After it’s over and the streets are opened, the electricity is back on, the news catches up with last week’s story.
1/13/08
Residents learn emergency preparedness the hard way
“People have got to be prepared at least a bit on their own,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner for Monterey County.
“This isn’t anything new,” Leist said, adding that the recent storm “was predicted well in advance. (People) think there’s a fire truck with their address on it to respond in an emergency, and that’s just not the case. In metropolitan areas — Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, for example — you get these folks who are unaccustomed to power outages and think there’s a big response out there.”
Too many people, Leist said, mistakenly rely on government response in a catastrophe, large or small.
Must explain the high concentration of government dependent Democrats around here.
1/9/08
Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach residents critical of PG&E
Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove residents who have been without power for five days say their frustration is growing with what they perceive as a lack of communication and services after Friday’s walloping storm.
“This is serious after five days,” said Kathie McAweeney of Pebble Beach.
As of late Tuesday, 3,855 Pacific Gas & Electric customers were without power on the Monterey Peninsula.
McAweeney said that five days without power — or heat — is taking its toll on residents, particularly her older neighbors. She said she accompanied an 85-year-old neighbor to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula on Monday. The neighbor was admitted with pneumonia, she said.
“Planning is everything for events like this,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner. “In today’s society, everybody is hooked to power — e-mail, ATM, phone — and they just demand it be up and running right away and it just can’t happen.”
Learn how to use those trophy kitchens, folks. You’ll be prepared the next time. Oh, what’s that? You eat at Whole Foods 5 times a week and go to happy hour for snacks? Might as well face it – you are hopeless.
John and Jennifer Johnson had been hunkered down in their home for five days. Both were dressed in knit sweaters and caps. “We stayed in bed,” said 82-year-old John Johnson.
He said they are preparing to pack their car and head to the Carmel Mission Inn.
Ah! there’s hope!
1/08/08
7,200 customers still out; PG&E drawing criticism
Some customers, dealing with lanterns for night lights and throwing away food from powerless freezers and refrigerators, expressed raw anger at the utility company.
They accused PG&E of not being prepared for winter, of putting the Peninsula on the bottom of the repair list and of relying on a painfully inadequate customer-service system to provide information updates on outages.
“I’ve been furious the whole time,” said Maureen Girard of Carmel, whose home was without electricity since Friday. “I’ve been here 34 years, and the trouble is always ‘A tree fell on the power lines.’
I believe it, but in all these years you’d think PG&E would have figured it out how to maintain the trees around the lines more effectively.”
Primo Waldsmith of Pebble Beach said: “One night that’s tolerable, but not four of five days. It’s ridiculous.”
Waldsmith – you live in Pebble Beach for cryin out loud. You have no sense of living this close to the nature’s beauty and Earth’s power. Buy a generator. Or move to LA.
Wake Of The Storm
