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PG&E Starts Another Blackout as California Fires Rage

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Millions of Californians prepared to be in the dark — some for five days, or longer — as the nation’s largest utility said it was switching off power again Tuesday to prevent powerful winds from damaging its equipment and sparking more fires.

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. said its latest blackout will start early Tuesday and affect 605,000 customers — about 1.5 million people —in 29 Northern California counties. The announcement came even before the last blackout had ended, which shut power to more than 2.5 million people. It wasn’t clear if power, that for many went out Saturday, would be restored before the next round of outages.

What was clear was that patience was wearing thin and frustration at the utility was growing. From the suburbs of San Francisco up north to the wine country, people searched for places Monday to charge phones and stocked up on ice for the non-perishable food.

Powerful winds were driving multiple fires across California and the deliberate shut-offs were intended to prevent blazes. Crews are battling a huge wildfire in Sonoma County wine country that has destroyed 96 buildings.

Petaluma resident Scotty Richardson, whose lights went out Saturday, said the prospect that power might not be restored for days makes him “furious, furious.”

Richardson was out Monday getting breakfast, charging his phone and making business calls at the Lumberjacks restaurant in Petaluma. He vented frustration at the on-again, off-again roller coaster of outages but also anger at the utility’s role in causing deadly fires in the past, and apparently sparking some of this season’s fires.

“PG&E can’t figure out how to deliver power reliably without killing people,” he said. “This is more than three strikes — it’s a failure of epic proportions.”

Richardson and his fiance run a business out of their home, so “it’s imperative that we have electricity. Everything is done for us by a computer or phone,” he said. Refrigerated foods have spoiled and he worries that the ongoing outages might lower property values.

“This has been a massive inconvenience,” he said. “This can’t be the new normal.”

PG&E is under severe financial pressure after its equipment was blamed for a series of destructive wildfires during the past three years. Its stock dropped 24% Monday to close at $3.80 and was down more than 50% since Thursday.

Many Californians are skeptical of PG&E’s motives for the blackouts, and feel the utility is more concerned with its finances than the massive inconvenience it’s causing.

“It’s so obvious it’s just to protect them from more liability,” Janet Luoma of Santa Rosa said at a Red Cross evacuation shelter.

At the shelter in Santa Rosa, Chris Sherman plugged his laptop into a wall outlet and charged his phone while he waited for the all-clear to go home, anticipating that once he did he could lose power.

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