Santa Cruz County residents prepping for 2nd round of shutoffs

At Wild Roots Market in Felton, customers and staff are already dreading the new routine set to happen again over the next couple of days.

“Comcast actually went off as well, which was an inconvenience because our generator does not power the internet,” said Cheryl Gott, one of the managers at Wild Roots Market.

Mandatory power shutoffs set on by PG&E means gift and credit cards may not work, impacting business. but the market has a generator, saving food and merchandise.

Many residents still have the first round of outages fresh in their minds. They are now unfortunately experienced in the shut off game, learning how to get through tough stretches in the dark.

“I sleep with a breathing machine, and I have backup power for what I thought would be two nights, but it went flat in the middle of the first night,” said Carol Panofsky, a Santa Cruz County resident. “So this time, I’m going to have to be more careful to keep those batteries charged up.”

“Fortunately, I have all the ice packs still in those blue ice-type things already in my freezer, and they’re all frozen so,” said Bruce Schulz, a Scotts Valley resident.

Many Scotts Valley residents already have all the supplies kept from the shutoff earlier this month, including water, meat to barbecue and other essential items like ice.

PG&E is planning shutoffs because of what they say is a potentially historic wind even this weekend. Residents are not so convinced.

“Perhaps historic winds here, well I’ll believe it when I see it so,” said Schulz.

But the utility company says the wind impacting power has to do with your grid, not your exact location. If a fire were to break out in the Santa Cruz County area, Cal Fire says they already have at least nine extra engines and hand crews on standby.

As California sees large fires breaking out in the northern and southern parts of the state, people still have mixed feelings about whether these shutoffs are all worth it.

“I think they should do more to find a solution rather than just turning everybody’s power off,” said Gott.

“All things considered, I think it’s better to be safe than to burn up,” said Panofsky.

The San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District announced that all their schools will cancel class on Monday because of the shutoffs.

KION 2019