Doncha just love it when...
 

The power company turns off the power, no warning, late in the afternoon?

Happened today in our part of the 'hood @5pm. Computer was ON and so was the TV.

Why can't they send out an alert that they're going to do that if they are fixing a problem that requires the power to go down?

I live in hurricane land, all servers / computers / Routers are on uninterrupted power supplies my entire house is on a 17.5 KW standby generator.

No power interruptions for me.

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Don't act like it's their fault you ignored the late notices.

It'll be even 'better' when Newsome has his way and make backup gas generators illegal.

The power company around here ihas gotten better at notifying people of their intentions to turn off power as well as when power is turned back on. It's not perfect but an improvement. I imagine it's because so many people complained over the years.

Make sure you have a battery backup unit for your computer.

https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/categories/power/uninterruptible-power-supply-ups-/N-13quq79

https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/tools/ups_selector

What! Did they run out of Australian coal to burn.

Just wait until 50 % of vehicles are ev’s, rolling blackouts everywhere

Worth checking that they have your contact info correct. Maybe a text alert was sent?

A co worker spent 2 hours yesterday trying to clear up a phone bill for her recently deceased mother. The mother was getting her bills via email so hadn’t updated her mailing address from a move a few years ago. The daughter doesn’t have access to mom’s email.

She only found out about the bill because a notice was mailed to her previous address and the rental office knew the family.

So far PG&E doesn't seem to provide notice of power about to go out but they are now doing a very good job of having power out locations recorded on their website. I think they have it automated because we all have Smart Meters.

What makes you think they turned it off versus having a failure?

Just yesterday, I received a card in the mail stating that our power utility is starting a new effort to cut down on the frequency of power outages.
They listed steps they are going to take...more tree trimming, more durable equipment, wind-resistant line equipment, and a couple more that I forget.

Turns out they were working in another part of the 'hood and needed to kill the power. Not sure if they were fixing the problem that caused the power to go out a few nights before or not. I think that problem was closer to us as it had lights flashing and a groan like a lot of voltage was going some place it shouldn't.

The notice they sent by mail will arrive next Thursday :D

I think the PG&E outages we have are failures so they wouldn't be able to give a warning. The semi-planned outages seem to have ample notice. I have a small Honda generator that runs on propane to keep the refrigerator going and charge cell phones.

What’s a power outage?

I googled it for you.

A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power blackout, a power failure, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. ... Power failures are particularly critical at sites where the environment and public safety are at risk

In case it was not immediately obvious, I was joking. In other words, I live in an area where I don’t see those things, lucky me, and I wonder why so many people live where that’s a routine occurrence…

It’s kind of like when baz asks, what’s a wife?