For residents of California, the pain of the tragedy still stings. Nineteen months after the entire city of Paradise burnt to the ground, killing 84 people, the local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, has plead guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter for all 84 of the lives lost.
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Investigators determined that the fire was ignited when a faulty clamp, called a C-hook, allowed a live wire to brush up against a high-voltage transmission tower northeast of the town of Paradise, showering sparks on the dry grass below.
“Our equipment started that fire,” said Johnson, who took over PG&E six months after the catastrophe. “I wish there were some way to take back what happened.”
“We’re doing everything we can to make this right,” he said.
This guilty plea may at least be a step in the direction of making it right, but it hardly ends one of the ugliest chapters in recent memory for northern California residents. Beloved Kossacks paradise50 and Smileycreek lost their home in this fire, and tens of thousands of other residents had just minutes to pack up and flee before the fire consumed the entire city.
Until more is done by the company to update its aging grid that caused this tragedy (and several others over the years), PG&E is yet another monopoly that puts a price on the cost of the lives they end and destroy. The shareholders’ profits are protected above the lives of the residents the company serves.
The costs of the lawsuits are always simply passed along to its customers, who have no option to opt-out of service besides going without power or “off the grid”. And even those people are subject to the next fires caused by the company. And yes, there will be more.