Power outage from Cambria down to us in the San Luis Obispo County South on the Central Coast

[Cleita]

for about four hours this evening. What was scary is that there was no way to find out what was happening. Our power comes mostly from a nuke plant operated by PG & E. I have a battery powered radio that proved to be mostly useless to find out information. Mostly, no one gives a crap because all the radio stuff is mostly outsourced except for the sponsors they solicit for commercials. The FCC needs to investigate. We need communication for emergencies. I accessed a local TV station on my cell phone's ability to get the internet and they tried to put up information. It still was inadequate. A real emergency would not be met very well in this county.

[pinto]

1. It was a breakdown in 2 transmission lines from Morro Bay (per KSBY). Those big ones on Route 1.

I disagree with your point about a real emergency though. I worked in Public Health and we were all trained to be part of a coordinated county-wide emergency response team. That included local law enforcement, local and county fire departments, state agencies, etc.

[Cleita]

3. I guess all is well. I had nightmares about El Diablo having a meltdown and we would be none

the wiser with no communication around. I'm happy KSBY was on the ball but it did no one without a generator any good because we had no TV. My cell phone charge was low so I really couldn't use it that much. I know we have response teams. I'm just fed up with our pathetic radio set-up here. The stations are right out of 1984. The people own the airwaves I have been told. I believe it's time to make the FCC make the station owners offer community friendly programming especially when we need to know things. I finally did find an FM station with updates, but had to suffer through shows about dating advice etc. to get them.

It was so dark last night too. Where was that super moon we were supposed to have? It never showed its face before I went to bed.

Sigh.

[bananas]

2. That's why twitter is so popular

It's the only place with live updates.

https://twitter.com/JohnHyphenO/status/349042465929560064

https://twitter.com/melissajenna/status/349033221800988673

https://twitter.com/melissajenna/status/349038758676529154

https://twitter.com/erinreiman/status/349018373952262144


The official pg&e twitter feed is https://twitter.com/PGE4Me

[Cleita]

4. Thank you but without a computer, it does us no good and computer was off-line most of the night

once my back-up battery shut off. It only stays on for fifteen minutes. It's radio most of us need at times like this.

[bananas]

5. I agree 100%

In the 2011 San Diego blackout I didn't want to run down my phone battery checking twitter.

Fortunately the local radio stations went into live news mode with local staff taking calls on the air. They should have done that with your blackout too.

[Piedras]

6. KCBX (SLO NPR radio station) will be getting an emergency generator to better stay on air.

I experienced the blackout too. Wondered, Sunday, how far spread the electrical blackout was. This is not the first time I've experienced a regional blackout. One previous time, also at night, I got in the car and drove south on 101 a few miles hoping to see lights on. After driving a few miles and seeing no city lights nor able to get a local radio signal with local news I turned back home, in the dark, to wait it out.

Good news. While listening to KCBX Tuesday, or Wednesday, they said they used battery power with a weaker signal to stay on-air during the black out. They said they plan to get a generator so the radio station can better continue to broadcast when there are electrical outages.

With the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant nearby, plus occasional fires, floods, earthquakes, etc. it'll be good for KCBX to (soon) have a more robust ability to provide timely emergency information to people on California's Central Coast.

[Cleita]

7. Thanks. It's good to know that someone is on the ball at last. n/t