Millions of Californians Face Power Outages in the Largest Preventive Blackout
Bottled water and batteries were flying off the shelves at California stores as millions of customers prepared to live without electricity for days in the face of what Pacific Gas & Electric called an unprecedented wildfire danger.
The utility announced that it was shutting off power to 800,000 customers in 34 northern, central and coastal California counties beginning as early as midnight Wednesday to reduce the chance of fierce winds knocking down or toppling trees into power lines during a siege of hot, dry, gusty weather.
Gusts of 35 to 45 mph were forecast to sweep a vast swath of the state, from the San Francisco Bay area to the agricultural Central Valley and especially in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where a November wildfire blamed on PG&E transmission lines killed 85 people and virtually incinerated the town of Paradise....
