Power outages predicted, but who knows where or when?

If it wasn't serious it would certainly be amusing: PGE is going to turn off power to hundreds of thousands of North Bay residents tonight at midnight but the PGE website isn't working so finding out if you are one of those lucky participants in the "How Long Will My Fridge Stay Cold" sweepstakes is pretty much impossible right now.  I'm sure it's because the traffic to the site is congested and overloaded with clicks, but one would have thought they might have anticipated that situation and upgraded their server (or whatever it takes) to handle the traffic. But no. 

Two years ago on this exact date was the Tubbs Fire. Extremely high winds and very low humidity, dry conditions, etc... and tonight it is a repeat of those conditions. High winds are predicted early Wednesday morning and PGE is shutting off power to prevent downed power lines, sparking, etc.  We all get it, at least those of us who were here two years ago and could see the fire from our front porches. I am fine with cutting the power  but not fine with PGE's website failing, thus making it impossible to get any news updates about their plans. 

For most of us it is simply an inconvenience. (Perhaps more than inconvenient.... right now there is no gas station within 3 miles of me that has gas, such was the rush to fill one's tank this afternoon. My tank is not full. I will see how that plays out.)  If the power is out for 24 hours, nothing drastic will happen. Longer than that some food might be lost. If one had medical needs that demanded electricity, that would be a different story and additional plans would need to be in place. For most of us it means dark at sundown, not doing a lot of cooking unless you have a gas stove you can light with a match.  No TV, no computer. Reading by candlelight. Whatever. 

We'll see how this plays out,  but if it means avoiding another catastrophic fire, more loss of life, then it is 100% worth the "inconvenience" and the frustration of not having electricity for a few days.

As long as we can flush the toilet and the poop goes away, all is well. Seriously. Priorities, folks. Priorities.

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