By Tim Redmond
DECEMBER 12, 2014 – I always tell me kids that I had to walk to school all winter in the deep snow, in bare feet, ten miles, uphill both ways – and then walk another ten miles to work in the salt mines after classes ended. The story gets more involved every time I tell it. They are not amused.
But the reality is, I did walk to school in the snow (well, less than a mile, but still…) And the schools in North Tarrytown, NY only closed when the drifts were so deep that the buses couldn’t get through. On the East Coast, there are storms in the winter; people generally go about their business.
I know SFUSD exercised an abundance of caution yesterday when all public schools were shut down. City College cancelled all classes. Those were probably prudent moves, since the news media whipped us all into such a frenzy over “stormageddon.”
What actually happened: It rained.
Yeah, a few low-lying areas flooded, as happens when it rains a lot after not raining a lot for a long time. But stormageddon? As my colleague Tom Temprano notes, it was more like gentledownpourageddon.
And still: Power went out all over the city. More than 60,000 PG&E customers had no electricity all day. And that’s crazy.
PG&E knew the storm was coming. This is a big corporation, with lots of employees. The feared gusting high winds never appeared, so there weren’t a lot of trees falling and power lines crashing. Some, not a lot.
In San Francisco, it just rained. And the power company couldn’t keep the lights on.
According to PG&E, a substation near Civic Center blew out. Why? Because it was raining. I mean, is our private-power infrastructure really that weak? PG&E can’t even handle a decent downpour? We have to be in a state of perpetual drought or we can’t have stable electricity?
Muni ran buses in the rain. The Board of Supervisors held hearings. Most (public) city business went on just fine. And yet, we continue to entrust one of the most crucial parts of our city to a company that melts when it rains.
