In the wake of the recent windstorm that caused major damage throughout the San Gabriel Valley, Assemblymember Anthony Portantino (who represents part of Monrovia) has proposed legislation to require each utility to report with every county in its service area every two years to review, update and improve their emergency disaster and preparedness plans. Portantino's proposal would also have the California Public Utilities Commission set preparedness standards
- Brad Haugaard (from press release)
So now the Great Portantino figures he can legislate how utlilties respond to Mother Nature's hissy fits? He has this level of wisdom? Why did he not predict the storm and cause his subjects to prepare in advance, instead of react, sit in the dark? This is absurd. Not every problem is worthy of the attention of ink-seeking politicians. Very few ink-seeking politicans know anything useful as to how to deal with failures in complex systems such as electric and other utilities. The numb Adam Schiff was planning a meeting to "talk about" the response of utilities to the wind damage, but this is more posturing. He has no capacity to understand technical issues or evaluate courses of action to deal with them. I have listened extensively to the guy. Portantino is no better, but also using the wind as an issue to promote himself. The idea that uneducated and ignorant politicians can write law that will make things better is aimed at securing reelection or promotion (as the Great Portantino does) to a higher rung at the taxpayer food trough. These people have no ability to evaluate a course of action from a technical perspective, and the vagaries of chance render any such plan obsolete and inadequate by the time it is finished, even when SCE's best engineers figure it out. How bad and where will the next mess be? Politicians pretend they can predict this. And their dependents believe them.Planning, obivously is useful. I run a little company, and have multiple plans for different scenarios. None of them are right, because we cannot predict exactly the future. When the future arrives, we are better off for the planning for what we learned doing it. But only that, and there are always gaps or nunace we didn't think of. Portantino's and Schiff's need to get out of the way. SCE particularly has had plenty of feedback for what they did right and what they did right that didn't please their customers. They will learn from it, have every incentive to do so. Ink-seekers need to shut up, and generally, people need to figure out that nature and life are more complex than we can ever know.Once a body can accept that, you can figure out that you are your first, most informed lifeline and care giver. So store some water, meds and food, some candles...build a little margin into life that allows you just a little independence and running room when things become unusual. It's very easy, but it does depend on a concept that you might have to be responsible for yourself sometimes, for a little while. Prepare as you can and as you are comfortable, but take a little control over your life besides setting an alarm clock. I think far more people do than not, but buffoonery from Great Men like Portantino should have more negative feedback than it seems to generate. What I like for preparation is not what you like, and don't do as I do unless you want to. But do something. You are worth the investment. If you are sitting in the dark, starving and freezing, look first into a mirror to tell someone off. Politicians always get what they want first. You are second. What did you do about it?
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