California public safety power shutdowns

Fri Oct 11 06:57:53 UTC 2019

A pre-announced power shut-down is a bit like an open-book disaster exam.
If a city wasn't prepared for a blackout, its going to be a lot worse 
after a major earthquake (or other catastrophe) hits.

PG&E CEO Bill Johnson admitted during a Thursday evening press conference 
that the utility thoroughly botched its Public Safety Power Shutoff, 
apologizing to customers.
[...]
Johnson also apologized for all the technical problems with the PG&E 
website and promised to get them right next time.

“Our website crashed several times. Our maps are inconsistent and maybe in 
correct. Our call centers were overloaded,” said Johnson. “To put it 
simply, we were not adequately prepared to support the operational event.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/11/pge-shut-down-power-too-many-internet-users-shut-down-its-website/
[...]
PG&E says the site was never completely inaccessible, but that it was slow 
to load amid heavy traffic.

PG&E spokesman Paul Doherty said the utility doubled its server capacity 
in advance of the outages but that the traffic levels were eight times 
what PG&E expected and slowed the site significantly. He said he did not 
know exactly how many people had tried to visit the site.

Doherty said the utility made efforts to inform affected customers over 
email, text and phone calls so they would know whether they were likely to 
be in the outage zone. The company says it has since addressed the issues 
with its website.
[...]