DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Power came back Tuesday afternoon, several hours ahead of schedule. The outage lasted three days and three hours, as determined by the cron log on my router.

I was wrong about being at the end of the line. The Press Demo reports: Thousands still without power.

Relevant statistics from this article:

• 1.8M customers lost power this week
• 8400 homes in Sonoma County remain without power
• Areas of Laytonville and Albion won’t be restored until Thursday

I don’t know where Laytonville and Albion are, except in the sense that they’re “further out” than I am, and I’m apparently already in generator country.

PG&E’s press release describes the damages due to winds:

• 460 damaged poles
• 296 miles of downed lines
• 560 damaged or broken cross arms
• more than 240 damaged transformers
• more than 8400 customers who are hungry for a PG&E executive’s blood because their power is still out

OK, I extrapolated that last one from the context.

The company claims it pays half its claims. The claims-program FAQ admits guilt: “If any … property is damaged because we … unreasonably fail to do something that should have been done, then we have an obligation to pay for reasonable damages.” What did they unreasonably fail to do? Trim trees.

PG&E has a long track record of failing to properly clear trees around its lines, according to the Chico Examiner. There’s more than a hint of scandal: “PUC investigators charged that PG&E had taken money from its ratepayer-funded vegetation management budgets to boost profits, which resulted in bonuses for PG&E managers as reward for cutting jobs. From 1987 to 1994, PG&E diverted $77.6 million from the tree-trimming budget, the investigators said.”

So, file those claims today!