Blackout Assessed

We've gotten probably the only reporting we're going to get on our blackout locally in a story by the North Coast Journal staff.  Fortunately (and surprisingly for the NCJ of recent years) it is well-reported, nicely structured and not badly written.

It sets up the narrative through Humboldt County's emergency management director Dorie Lanni, and adds to previous Lost Coast Outpost reporting (that up to the morning of the blackout Humboldt County wasn't included, that the county wasn't officially told until a few hours before the lights went out) her significant assertion that in two years of talking about planned power shutoffs, "at no time" did PG&E "ever suggest in any way that we might lose power to the entire county."

So most of the response was improvised, mostly though not wholly by necessity. The story shows that few businesses were prepared, especially for such a large-scale blackout. For example, with a blackout to a more limited area, food could be preserved by renting refrigerated trucks, but there were too many places and too few available trucks.

A significant bottleneck was exposed--that all the diesel fuel that powers emergency generators in the county ultimately came from one place, a Chevron facility, but it couldn't pump out the fuel it had on hand--because it had no electricity, and no backup (the excuse being that regulations prevented using diesel fuel to power backup generators.  Work out that irony.)

There were some heroes, including a Chevron gas station in Arcata, which stayed open even though it couldn't pump gas, and distributed gallons of free ice cream before it melted.  But two facilities really stand out, for slightly different reasons.

The first is Mad River Hospital, usually the forgotten stepchild of county hospitals in Arcata.  Their significant move was to assume from the day before the blackout that Humboldt would lose its power, and they went ahead with emergency planning.  With generators, they kept the power on and the hospital open, not only serving patients but community members who came by, with meals and other services.

Blue Lake Rancheria and microgrid

The other institution was the Blue Lake Rancheria and casino hotel, which has put together its own microgrid with solar power, large scale batteries augmented by diesel generators.  They had sufficient power for their hotel (which quickly filled, including room for the most vulnerable patients as assessed by the county), and could also supply to the community the two resources (besides electricity) most needed: gasoline and ice.  In all three of these cases (and others), the generosity and sense of community stands out.

The story ends with Lanni's warning that while a one-day blackout caused stresses, each additional day would multiply effects exponentially.  I suspect the likely loss of cell phone signal alone would cause a major mental health crisis.  But as usual the most significant failures would hurt the most vulnerable, as in fact they did in other parts of the state where power was out longer.

The Blue Lake Rancheria example also dramatizes the general failure to follow up on idealistic rhetoric with the hard work of infrastructure changes, especially here in Arcata.  Twenty years ago, Arcata had a majority Green Party city council, and signed on to a commitment to fight global heating.  Fifteen or so years ago I attended a seminar on solar power that attracted local movers and shakers, including the then president of Humboldt State University.

But the ongoing blitzkrieg of new housing construction in Arcata--most of it here in the Sunset neighborhoods--not only ignores known infrastructure and safety problems, but solar power is conspicuously absent.  Not even a white roof.  It's been largely talk, and even the talk has disappeared as local government has become more entangled with business in recent years.  It's all about real estate and construction money.  Arcata doesn't even pretend to be a leader anymore, and its future is just that much dimmer.