plunged parts of Manhattan into darkness Saturday night was due to a substation’s relay protection system that “did not operate as designed.”

The utility company said the faulty system was at its West 65th Street substation.

“That system detects electrical faults and directs circuit breakers to isolate and de-energize those faults. The relay protection system is designed with redundancies to provide high levels of reliability,” Con Edison said in a statement on Monday. “In this case, primary and backup relay systems did not isolate a faulted 13,000-volt distribution cable at West 64th Street and West End Avenue.” (source)

Many news outlets noted the interesting fact that the blackout was on the anniversary of a much lengthier blackout in 1977.  Some Twitter users speculated that it could have something to do with the Epstein fustercluck.

Thousands were without power in Washington DC a couple of days ago.

PEPCO, DC’s electric company, is trying to determine the cause of a power outage in Northeastern DC that left thousands in the dark on Monday. According to a company spokesperson, this outage, too, was an equipment failure.

And we’ve got PG&E just turning people’s power off in California.

Fingers have been pointed at PG&E, the power company in California, for causing the Camp Fire that took the lives of at least 85 people. In fact, further investigation showed that poor maintenance by PG&E had been the cause of at least a dozen horrific wildfires over the past few years.

A recent report said the company had not followed state laws:

This is the second investigation to back up widely reported claims that PG&E’s poor maintenance and management of its power lines, combined with high winds and dry vegetation, sparked some of the more than 170 wildfires reported across the state in October.

Late last month, Cal Fire found PG&E negligent in its vegetation management duties for three of four fires it had investigated in the Sierra Nevada foothills, which caused no fatalities.

The new report accuses PG&E of violations of state law for a much larger set of blazes. (source)

PG&E’s response? It wasn’t to better maintain power lines. Instead, during times in which they deem the risk of fire is high, they’ll just shut off electricity to millions of people during triple-degree weather.

According to a press release, the campaign’s purpose is a “call to action for all Californians to take important steps to get ready before the 2019 wildfire season, such as creating a thorough emergency plan and updating their contact information with their energy company.”…

…The change stems from PG&E’s expansion of its shut-off program scope to include higher-voltage transmission lines like the one suspected of involvement in the start of last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s recorded history. In February 2019, PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection, citing potentially $30 billion in liabilities after two seasons of historic wildfires. The company admitted a power line failure was the probable cause of the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and destroyed thousands of homes. In a filing with federal regulators, PG&E expressed doubt about its ability to remain in business…

…Even for those without special medical needs, power shut-offs can create other problems as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts. (source)

Imagine the hardship of living in a climate of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and not even being able to turn on your ceiling fan to move the air around a little. Then imagine you’re diabetic or you have a heart condition or you’re elderly. It’s possible that PG&E will be responsible for just as many deaths by cutting power as by leaving it on and not maintaining their equipment and the brush around it.

And other cities have been warned that to expect more power outages.

Last week’s outage that shut down transportation, left hundreds of people stuck in elevators, and had everyone dealing with sweltering temperatures might not be a single incident in NYC according to Jay Apt, a professor and co-director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center.

There is always high demand in the summer – air conditioning is very power intensive and you will always have some failures of equipment,” Apt said. (source)

He warned that cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington DC should get prepared for more outages during the impending heatwaves.

With heat and humidity as intense as predicted, Con Edison is prepared for “scattered outages” in Manhattan, and parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, spokesperson Allan Drury said Tuesday.

Manhattan is served exclusively by underground delivery systems that inevitably heat up as the ground warms, and those systems are put under further strain by increased demand for power, Drury said. (source)

The DC area has not ruled out power outages during the upcoming heatwave.

Christina Harper, a spokesperson for Pepco, said the city’s primary public utility company is preparing for the possibility of power outages, although they are not necessarily expecting them.

Temperatures in the D.C. metro area are expected to reach the high 90s this week, according to the Weather Channel, and could top 100 degrees on Saturday.

“We are ready,” Harper said. She encouraged all customers to download the Pepco app, which will allow them to easily report a power outage and access an interactive map of local outages. (source)

Chicago is also anticipating hot weather and potential electrical failure.

Officials from ComEd in Chicago are also preparing for extreme temperatures – Friday is forecast to be the hottest, with a high of 96 degrees, according to the Weather Channel.

When you have extreme weather of any kind, it can put stress on any system and can cause outages,” said Terence Donnelly, the company’s president and chief operating officer. “We’re watching the pending hot weather moving into our system very closely, we have scheduled our emergency response center to open up and we have scheduled extra crews scheduled to work extra hours.” (source)

It’s not just a big city problem.

Of course, big cities get all the press but it’s important to note that it isn’t only a problem you face in big cities (or California.) Any power company whose equipment cannot meet the demand asked of it could see power failure.

So how do you survive a hot weather power outage? Here are some tips from The Blackout Book, which you can get immediately in PDF format.

Here are some ways to keep a little bit cooler when the grid is down:

• Get battery-operated fans. (And lots of batteries.) A battery-operated fan can help cool you down, particularly if you get yourself wet first. They’re reasonably inexpensive and work well, although I recommend spending a bit more than for the cheap ones at the dollar store. This one is big enough to reach more than one part of your body at a time and can help you get to sleep. 6 D batteries will run it for about 40 hours. These tabletop fans are rechargeable (so you will either need an off-rid way to recharge them or you’ll need backups), these handheld fans have a misting option (also rechargeable) and these handheld fans are powered for up to 8 hours by 2 AA batteries.these handheld fans are powered for up to 8 hours by 2 AA batteries.
• Stock up on cooling towels. I picked up some these cooling towels for use when I was working outside in the garden. I was stunned at how well they work. All you do is get them wet, wring them out, and give them a snap, then they cool you down, no power or refrigeration required. You can use them over and over again. They also come in these bands that can be worn around your head or neck.
• Channel your inner Southern belle.  Slowly fan yourself with a handheld fan. Mint juleps are optional.
• Keep hydrated.  Your body needs the extra water to help produce sweat, which cools you off.
• Change your schedule.  There’s a reason that people who live near the equator close down their businesses and enjoy a midday siesta.  Take a tepid shower and then, without drying off, lay down and try to take a nap. At the very least, do a quiet activity.
• Play in the water.  Either place a kiddie pool in a shaded part of the yard or use the bathtub indoors. Find a nearby creek or pond for wading or swimming. (Note: Playing in the water isn’t just for kids!)
• Soak your feet.  A foot bath full of tepid water can help cool you down.
• Avoid heavy meals.  Your body has to work hard to digest heavy, rich meals, and this raises your temperature.  Be gentle on your system with light, cool meals like salads and fruit.
• Make sure your window screens are in good condition.  You’re going to need to have your windows open, but fighting off insects when you’re trying to sleep is a miserable and frustrating endeavor.

Scott Kelley from Graywolf Survival has super-easy instructions for making your own air conditioner that will help cool down one room as long as the power is still on. His design doesn’t require ice, it’s VERY budget-friendly, and he offers suggestions for alternative power, as well. (source)

Here’s an excerpt from my book, Be Ready for Anything, which gives you a more thorough overview of surviving a summer power outage. As far as long-term power outages are concerned, my recommendations are decidedly low-tech.

These summer blackouts seem to be happening a lot more often.

As our infrastructure continues to age, it seems to me like these miserable summer blackouts are happening more frequently. And it isn’t just the power company’s fault. We demand more and more comfort, keeping our homes cool.. And if the businesses we visit aren’t cool enough, we won’t shop there – we’ll look for more comfortable environments.

I guess the most important thing to remember is that one of these days, the power just might not come back on. That may sound far-fetched, but look how long Puerto Rico was in the dark after Hurricane Maria. You can come up with all sorts of arguments about why we here on the mainland are better off – and you’d be right – but also keep in mind that after Superstorm Sandy, parts of New York were still without power 94 days after the storm hit. And not just a couple of folks – we’re talking almost 2000 households. You’re deluding yourself if you don’t think, with our crumbling infrastructure, that a long-term outage is possible.

Or maybe even likely.