Marin’s essential services prepare for PG&E fire outages
Fire departments, hospitals, health clinics, telecommunications towers and other utilities such as water districts will also lose power, possibly for several days at a time. While many of these essential services will have backup power sources such as generators or batteries, it will be costly, and concern remains about whether residents will be prepared.
For
"One of our primary focuses is making sure our community is ready as well as ourselves," Weber said. "This is real. ... From my perspective, it's absolutely critical that we are all ready for this."
Facing increased government and public scrutiny over the fires, the utility announced last year that it would be proactively shutting off power to its lines during forecasts of high fire risk.
"The devastating fires in 2017 and 2018 have made it clear that more must be done and with greater urgency to adapt and address the issue," Contreras said.
These outages will be most common in areas with elevated or extreme fire danger as determined by the
Another concern is how the outages will impact health care, whether it be for those residents who use electric medical equipment or diabetes patients who need to refrigerate their insulin. County Deputy Public Health Officer
The county plans to launch a pilot program in July that will create emergency plans for in-home support services patients. Skilled nursing facility officials are set to meet with
"But we saw from the
"Our backup generators are regularly tested and turn on instantaneously when there is a power outage. In addition, we have adequate fuel supplies onsite," Maites wrote in an email.
"We'll do a lot of work behind the scenes for the first responders to be ready and have some plans in place, but it's critical that the community realizes that it may be without power for three to four days or longer," Correa said.
Other utilities also will be affected by the outages. Local water agencies such as
"We'll have crews out there moving them from one pump station to another to another," said
Even with these efforts, Horenstein said it is possible that some areas of the county may need to rely on themselves to have a stock of potable water until the power is turned back on. The water district is expected to discuss plans for other water saving measures during these outages, such as curtailing irrigation.
"It is kind of a perfect storm that during the period where you have the highest demand and highest need for water is the time that
Typically, the county has urged residents and agencies to prepared for about 72 hours without power, whether because of storms or earthquakes or other natural disasters, according county public information officer
"When that notice comes in, it's probably a little late to be thinking about what you're going to do to prepare yourself," Hendricks said.
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