Power outages bring out frustrations

By Moryt Milo

It's almost 3 p.m. and I'm on my way to pick up the kids. I'm staring at a red light when the radio newscaster announces that rolling blackouts are coming shortly and that Block 14 is next up.

I know that's me, because, after the last series of winter outages, I have learned everything there is to know about my PG&E bill. I know about baselines, what outage block I'm in, and how many kilowatts I'm using per billing cycle. Things that I never thought I would care about have become standard occurrences in my daily life.

Now, I'm thinking about the 97-degree weather and my car baking in the driveway. I immediately pick up my cell phone and call my husband. "Did I leave the garage door open?" I ask. He goes to check and comes back on the line to report it's closed. I tell him to open it because the power's probably about to go out.

It feels as if my life is now dictated by power stages and alerts. Working on the computer, doing a load of laundry, or even blow-drying my hair can be stopped with the flip of a switch. Does it make me angry? You bet.

Today, the independent contractors, who turn the power on and off, said they believe the problem was triggered by people not conserving as much as yesterday; coupled with a power plant being shut down for maintenance. When I hear these reasons I recall the movie Network. This was a classic about a TV news anchor who got so fed up with all the politics of the TV ratings wars that he finally screamed, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

I wanted yell out my own rant: "What the heck do you want me to do!" I don't have a house with air-conditioning. I don't have a heated swimming pool. I'm trying to run my appliances during off-peak hours. Yet, here I am paying the price.

I'm frustrated, but I just can't help feeling a total sense of mistrust for everything that is being reported. I won't deny that we haven't built any power plants in several decades. But, talk of building nuclear power plants anywhere in California is downright scary.

For starters, nuclear plants in earthquake country seem like an idiot's recipe for blowing us up. Second, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl should be enough to make anyone reconsider this option.

I won't deny that we have successfully lobbied to keep oil drilling and exploration off our coast. But, if we had said yes, what's to prevent our own version of the Valdez.

Finally, I do admit we should have used some vision when it came to all those server farms and high-tech power businesses. We should have made those "then-wealthy" dot-com businesses and their friends build power generators on every new campus. It should certainly be part of any expansion design in the future.

Yes, our decisions brought us to the present. But how can anyone deny we are not being gouged and ripped off. I am having a really hard time believing that we can't find enough power to import for an honest price. I'm sure Mexico and Canada would help if U.S. corporate greed got out of the way.

Instead, our federal government and, for that matter, most non-Californian's are sticking their noses up in the air saying tough luck. To this I say, "Watch out, if we go down, you folks east of the Rockies and elsewhere are going down with us." Why? Because our state alone, if we were a country, would rank sixth in the world, in terms of gross domestic product.

So, I have an idea. Californians should have a massive emailing campaign and forward it to all Congressmen on Capitol Hill. The email would be very simple. It would include only two words repeated over and over in the body of the text. (How many times is at your discretion.) The words are Domino Effect. Sooner or later someone is bound to get it.

I'm betting on sooner, when I watch Midwesterners complaining about spiraling gas prices, and Easterners worrying about possible summer outages. It all feeds neatly into that old cliché "What goes around comes around."

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Contact Moryt Milo via email at morytb@aol.com

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Photo: Carmen Rutlen takes her dog for a run and her cockatoo for a fly at Vasona Park

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