The Sacramento Bee has an interesting slice of disaster response on their website. Listen to the highway patrol dispatchers call the fire department and evacuate the building. If you have ever wondered what sort of person it takes to work at a switchboard in an emergency, it takes someone who trudges through the tasks of calling everyone despite the fact you are scared and shaking.
I wonder if they had blacked out portions of Southern California this week if the crisis would be over now. It seems that the news organizations down here have taken a sort of “sucks to be Northern California” attitude. Maybe its because people (like me) who live in the Cities of Los Angeles, Burbank, Pasadena, and Anaheim are not directly affected. I bet if they started shutting off the power in Beverly Hills, a remedy would have already been found. Also, the fact that the utility companies are out of money is in no way related to the blackouts. They simply state that there is not enough power to go around, which I find extremely hard to believe. I still stand by the notion that it is another screw up by some big corporation, and we the taxpayers have to foot the bill and lose our jobs due to layoffs by companies that can no longer pay the bills.