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After a scorching Labor Day weekend, temperatures soared even higher on Tuesday. About 42 million Americans were under excessive heat warnings, including those in parts of Nevada and Arizona, with red-flag fire conditions covering the Pacific Northwest, Montana and Idaho. [San Francisco Bay Area] trains operated at reduced speeds because of the potential for heat-warped tracks to cause derailments.
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By midafternoon, the state had broken a record, set 16 years ago, for energy use. Throughout the day, officials pleaded for conservation. At 5:30 p.m., California ISO [which manages most of the state’s grid] issued its highest level of alert — the last precursor for blackouts, and a few cities cut power to some areas over the course of about an hour.
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Blackouts can have severe consequences for the most vulnerable, particularly older people who cannot handle high temperatures or who rely on lifesaving devices. And politically, outages have loomed perilously over California leaders ever since Gray Davis was recalled as governor in 2003.