Opinion: The heat wave nearly broke our power grid and some of our readers have been waiting for an excuse
As you all know, this is an old photo, not the one from this story. The one from November 2013, when the heat broke the power lines to our neighborhood, shutting off our water and gas and leaving us no power for more than two days. I know which photo I like the best. The one on my desk with the little black and white sign that says, “Firmly Inked In-Sane.”
At 11:40 p.m. last night, the power came right back on and our water and gas came back on, and the sun came out, and we all went to bed. Except, of course, for me. I stayed up. I was watching the news, and they mentioned that we were nearly out of power. I thought it was just a rumor and waited for a moment to go back to sleep. Then I saw a story about us. It said:
The heat wave that hit California in many places late last week is a “wake-up call,” said state Senate president Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), who said that Governor Jerry Brown will be on the hot seat in Sacramento next week.
“The governor of California should be making this an example for the rest of the nation,” de León said on the Senate floor on Monday. “The heat waves that are hitting this region have a devastating impact on our local economies.”
So, Governor Brown won’t be in Sacramento next Monday, and we should be thankful.
The problem is, we are not out of the woods yet. I have a friend who is an electrician and he told me that the problem is not only our power lines, but our electric and gas lines. The main gas and power lines were not damaged by the heat, but because of the massive power line fire that caused the outage, our power lines are now at risk. We have had a big spike in our electric bills in recent days because of the power shutoffs caused by the huge power line fire. And we had a heat wave to boot.
This is why: Our power went out because of a power line fire. The power lines to our neighborhood were not damaged but they are at significant risk because of the power line fire.
We have been working closely with