SDG&E Power Outage

What a day it was yesterday!

I was in my last class of the day and really very excited it was almost over because it was about 100 degrees out and you are just sticking or sliding down your chairs. My school sent out an email on the 7th saying SDG&E asked them to cut back on using AC for fear of possible power outage. Well at 3:40pm five minutes before our class let out the power was OUT! It didn't seem like much of a big deal until you start trying to make calls and none of them are going through. Then as I was exiting the campus realizing it is rush hour and NONE of the traffic lights were working thats when I started to freak out a little bit. I was just above the gas E line to make matters more stressful..Finally I made it on to the freeway and it was a steady 30 miles all the way to my exit which is about 15 miles. It took me about 45-55 min's for what usually takes about half the time. Each exit has about a mile wait. I finally made it to my exit home and there are ambulances driving all around, 5 or 6 cops cars, and sirens for a solid hour/hour and half at least. Traffic was INSANE. I finally got off the exit and normally it is a 2 minute drive but it took me about 15. People were cursing and honking at each other to try and get through lights, people were blocking intersections, it was chaotic! Luckily i made it home and hopefully now I will be able to get to a gas station. All atms, restaurants, stores, gas stations, most of it was all closed. There were a few liquor stores open but it was all cash only...and we had no cash. We decided to go take a long walk outside on the beach because heck there wasn't much else to do! The streets were littered with people! It was actually great. Everyone was talking to one another, dogs were walking everywhere, people were playing guitar at the beach, working out, it was actually really pleasant. I was so stressed when I got home but as soon as we took that walk and were outside i was instantly calm. Maybe it was a good thing? Got everyone out of the house! So around 8pm sunset and it was so dark and quiet it was eerie. Luckily we did have gas so we made a big pot of soup and played sequence by candle light for about an hour and a half. It was again pretty peaceful and pleasant. My only complain was that it was so hot...It was hot outside and more hot with the candles..at around 9:10 we noticed a light in our kitchen and our fans popped on! I think everyone in Oceanside gave a screaming WooHoo and you could hear all the happy voices in the street :) That part was pretty neat.

They estimated 5 million people were affected.
1.4 million were out of power.
It last 6 or so hours.
3.2 million gallons of sewage were let out into a local lagoon (accidentally).
120,000 gallons of fuel and waste were let out (accidentally) from a fueling station.
All schools are closed today.
San Onofre went offline at about 3:40.
Arizona, Southern California and Mexico were affected.

It was an interesting experience. Made me think about how the East coast lost power for DAYS..
I am grateful we are all ok and that power is back on.