As you may have heard by now, parts of Southern California experienced a huge electrical power outage that left communities from Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel, south to northern Baja California, Mexico and east to Yuma, AZ without power for nearly 12 hours. Approximately 5 million people were "powerless" as the result of a seemingly minor maintenance error that cut electricity to customers of San Diego Gas And Electric. I'm sure there will be plenty of investigations as to how a minor event could have affected such a large customer base, but that's not why I'm writing this post.
What really struck me was the controlled chaos that ensued in the early hours of the outage. Occurring early in the evening commute, drivers were left to their own devices as traffic signals went dead creating a potential hazard at every major intersection. We've all suffered through a four-way stop with one lane in each direction...now imaging when there are 3 lanes plus a left turn lane at each point of the intersection. That's 16 cars trying to get through the same intersection at the same time!
Another situation that really threw me was the inability of anyone in the outage area to purchase fuel. All gasoline pumps are electric powered so no matter that stations had gasoline in their tanks, there was no ability to deliver it to the pump. Phone service, both land line and cellular, were also severely restricted.
Of course, no electricity means no lights in the retail stores but also no computer driven checkout and no ATMs to deliver cash...and any retailer that was open (markets, 7-Eleven, etc) were only accepting cash. People were scrambling for batteries, flashlights, bottled water, non-perishable food and candles. Local Costco stores immediately sold out of gasoline run generators.
Fortunately, there were few incidents of looting or mass hysteria but this event should put us all on task to get our emergency supplies ready and have an emergency plan in place for connecting with our families.
There was a bright side (pardon the pun) to this power outage. Many communities whether, condos, neighborhood and even hotels experienced a level of face to face contact that has been slowly slipping away from our ever-connected (cell, text, computer) society. People actually came out from their homes and set up neighborhood bar-b-ques or just got together as a community to see it through. No TVs, computers and cell phones may have actually brought some folks back together.
For local Orange County emergency information, visit this page at OCGOV.COM
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