The PG&E bankruptcy for similar causes demonstrates that a total wipeout is very plausible - and deserved, in that case. I don't know what PacifiCorps' history is, but PG&E has such a record of killing its own customers and destroying property that I consider the CA Public Utilities Commission to bear a lot of responsibility as well. There's no way they could not know what kind of company they were dealing with after the San Bruno gas line explosion in 2010, but they did very little to focus the company on operating safely in the intervening years.

Now we're left in a situation where PG&E just turns the power off whenever they consider weather conditions too risky. Undergrounding power lines is underway but completion is probably a decade off.

The more extreme weather conditions get, the better the case for distributed solar + storage.

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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