ARTICLE
Pacific Gas & Electric Public Safety Power Shut Off (PSPS) The Impact to the Santa Cruz County Business Community When the electricity went out with minimal notice from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) last month it sent shock waves of fear and concern throughout the impacted counties in Northern California. With little warning, Santa Cruz County families struggled to make ends meet for their energy services. Lights were out, power to your utilities (heating and hot water) was lost, perishable food in your refrigerators and freezers was tossed out, and other normal day-to-day living luxuries were lost, too. The impact and inconvenience for three to eight days as reported in some communities was unbearable. It is hard to imagine that in a state with the 5th largest economy in the world, we are facing a power grid infrastructure that is so inefficient that we resort to power shutoffs as a precaution to possible wildfires. No community wants to face the massive destruction that happened in Paradise or Santa Rosa, but there should be a better way. Many homeowners went to Home Depot or a local hardware store to purchase gas or diesel generators to ensure that their homes could have power for essential household items. The antidotal stories I heard sent shivers of anxiety and frustration through me. Families with infant children went to extremes to ensure the child was safe. Our public agencies like the Santa Cruz Water District and Soquel Creek Water District purchased $1,000s and $1,000s of diesel gas to run generators to keep the electrical water pumps running. The Santa Cruz Metro relies heavily on electrical generators for running its operation plants. The old generator at Metro’s Administrative office on Vernon Street runs the operational backbone of the bus system. If the generator were to go out it would have shut down the entire bus fleet. Certainly, the greater Santa Cruz County business community suffered. Again, the antidotal stories continued as grocery stores with diesel generators ramped up to save as much of their inventory as possible, but small businesses like mom & pop stores and small restaurants faced extensive and insurmountable losses without recourse as insurance policies do not cover power shutoffs like these. What is the economic as well as emotional impact of these loses to our business community? Pacific Gas and Electric Company provides natural gas and electric service to approximately 16 million people throughout a 70,000-square mile service area in northern and central California. The ironic part of the PG&E’s PSPS that stings every community is the reliance on electricity that during these shutoffs comes from diesel and gas propelled greenhouse gas emissions polluters. At a time when California is leading the charge on finding solutions to reduce our Greenhouse gas emissions, PG&E public safety program has the opposite effect. In partnership with the Santa Cruz County Business Council, we are assisting the Business Council in conducting a survey of local businesses about how you were affected (or not) by the PGE Public Safety Power Shutoff. Specifically, we want to assess the total impact on local businesses with an estimated dollar amount, so we are asking you to provide us information on how much you had to spend on things like inventory loss, employee overtime, closed operations, etc. The survey is anonymous, and we will keep the survey live until December 7, 2019. Attached is a link to the survey that we would like our Chamber members to complete. We encourage you to take the survey. Once we have collected an adequate number of responses, the Chamber and Business Council will publish the data. https://kpartlowb323774b29.survey.fm/local-business-impacts-of-power-outage Community engagement and collaboration with our business partners is one of the cornerstones of your Chamber’s work. Please consider assisting us in collecting this information in an anonymous survey. Thank you.
Pacific Gas & Electric Public Safety Power Shut Off (PSPS) The Impact to the Santa Cruz County Business Community
When the electricity went out with minimal notice from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) last month it sent shock waves of fear and concern throughout the impacted counties in Northern California. With little warning, Santa Cruz County families struggled to make ends meet for their energy services. Lights were out, power to your utilities (heating and hot water) was lost, perishable food in your refrigerators and freezers was tossed out, and other normal day-to-day living luxuries were lost, too. The impact and inconvenience for three to eight days as reported in some communities was unbearable. It is hard to imagine that in a state with the 5th largest economy in the world, we are facing a power grid infrastructure that is so inefficient that we resort to power shutoffs as a precaution to possible wildfires. No community wants to face the massive destruction that happened in Paradise or Santa Rosa, but there should be a better way.
Many homeowners went to Home Depot or a local hardware store to purchase gas or diesel generators to ensure that their homes could have power for essential household items. The antidotal stories I heard sent shivers of anxiety and frustration through me.
Families with infant children went to extremes to ensure the child was safe. Our public agencies like the Santa Cruz Water District and Soquel Creek Water District purchased $1,000s and $1,000s of diesel gas to run generators to keep the electrical water pumps running. The Santa Cruz Metro relies heavily on electrical generators for running its operation plants. The old generator at Metro’s Administrative office on Vernon Street runs the operational backbone of the bus system. If the generator were to go out it would have shut down the entire bus fleet.
Certainly, the greater Santa Cruz County business community suffered. Again, the antidotal stories continued as grocery stores with diesel generators ramped up to save as much of their inventory as possible, but small businesses like mom & pop stores and small restaurants faced extensive and insurmountable losses without recourse as insurance policies do not cover power shutoffs like these. What is the economic as well as emotional impact of these loses to our business community?
Pacific Gas and Electric Company provides natural gas and electric service to approximately 16 million people throughout a 70,000-square mile service area in northern and central California. The ironic part of the PG&E’s PSPS that stings every community is the reliance on electricity that during these shutoffs comes from diesel and gas propelled greenhouse gas emissions polluters. At a time when California is leading the charge on finding solutions to reduce our Greenhouse gas emissions, PG&E public safety program has the opposite effect.
In partnership with the Santa Cruz County Business Council, we are assisting the Business Council in conducting a survey of local businesses about how you were affected (or not) by the PGE Public Safety Power Shutoff. Specifically, we want to assess the total impact on local businesses with an estimated dollar amount, so we are asking you to provide us information on how much you had to spend on things like inventory loss, employee overtime, closed operations, etc. The survey is anonymous, and we will keep the survey live until December 7, 2019.
Attached is a link to the survey that we would like our Chamber members to complete. We encourage you to take the survey. Once we have collected an adequate number of responses, the Chamber and Business Council will publish the data.
https://kpartlowb323774b29.survey.fm/local-business-impacts-of-power-outage
Community engagement and collaboration with our business partners is one of the cornerstones of your Chamber’s work. Please consider assisting us in collecting this information in an anonymous survey.
Thank you.