PG&E should be fined $166M for botched power shut-offs, watchdog says
The &#x27;botched power shut-offs&#x27; details<p>&quot;The California Public Utilities Commission’s independent consumer watchdog arm is recommending that Pacific Gas &amp; Electric be fined nearly $166 million for the company’s failure to properly warn customers of a series of intentional power outages last fall.<p>At their height, the so-called public safety power shut-offs of October 2019 left nearly 1 million PG&amp;E customers across 38 counties without electricity, some for as long as a week.<p>...the San Francisco-based company failed to notify tens of thousands of customers that blackouts were imminent, including hundreds who depended on steady electricity to power life-sustaining medical devices. Many people couldn’t access PG&amp;E’s website for several days, as it was overwhelmed by visits from Northern and Central California residents scrambling for information&quot;.<p>PG&amp;E are between a rock and a hard place: they have huge problems with aged infrastructure that catastrophically fails during fall wind events, causing ignition of dry vegetation, some of which they are responsible for maintaining.<p>After being previously fined for previous fire damage (the money was distributed to affected counties such as Sonoma) they are erring on the side of caution by shutting down when the wind becomes too strong during &#x27;red flag&#x27; fire risk periods.<p>Sonoma County isn&#x27;t spending their windfall PG&amp;E fine money on fire prevention though, they are spending it on buying hotels to house street people in permanent &#x27;home&#x27; hotel rooms, augmenting Governor Newsom&#x27;s &#x27;Homekey&#x27; cash handouts.<p>This is a core California infrastructure problem, and along with crumbling roads and bridges is symptomatic of the challenges California citizens have to deal with more and more.