Wildfire 2024 Thread

[Brisketexan 105043]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

In the linked AP article, the plaintiffs are alleging severely under-maintained, arguably negligently so, infrastrcture

It's too bad that doing regular maintenance is viewed as a "cost" and not a requirement. The pole the seems to have fallen and started the fire was KNOWN to be a dangerous hazard.

There is no law or regulation requiring Xcel to fix their shit in a timeline manner, so they did not do anything about it.

I'd bet my bottom dollar the end of this lawsuit is gonna be merely civil, and nothing criminal. Despite this negligent manslaughter and wholesale destruction of thousands of acres of property.

I won't go CR here.  I'll just observe the pretty plain truth that when public utilities were changed from actual "public utilities" (regulated, with a guaranteed reasonable rate of return, and guaranteed recovery of reasonable operations and maintenance costs) to for-profit entities, things like this are bound to happen.  Yes, such things can also happen with a regulated utility -- no such operation is 100% failure-proof -- but the frequency and the likelihood would be materially lower.  If in one regime, you can spend $1000 to replace a pole, and you are guaranteed to recover that cost so you're out $0, and you make a guaranteed profit % on the value of your assets in-service....then you are more likely to replace that pole than you are under the second regime, where every dollar you spend on maintenance is a cost that eats into your return that you have to deliver to the shareholders.

"The market" will take care of this event.  There will be insurance payoffs, bankruptcy liquidations, and the like....but all that land will still be burned up.  There are some things "the market" doesn't handle particularly well.  I'd suggest that public utilities, or at least many aspects of those utilities, is one of them.  But my thoughts don't make a shit -- here we are, and here we shall stay.

[Leeroy Jenkins 2397]

Oncor is horrible at maintaining their lines as well.  They let trees grow up in the power lines which result in small fires and power outages all of the time.  

[Nicole44 22056]

I think about people like this when I think of xcel and what happened. Tragic shit. It’s more than just grass burning up there. People lost everything. And they are still doing their best to help others. Smdh. 

[Post Oak 20204]

 

[Rudiger 1160]

Will the Texas Supreme Court bail Xcel out? Probably. 

[Nicole44 22056]

How the prescribed burn worked…

[Kennythetiger 9374]

15 hours ago, Nicole44 said:

I think about people like this when I think of xcel and what happened. Tragic shit. It’s more than just grass burning up there. People lost everything. And they are still doing their best to help others. Smdh. 

$5.00 says that she’s telling him that he’s doing it wrong. 

[YGIFS 19449]

How can Texas; with all its resources, constantly fuck up energy and weather and cattle so frequently?  Can’t wait for the “beef prices are outta control because inflation!” Whining next month. 

[Captainant 27620]

48 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

How can Texas; with all its resources, constantly fuck up energy and weather and cattle so frequently?  Can’t wait for the “beef prices are outta control because inflation!” Whining next month. 

Because we privatize the profits of every endeavor and socialize the costs. The private energy company has been pulling in record profits with their rate increases, but doesn't give a fuck about maintenance because they LEGALLY DONT FUCKING HAVE TO GIVE A SHIT ABOUT FUCK.

We the taxpayer are going to again bail out these private for profit companies that are causing massive public damage and harm, and then when its all done we'll again get to pay ever higher rates. We have no recourse, this is the oligopoly that we have voted for. 

[YGIFS 19449]

But we still get to pretend we are a low tax state, right?

[Bevo 13559]

In many states, utilities are the largest donor to politicians. It was also government who wanted monopolies rather than multiple poles run around cities. So maybe government run by people who don’t know how to run shit and have compromised ethics are the problem.

[Herbie Hancock 7343]

Goddamn you miserable fucks

[YGIFS 19449]

So who are the miserable fucks that may have had a hand in the wildfire exacerbation?  The posters here are truly more powerful than we realized.  

[Kennythetiger 9374]

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

How can Texas; with all its resources, constantly fuck up energy and weather and cattle so frequently?  Can’t wait for the “beef prices are outta control because inflation!” Whining next month. 

You all didn’t fuck up the weather and cattle- just haven’t yet figured out that you can’t control everything. 

[YGIFS 19449]

We can’t prevent flammable power lines?  If only there were a hundred countries to look to for examples?

[Born to Run 6569]

Wildfires, like rapes, are completely unavoidable. Might as well sit back and enjoy it.

[YGIFS 19449]

Well, It could have been worse.  
 

Didn’t Texas pledge to eliminate wildfires or was it rape?  Or fire rape?  

[PTINS 3459]

On 3/7/2024 at 9:48 AM, Nicole44 said:

Well at least we have answers as to how it started.

A fire may have started in the vicinity of a damaged power pole ...

On 3/7/2024 at 10:00 AM, Post Oak said:

I can't believe they admitted it 

"its facilities appear to have played a role"

On 3/7/2024 at 10:06 AM, Brisketexan said:

Yeah...there must be some stone-cold evidence showing a busted utility pole as the point of origin.  Still, wonder about the interplay of that statement with their insurance coverage, if they coordinated with the carrier before making it, etc. 

Recall that there was similar litigation against Bluebonnet Electric (and importantly, the company that did their tree trimming - or failed to do so) after the Bastrop fires.  That was all insurance money in play.

A busted pole does not necessarily mean it caused the fire.

Re: The Bastrop Fire, I thought it started from a TAMU Forest Service controlled fire, that under windy conditions, got out of control.

"Similar litigation" ...  Sue the big company because they failed to do their tree trimming. Were they in the vicinity of the fire? No, it doesn't matter, they failed to do their tree trimming, so pay me and I'll go away.  

On 3/7/2024 at 10:16 AM, YChang said:

PG&E causing fires on the regular and other problems in CA. Now this outfit here. But nooooooo let's never really hold them accountable. 

Damn right. Every tree and every branch in proximity to every power line must be trimmed after ongoing, repeated inspections, every week?, month?, or year? (because, you know, those damn things keep growing back). 

If it was up to utilities, there would be no trimming involved, because there would not be a single tree or branch encroaching in the Right-of-way. Period. Just laser straight ribbons of grass with power lines running down the middle.

  

  Instead, you  see things like this every place you go.  Layers and layers of people, HOA's, agencies, foundations and companies, each with their own attorneys, saying you CANNOT trim that particular tree, branch, limb, twig or leaf. Either you clear the ROW, or you don't. Kinda like being pregnant. No grey areas.

The O&G industry is allowed to clear the ROW. In my experience, they fly the lines on a routine basis, identify encroachments (trees, barns, houses, driveways, buildings etc.), and remove them. In my first job, we had people walk from Tulsa to St. Louis, to document any abnormality along the pipeline route, things that could be identified from an airplane, which was the federal regulation. That was not normal or routine, or required, but something that was deemed necessary to ensure public safety and the operational integrity of that particular asset.

Granted, power lines don't usually explode. 

 

   

On 3/7/2024 at 11:54 AM, Frank Drebin said:

I am pretty sure PG&E was sued in to Bankruptcy, charged criminally, and paid something like $14 billion to victims in a trust.  What else do you want?

So, $4+ Billion for attorney's fees, and the rest into a trust. Money is set aside for the expressed intent of repairing and maintaining facilities, including ROW. And, invariably, some one will sue them to prevent them for doing just that.

On 3/7/2024 at 12:17 PM, YChang said:

You're right, they've certainly paid their share of penalties. They're out of bankruptcy protection now and it's closer to $5.4 billion in cash and 22.19 percent of its stock into a trust for the fire victims.

I'm talking about lack of accountability within PG&E at the corporate/senior leadership level and this culture of letting stuff like that happen regularly. Fwiw, I did some contract work with PG&E for a bit, and the everyday folks take their work seriously. 

Hey, if the post-bankruptcy PG&E does improve, then kudos to them as well! Was just drawing from past recall from living in CA and PG&E's repeated neglect with maintenance over costs. 

"FWIW, every day folks take their work seriously."

 

23 hours ago, Captainant said:

In the linked AP article, the plaintiffs are alleging severely under-maintained, arguably negligently so, infrastrcture

It's too bad that doing regular maintenance is viewed as a "cost" and not a requirement. The pole the seems to have fallen and started the fire was KNOWN to be a dangerous hazard.

There is no law or regulation requiring Xcel to fix their shit in a timeline manner, so they did not do anything about it.

I'd bet my bottom dollar the end of this lawsuit is gonna be merely civil, and nothing criminal. Despite this negligent manslaughter and wholesale destruction of more than a million acres of property

I have read that the pole was damaged, or snapped off (broken into 2 pieces, which doesn't necessarily mean the business end was touching the ground, maybe he hanging suspended in the air, or fallen. Each of those mean different things, and each would be addressed differently, including the time frame in which thet would be repaired or replaced.

Some would say if it can't be replaced immediately, just cut off the power until it can be. That is the only way to be 100% safe. Do you agree?

23 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I won't go CR here.  I'll just observe the pretty plain truth that when public utilities were changed from actual "public utilities" (regulated, with a guaranteed reasonable rate of return, and guaranteed recovery of reasonable operations and maintenance costs) to for-profit entities, things like this are bound to happen.  Yes, such things can also happen with a regulated utility -- no such operation is 100% failure-proof -- but the frequency and the likelihood would be materially lower.  

"The market" will take care of this event.  There will be insurance payoffs, bankruptcy liquidations, and the like....but all that land will still be burned up.  There are some things "the market" doesn't handle particularly well.  I'd suggest that public utilities, or at least many aspects of those utilities, is one of them.  But my thoughts don't make a shit -- here we are, and here we shall stay.

I agree. It is compounded by the fact that power lines and the power generation facilities are owned by different entities. When the legislature privatized the "public utilities", there was not a lot of forward thinking in their decision making. How can going from a public utility to a mosaic of for-profit companies be a bad thing?

23 hours ago, Leeroy Jenkins said:

Oncor is horrible at maintaining their lines as well.  They let trees grow up in the power lines which result in small fires and power outages all of the time.  

Addressed above.

 

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

How can Texas; with all its resources, constantly fuck up energy and weather and cattle so frequently?  Can’t wait for the “beef prices are outta control because inflation!” Whining next month. 

Well for one, we have a populace that demands to be catered to, without having any real idea what they are talking about.

There has to be balance between science and economics.  We could build planes that never crash, but nobody would be able to afford to fly. 

If something is done to 100% satisfaction, they are deemed to be negligent. Their has to be an allowance for failure, including people occasionally making a poor decision.

Saddling an entity with a $10+Billion judgement because one individual made a bad decision is ludicrous, but that is the world we live in. 

 

3 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

Goddamn you miserable fucks

Thanks! I guess I could have just made a shorter post.

To be clear, I don't accept compromising safety for profit. I have the scars to prove it.

But shit happens.

[PTINS 3459]

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

We can’t prevent flammable power lines?  If only there were a hundred countries to look to for examples?

I don't believe any other country has the litigious nature and punitive cost structure of the US.

[YGIFS 19449]

We are a litigious country.  We also have the most linear miles of  above ground power lines.  And we have the most proudly stupid people of any nation in the planet.  Potent cocktail.  

[Brisketexan 105043]

Thanks! I guess I could have just made a shorter post.
To be clear, I don't accept compromising safety for profit. I have the scars to prove it.
But shit happens.

I’m quite familiar with the Bluebonnet litigation after the Bastrop fire, including the evidence of causation from power lines. Bluebonnet’s OWN INVESTIGATION reached that conclusion, as well as the conclusion that its tree-trimming contractor had failed to do the job it was hired to do. You’re outta your lane on this one.
And yes, other than flat-out clearing all ROW of all vegetation that can grow tall, there’s always some risk (shit, no matter what you do, there’s SOME risk - a tornado can take out any infrastructure). We’re not talking about the cases where a utility indeed did all it reasonably could do, so don’t conflate the two scenarios.
In the current case, the EARLY evidence, apparently confirmed by Excel, is that a pole that was a known failure risk failed, allowing lines to spark a fire (lose tension, loose lines can spark a fire). If that’s what happened…it shouldn’t have happened.

[SquishMitten 10403]

Not going to address all of PTINS longcat, and I don’t necessarily disagree with the general point, but in this specific case, the fact that they came out so quickly and publicly acknowledged that their facilities are at least partially to blame, is a pretty damn strong indicator that they (or one of their subs) fucked up bad.

[Captainant 27620]

51 minutes ago, PTINS said:

I have read that the pole was damaged, or snapped off (broken into 2 pieces, which doesn't necessarily mean the business end was touching the ground, maybe he hanging suspended in the air, or fallen. Each of those mean different things, and each would be addressed differently, including the time frame in which thet would be repaired or replaced.

Some would say if it can't be replaced immediately, just cut off the power until it can be. That is the only way to be 100% safe. Do you agree?

Lmfao what a ridiculous false choice you're trying to steer the convos with. Replacing a known bad pole in a dry and windy area seems like a pretty high priority fix, and a pole isn't some earth shatteringly difficult replacement. 

It was a CHOICE based on a calculated risk to not replace a known bad and tagged pole. I don't fucking buy the argument that they didn't have resources to fix the pole. That's their entire fucking business. 

Why are you defending their CHOICE to let this risk stay loose and active?

[PTINS 3459]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Lmfao what a ridiculous false choice you're trying to steer the convos with. Replacing a known bad pole in a dry and windy area seems like a pretty high priority fix, and a pole isn't some earth shatteringly difficult replacement. 

It was a CHOICE based on a calculated risk to not replace a known bad and tagged pole. I don't fucking buy the argument that they didn't have resources to fix the pole. That's their entire fucking business. 

Why are you defending their CHOICE to let this risk stay loose and active?

I am not defending Excel. Period.

I am pushing back on the notion that everything done by every utility is driven 100% by profits.

Is sounds like Excel  was notified the pole was "snapped' in two, certainly damaged beyond repair, and the replacement should have been repaired prioritized.

I'm pretty sure any bad pole in the 50,000 square miles of West Texas is in a dry and windy area.  

Re: The Bastrop fire; I commented that I read reports early in the process that a controlled burn got out of control was a cause of a fire proximate to Bastrop. I have not read the final reports and have not seen any info pertaining to any litigation of same. 

Buried power lines are easy for new developments. For retro fits, they are extremely intrusive and expensive.

Damn near everybody I know with power lines on their property has issue with trees encroaching on the power/phone lines, and have chosen to keep the majority of the trees rather than cutting back the trees to the "recommended" distance.  

I don't live in areas with above ground lines, and don't live close to "green belts" that are really high pressure O&G pipelines.

Shit happens and people make poor choices. 

 

[InkaUtexas 25855]

4 hours ago, PTINS said:

 

Re: The Bastrop fire; I commented that I read reports early in the process that a controlled burn got out of control was a cause of a fire proximate to Bastrop. I have not read the final reports and have not seen any info pertaining to any litigation of same.

 

There were multiple fires in Bastrop. The first was started out near highway 1441 and was caused by a power line that fell in very high winds after a summer of no rain. The second was reportedly caused by a tractor clearing, caused a fire, and it then escaped. The third was a prescribed burn.

[Goredho 17394]

Significant storm coming through Colorado this Thursday.  Predictions in feet vs inches.  Might be some help.

[Schulz2.0 28951]

On 3/5/2024 at 7:39 AM, Nicole44 said:

I think 85% of the cattle in Texas are in the Panhandle. The loss of thousands of cattle due to the wildfires will be felt for years. 
 

 

Over 10,000 livestock died or had to be euthanized per The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/13/texas-wildfire-cattle-ranchers-climate-crisis

[Deej 76750]

On 3/8/2024 at 6:08 PM, Post Oak said:

 

"Then the Texas A&M Forest Service went to work on making all wildfires maroon."

[Rip76 4924]

[Biff Tannen 45661]

14 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

85% contained

[Biff Tannen 45661]

Now out

[Rip76 4924]

Probably going to be more cropping up with these fronts coming in.

[landman 559]

11 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

Probably going to be more cropping up with these fronts coming in.

and no rain in over a month.  Need something tropical (not hurricane) to come this way.

[chainsaw 9850]

Homeless guy?

[Hornius Emeritus 12448]

8 hours ago, chainsaw said:

Homeless guy?

Gender reveal?