Many Californians, up to a million so far, have been affected by the recent power outages. What sort of damages will result from it remain to be seen, but will undoubtedly be high and for some, long term. These haven’t been brought about by a natural disaster this time, but hopefully have prevented the likes of the Paradise (Camp) Fire of 2018. Sometimes drastic measures must be taken, though this could have well been prevented through better management of the utilities, such as mandating undergrounding of the lines when possible. Nonetheless, this will be a -problem that will pass. We will learn from it and move forward as we always do. We are Californians after all, are we not?
This state has gone through a lot in its history, far worse than this. All disasters teach us something and we grow stronger from them. For example, on March 10, 1933, the southern Los Angeles area, focusing on Long Beach, was struck by a major earthquake. The damage was great but the lives lost were rather low. Had the event occurred just a couple hours earlier, many hundreds of lives, most of which would have been school children, would have lost their lives due to poor construction of schools. One month to the day, the Field Act was passed creating stronger codes for school construction and empowered the Division of the State Architect to ensure their proper construction. As a result, no lives have been lost as a result of earthquake damage at a school since. Keep this in mind as we all deal with this event. It will pass. It may take time for it to do so. It may happen again soon. But it will pass.
For additional information about these power outages, contact your local power company for details. They may have already contacted you as well.