School district releases emergency plan for potential public safety power shutoff
Submitted by the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District
–Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has developed a plan to shut off power to our local region when highrisk wildfire conditions occur. They are referring to this event as a ‘Public Safety Power Shutoff’ (PSPS).
According to PG&E, these are the factors that would cause them to declare a PSPS:
- Winds of 25 + mph, with gusts in excess of 45 + mph
- Low humidity
- Dry fuel/vegetation
The PSPS plan is a proactive measure to avoid a wildland fire sparked by power lines. As a school district, student and staff safety are our highest concern. This loss of power will impact our schools, hence we have developed the following plan when a local PSPS event takes place:
1. If power is shut off during the school day, school will remain in session until the end of the normal school day. Any after school events will be canceled. Parents may come in to pick up their students if they wish.
2. When PG&E announces that the next day will be without power, school will be canceled at any impacted school sites.
3. School will resume after power is fully restored.
We encourage all families to have reserve food and water supplies and to follow all guidance and suggestions from PG&E as well as local authorities. For additional information regarding a PSPS event, please visit the links provided below:
- Safety Action Center: www.safetyactioncenter.pge.com
- Weather Portal: www.pge.com/weather
- Non-Customer PSPS Alerts: www.pge.com/pspszipcodealerts
Finally, we will make every possible attempt to update our families each day of the possible outages on the status of school for the following day. It is imperative that the schools have your accurate contact information. Please contact your school’s secretary for assistance in updating your information.
We will continue to monitor PSPS circumstances and keep you informed. Please know that we have been advised the weather forecast for next Monday, Oct. 28, predicts dry conditions and high winds which may result in a PSPS. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Curt Dubost, Superintendent
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