BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Many in the state of California don't know about PG&E's safety and infrastructure team making sure your lights, fridge, and gas are on during a wildfire or outage.
- PG&E wildfire operations team protects gas facilities, substations, and hydroelectric plants.
- Forty-five PG&E teams are placed in high threat areas,
- Wild Fire Operations Team protecting towers means a lower cost for customers.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
In the state of California, many don't know that PG&E are protecting areas in Bakersfield keeping your utilities working.
The Wildfire operations team is making sure you have electricity and gas inside your home.
"We are heading out towards an area we call the grapevine." tells me in the car.
Randy Skelton is a PG&E Wildfire operations supervisor he took me on a ride along to the base of the grapevine, where members of his team were 'treating' one of their poles.
Kern County is one of 8 areas that PG&E has monitored for the last five years protecting gas facilities, substations, and hydro plants.
Randy explains, "We try to get there as quickly in advance of the Wildfire impacting our power poles."
Matt Berg is also a member of the Safety and Infrastructure Protection Team and tells me, although he never knows who is directly impacted by an outage it's always a priority.
Matt Berg stresses, "It could be a hospital one of our customer's houses, so we want to keep the power on."
Part of the work includes clearing vegetation around the base of the poles and applying a water retardant mixer which protects it from future wildfire threats.
Matt Berg let's me know, "It reduces the ability for whatever it's on to burn, whether it is the vegetation or poll and it lasts for two weeks after it dries."
With this year's wildfire season being one of the busiest in recent memory, Skelton tells me the areas of Taft and Lost Hills were hit the hardest, and protecting these towers means lowering the cost for customers.
Randy Skelton says, "The more assets we can protect the quicker the community can be restored."
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