California fires

[waialua]

Parts of California have serious wild fire problems due to high winds from the east. My heart goes out to all those who are caught up in this. While we do live in the high desert, we do not have those destructive winds or the fire danger. Should anyone need placement of their hounds temporarily please contact us through this greyhound group. We have plenty of space for extra hounds and people. Bishop is not exactly close to anywhere, but we are safe from the fires.

[macoduck]

That's very nice of you to offer to help.

[seeh2o]

My friends were evacuated all day yesterday, so from about 7:45am - 6:45pm we had 110 greyhounds and 1 galgo at my house! They went home and the electricity was back on, too. 

 

I can't believe in 2019 rolling blackouts are even a discussion. Our utility companies need to be public, there should never be stock holders for such things 

[Remolacha]

4 minutes ago, seeh2o said:

My friends were evacuated all day yesterday, so from about 7:45am - 6:45pm we had 110 greyhounds and 1 galgo at my house! They went home and the electricity was back on, too. 

 

I can't believe in 2019 rolling blackouts are even a discussion. Our utility companies need to be public, there should never be stock holders for such things 

I hope you meant 10 greyhounds 

[dmdsmoxie]

29 minutes ago, Remolacha said:

I hope you meant 10 greyhounds 

LOL

I was thinking the same thing.

Even with their rolling blackouts PG&E still caused one of the two big wildfires. You can't keep shutting the power off every time the weather conditions become dry and windy out there.  there must be 5 or 6 times a year the conditions are like that and how do restaurants and businesses survive?  How about all the spoiled food in people's homes if the outage goes for a few days.

Not being an electrician I don't know the answer to this. In your house if something shorts out you would blow a circuit breaker. I know there is a lot more power running through the lines so I assume there are no circuit breakers big enough to put on the lines so when a line goes down or a transformer gets hit that the circuit would blow.  We have all seen the wires or transformer just sparking away.

[MaryJane]

Logic would dictate that the electric lines should get buried underground so the chance of this happening would be less. Europe has about 40% of their lines underground.  This could work in California and places where there are severe winter storms causing outages for weeks. Much more expensive to initially put in underground lines but, savings in the long term would be considerable in terms of lost lives and property destruction.   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding

[Time4ANap]

5 hours ago, MaryJane said:

Logic would dictate that the electric lines should get buried underground so the chance of this happening would be less. Europe has about 40% of their lines underground.  This could work in California and places where there are severe winter storms causing outages for weeks. Much more expensive to initially put in underground lines but, savings in the long term would be considerable in terms of lost lives and property destruction.   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding

The problem isn't the lines running to homes, but is the high voltage lines that bring electricity to the area that were causing most of the fires.  I think all home lines should be buried as we've always had way fewer outages when the lines were buried on our various homes. 

The high voltage lines open up a whole new set of problems for installation and maintenance due to the space required and the logistics of installation and maintenance. They are much more complex than the lines running to your home.  Typically the high voltage lines are about 230,000 volts.  Although this document is written by an energy company,  it does give you an idea of what's involved with the high voltage lines when installed underground.  In a few of the places where we've lived, the water table alone would have prohibited this, and here in AZ the caliche a few feet down in the ground would make it impossible as well. The caliche is why there are few basements here, and it costs 3-4 times the normal cost to install a pool here in many areas. 

[seeh2o]

LOL, yes, 10 greyhounds and 1 galgo!  Here is a little video of them being sooo stressed out. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZYzH7tpobT3UG5G47

 

Let me know if you have problems with the link.

 

 

[Remolacha]

Oh dear, the level of stress and anxiety! 

[45MPHK9]

11 hours ago, MaryJane said:

Logic would dictate that the electric lines should get buried underground so the chance of this happening would be less. Europe has about 40% of their lines underground.  This could work in California and places where there are severe winter storms causing outages for weeks. Much more expensive to initially put in underground lines but, savings in the long term would be considerable in terms of lost lives and property destruction.   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergrounding

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Put-PG-E-s-power-lines-underground-It-can-be-14565060.php?fbclid=IwAR3GWPU0NqU1DlOe8AakET3Nxpm-j_rfd8uCMayt2aFk-00hHUmd6ZMuqso

[Lexi]

Wow, that's one stressed out looking bunch of dogs. Hope you were able to get them to relax later.