Lew Tremaine/The View from The Hill
As folks are surely aware, Fairfax had a power outage on Christmaas morning. Though I searched the internet for hours to find the cause, and how many PG&E or MCE Clean Energy customers were impacted, I could not find a crum of information.
The PG&E 800 number crashed, so affected customers could not get information on Christmas morning. As one might imagine, that left lots of folks a little panicked, as their Christmas dinner plans were left up in the air.
Folks turned to Next Door and other neighborhood social media threads, desperate for information. All we knew was that there was a projection that the electricity MIGHT be restored by 1:15 P.M. Anyone who had a turkey, or ham in the oven was, pardon the pun, left in the dark.
Fortunately, power was restored by 12:15 p.m. That was a break. But in the intervening three hours between power loss and restoration were nervous making for a lot of folks. On social media, residents were asking for advice on what to do if the power didn’t come back on.
An impressive number of folks who had gas ovens or generators, actually offered their Christmas morning kitchens to those in need of a place to finish their dinners. Now that, to me, embodies the Holiday Spirit. It would be a big ask to request such generosity, it was an even bigger offer to invite neighbors with such magnanimity. One had to be impressed with the community spirit.
That’s the shining thing about Fairfax (and I would include the San Geronimo Valley in this), is the sense of community. If one goes across our deeply divided country, it’s hard to imagine folks inviting potential strangers into their homes on a day that is normally reserved for family and friends. That is community unity, and it is heartening.
The entire, thankfully short lived, incident left me to wonder, though. Why are we in such a rush to ban natural gas from homes? Unless and until we can guarantee that electric power will never be lost, why ban the alternate energy source. I can’t really wrap my head around it. At some point, we have to recognize that we are not ready for such a drastic move. And it might be wise to slow down.
Christmas morning in Fairfax was, to be sure, nervous making. And lets face it, nothing says Christmas like the soothing tones of gas powered electric generators throughout the neighborhood.
I would have been happy for more information from PG&E, though I’m sure they were inundated by freaked out customers, on such an important day for so many. But the outpouring of generosity from my neighbors made me far happier. Man, I love living here.
(Lew Tremain is a resident of Fairfax and a former mayor. He writes a weekly column for Marinscope Community Newspapers and the Ross Valley Reporter.)
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