As the Hennessey Fire spread through Vacaville and other wildfires across the Bay Area on Wednesday, the firefighters also appeared to take power lines and phone calls off their path, adding accidents to the expected rolling blackouts that occurred in the afternoon. could come.
The loss of power and damage to systems threatens critical Bay telephone and Internet infrastructure in Bay Area used for emergency warning systems and for residents to find critical information online.
While providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have plans for outages, their systems could face a critical test as the Northern California fire tax affects large parts of the region and combines with rolling blackouts that the state has not had for decades. experienced.
More than 5,000 residents in Vacaville and the surrounding area are still without power, according to the PG&E exit map. High heat, high demand and lightning also caused power outages Wednesday morning, according to a tweet from PG&E.
The Bay Area power outage reached 5:17 p.m. yesterday, when 24,000 customers in Napa County were without power, Jeff Smith spokesman Jeff Smith wrote in an email. Electrical service was proactively shut down for some customers on August 17 and 18 at the request of firefighters, added Brandi Merlo, another PG&E representative, in an email.
Several residents during the evacuations reported on Twitter Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that they had not received any emergency alarms due to power outages. Those outages appeared to be related to the fires, as the rolling blackouts regulators warned them were being stopped by conservation measures.
The Napa County Sheriff’s Office uses a “hi-lo” siren (a European siren with a unique sound compared to a traditional siren) to warn residents who may have lost power or have no cell access to to evacuate, said Henry Wofford, the public information officer for the sheriff’s office. Officers drive as slowly as 5 miles per hour at times along streets with the evacuation system to make sure people hear the sound and know how to evacuate or seek information.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office uses the same siren, officials said in a news release Wednesday morning.
Officers will also go door to door as needed to ensure people are evacuated, he said, emphasizing that for those who receive the evacuation warning, early compliance helps prevent officers and firefighters from risking the lives of residents later in life. rescues stuck in their homes.
Internet service providers need access to power to distribute digital signals. “Our service requires commercial power to operate,” said Joan Hammel, spokesman for Comcast. Comcast coordinates with Cal Fire both to ensure firefighters have Internet access and to make them aware of critical Internet infrastructure locations, she added.
Comcast uses backup generators to ensure continuous Internet access during a power outage, Hammel said, but notes that the company may not be able to maintain Internet services over its network, depending on the length and size of the power outage.
“The size and magnitude of this heat wave is enormous,” Hammel said. “It’s only so long as we can support services on generators.” Even people with generators will lose internet access if the distribution center loses power.
If residents lose power and do not have access to their own generator, their internet routers can go from house to house, killing Wi-Fi signals and leaving them dependent on cell service. If the wireless telephone network also fails, then residents can have no way of receiving essential alerts and information.
If possible, Bay Area residents should have a plan in place that will enable them to activate unlimited data plans for their cell phones during a power outage, Hammel said. Some wireless carriers have deviated from data such as fees during emergency firefighting.
PG&E recommends that customers prepare for outages by taking into account phones, laptops and other devices. Rotation turns usually take 2-3 hours, the program said, although unplanned outages can vary in length. If still burning fires prevent crews from reaching damaged areas to make repairs, outages can be long.
The power outages and fires also affected cell towers. AT&T and Verizon have backup batteries as backup generators on most sites, but more than one million people lost mobile service (and thus access to emergency alerts) during PG & E’s fire prevention blackouts.
The California Public Utility Commission voted in July to request a 72-hour backup during cell phone calls during emergencies, and wireless providers have 11 months to develop a resistance plan and implement the required deployment.
San Mateo County resident Steve Portigal expressed frustration over the emergency number alert system there, which sent him a link Tuesday night that did not work on his mobile phone and then directed him to COVID-19 sources instead of information about wildfire. Last year’s fires knocked out cell service where he lives, and he’s not sure what to do other than plan ahead and rely on neighbors if he loses cell service this year.
“While we do everything we can to minimize the impact of power outages, there are discrete areas where we are unable to install generators due to topographic or other limitations. In these rare cases, some customers may experience service disruptions or compromised network performance until commercial power is restored, ”Heidi Flato, a Verizon spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
“We understand the importance of keeping customers and first responders connected during emergencies, including power outages. As a result, from 2017 to 2019, we invested more than $ 8.7 billion in our California networks and announced a three-year, $ 340 million plan to add backup power to more selosites, ”wrote Jim Greer, a spokesman for AT&T. in a statement.
And people without internet or cellular access are at risk, regardless of the state of the infrastructure. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office housed 25 walkers last night 25 walkers in the fire department evacuation area of the Point Reyes National Seashore, where they had limited or no cellular service, according to a Tweet from the sheriff’s office.
Anna Kramer is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @anna_c_kramer
