Fires and blackouts are the new normal. Are we ready? Commonweal Resilience Project Coordinator Stanley Wu gives us an update:
When Pacific Gas and Energy (PGE) was determined to be responsible for the devastating Camp Fire that killed at least 86 people and resulted in tens of billions in damage, they filed for bankruptcy and changed their tactics. The public outrage over their recent CEO bonuses, lobbying, and political investments rather than fixing old and accident-prone infrastructure, was swift and accurate.
That was last year. Today as I write this in the dark at home, 185,000 people are being evacuated just north of San Francisco, and PGE has shut off electrical power to 1.3 million people. Potentially historic winds and low humidity at the end of a dry summer can develop almost any spark into a life-threatening fire that can spread faster than you can run. PGE has calculated that dealing with the public and political outrage, and plummeting stock, is cheaper than being responsible for another catastrophic fire.
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