“Our website crashed several times. Our maps are inconsistent and maybe in correct. Our call centers were overloaded,” PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said in a Thursday press conference. “To put it simply, we were not adequately prepared to support the operational event.”To some, electricity is a life or death matter: those with breathing machines or insulin stored in the fridge cannot go days without power, especially when they don’t know when it’ll turn back on. For those working hourly wages, loss of a few days of work can be a big hit.In towns across Northern California, grocery stores flooded with people stockpiling canned goods and candles, and people lined up to stock up on gas and batteries. Many considered buying generators, especially if this was to become something of a new normal.As these planned blackouts threaten to become a fixture of California life, communities are scrambling to determine how to care for the most vulnerable residents and maintain public safety.Investors and analysts have said PG&E is worth around $20 billion, and the company still has the cash on hand to keep the state’s lights on—just not enough to cover presumed tens of billions in eventual wildfire liabilities. Or, apparently, to maintain the equipment that allegedly caused those fires. The federal judge overseeing PG&E’s ongoing probation presented a safety proposal for the utility that would see 650,000 workers remove 100 million trees and inspect and repair thousands of miles of line. PG&E claimed the plan would cost $150 billion.
The most potent feeling in this power shutoff is uncertainty. PG&E shuts off power with little warning and no set end time, leaving communities to figure out how best to care for themselves. PG&E’s website went down sporadically throughout the day on Wednesday, meaning many people couldn’t even tell if their address was in the planned outage zones.“They don’t tell us when they’ll turn the power back on, which makes it hard to plan,” said Michael Zuccilillo, a councilmember in Paradise. “Schools are closed, parents are trying to work and they can't work and they can’t find daycare.”According to Zuccilillo, nearly all of Paradise is dark, with only a few businesses equipped with backup generators. This isn’t the first time PG&E has turned off their power, either—sitting squarely in the danger zone, Paradise has had their lights shut off multiple times this fire season.“I can’t say how frustrated I am,” Zuccilillo said. “It’s ridiculous that this is the long-term solution.”Mad Stano, the program director at the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said that they were disappointed with PG&E’s communication about the outage, noting that if you don’t speak one of the six languages (including English) the alerts were offered in, you’re out of luck.“Linguistically isolated, low-income, and medically impacted residents will all have a harder time in these emergencies. Even I, an energy professional, could not figure out what was going to happen when, where, and how long,” Stano said. “Utilities are in this role where they have all the power and they quite literally take it away from us.”“I can’t say how frustrated I am. It’s ridiculous that this is the long-term solution.”