Many Questioning PG&E Decision To Intentionally Cut Power To 60,000
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — After some residents were left without power for roughly 48 hours, many are questioning the rationale behind PG&E's decision to intentionally cut power to customers.
PG&E purposely shut off power for tens of thousands residents on Sunday night, saying they were getting ahead of high winds that could spark wildfires like the ones that burned Santa Rosa just over a year ago.
State Sen. Ted Gaines (R-El Dorado) the utility giant only created a new firestorm. He has been inundated with calls and emails from angry constituents in his district, complaints he says, suggest the intentional blackout put people's lives at risk.
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"Some in peril in terms of health... if you're dependent upon electricity for health," he said.
CBS13 spoke with residents during the two-day outage who said they weren't able to get water and that the warnings gave one woman just minutes to get her spare oxygen tank.
PG&E says safety was the goal.
"This program is just part of our wider community wildfire safety program, all designed to keep the community safe," said PG&E spokeswoman Brandi Merlo in an interview with CBS13 Tuesday.
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Gaines is calling on the California Public Utilities Commission to investigate.
"The PUC can take a look at it and have a hearing immediately," he said.
But consumer advocates point out, it was the PUC that approved PG&E's move to shut off the power. According to the resolution, it was "to protect public safety under California law."
"Maybe they ought to take a look at the conditions for which permission was granted to shut down power [The standards]," he said.
Did they not have standards in place? Gaines said he doesn't know.
"But I do know they could've addressed the outages in a different fashion," he said.
The PUC didn't respond to our request for comment on this story.
