Last week, as Shasta County prosecutors were preparing manslaughter charges against PG&E Corp. in response to a 2020 wildfire, the company was putting together a PR offensive related to dozens of outages in the Los Gatos and Santa Cruz areas.
During a Thursday evening webinar, company officials admitted to “unacceptable” performance in recent weeks, and pledged to take the communications and power delivery problems seriously.
“There’s no way to dress it up — it’s just unacceptable,” said Mark Quinlan, PG&E’s VP of wildfire mitigation operations and execution. “And we’re making improvements.”
It was the day before Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett announced 31 charges, including 11 felonies, against PG&E related to the Zogg Fire, which she said killed four people after a tree marked unsafe wasn’t removed.
In the virtual community meeting, the company touted a 50 percent decrease in “potential ignitions that could cause a catastrophic wildfire” and emphasized their personal connections to the local area.
“We’re going to give you stronger restoration commitments.”
—Jason Regan, senior director of electric system inspections
“I’ve worked in Santa Cruz County for many years,” said Jason Regan, senior director of electric system inspections, referencing Scotts Valley Falcons and Los Gatos Wildcats games he’s attended with his kids.
Regan said the company was going to take the bull by the horns and prove to customers it can do better, including when it comes to promised electricity restoration estimates when blackouts do occur.
“We’re going to change the narrative,” he said. “We’re going to give you stronger restoration commitments. And we’re going to partner with you as our customers.”
PG&E said there’d been more than 30 unplanned power outages in the region since it changed its power settings to prevent sparks that could cause a wildfire in late July.
Rob Morse, senior manager of the Central Coast Division, said as a 30-year resident of Santa Cruz County, he knows how challenging power outages can be for local residents.
“While enhanced powerline safety settings make our electric system safer for our customers, they also result in more frequent and longer duration customer outages,” he said, noting crews are required to patrol the entire circuit to ensure that there’s no hazard before powering up again. “We know it’s a huge burden to be without power.”
Morse said the company is working to improve customer notifications about outages through automated calls, ongoing website updates describing outage areas (and estimated resolution times), and frequent social media posts.
“We’ve heard very clearly this is an issue that we need to solve,” he said. “Customers can sign up for alerts and view outage maps by using pge.com/outages.”
Quinlan said the company is working to underground 10,000 miles of power lines and is working on “system-hardening” measures like putting in heavy-duty tree wire, steel or composite power poles and wider crossarms.
Anna Brooks, the company’s director of local public affairs, read out some of the 170-plus questions submitted by viewers.
“Droughts are nothing new in California. What are we seeing this year that’s different?” she asked on behalf of a participant of Quinlan.
“We have a data science team that works under the meteorology director that really has the ability to go in and analyze wildfire fuels,” he said. “We measured 10-hour dead-fuel moisture, 100-hour dead-fuel moisture, 1,000-hour dead-fuel moisture, as well as live fuel moistures…it’s just incredibly dry.”
Another question was about how PG&E chose the 169 circuits it changed the settings on to prevent wildfires.
Quinlan said these circuits were ones in areas where it’s hard to fight fires, where it’s hard to evacuate people, or where there hasn’t been a forest fire recently.
The company also promoted its new PG&E Report It app, which allows customers to submit photos of non-emergency potential safety concerns.
