Planned Blackouts Place Some California Residents at Risk
The large California electric utilities have plans to strategically deploy planned blackouts during high-risk periods to help control wildfires throughout the state. While this might be the best approach for the greater good, there will certainly be some residents who will be adversely impacted. For these people, this begs the question, does the end justify the means?
Who is at Risk from Planned Blackouts?
One segment of the population that will likely be negatively impacted by this approach is nursing home residents. The reason is because many rely on special equipment that cannot operate during outages – whether planned or not.
While it is true that most nursing homes – if not all – have some form of backup power, it’s not an unlimited supply. In fact, some nursing homes are said to have backup power that only lasts for about 6 hours. According to Jason Belden of the California Association of Health Facilities, the vast majority of California nursing homes are not equipped to be out of power for more than a day.
You might think nursing home residents could be evacuated in the scenario of a multi-day outage, but this course of action has its own perils. Belden claims that, on average, 3% of evacuated nursing home residents pass away within 30 days after being evacuated. So whether the strategy is to shelter in place or evacuate, planned blackouts can be risky for this segment of the population.
Case studies indicate that during planned outages lasting more than one day, nursing home patients will likely be negatively impacted. For example, during a power outage from Hurricane Irma, 12 of the 150 residents of a Florida nursing home died trying to wait out the loss of power.
Unfortunately, there is no clear solution. The only thing nursing homes can do is optimize their emergency plans, obtain the best backup power solution possible, and enter into agreements with local contractors to help out when they’re in a pinch. But will it be enough to overcome the immense risk from planned blackouts? Only time will tell.
