California sent a scary text message urging residents to cut their power use, and it worked
The emergency messages flashed across cell phones at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday with a jump-out-of-your seat alarm telling Californians this was serious stuff.
Extreme triple-digit heat had pushed the state’s energy grid to its limits and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services issued an all-points emergency alert telling residents in two-dozen California counties to shut down and save power or face rolling blackouts:
“Conserve energy now to protect public health and safety. Extreme heat is straining the state energy grid. Power interruptions may occur unless you take action. Turn off or reduce nonessential power if health allows, now until 9 p.m.”
It worked.
Californians by the millions unplugged and ISO, the California Independent System Operator, “saw an immediate and significant drop in energy use, providing some relief to the state’s grid,” state emergency officials said in a statement Tuesday night.
The message, also sent in Spanish, targeted urban centers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the arid counties of the southern San Joaquin Valley, north state counties like Butte and Shasta, where high temperatures can climb past 110 degrees, and in Sacramento, which broke an all-time record with a 116-degree day on Tuesday.
The Office of Emergency Services officials on Tuesday said the 24 counties were targeted “because they are in areas of significantly above average temperatures, high population density and high concentrations of air condition use.”
Californians may have to answer the alarm again Wednesday. The ISO held a briefing Wednesday morning to update the status of the state’s exhausted energy grid after Tuesday’s unprecedented strain on the system and urge Californians to continue to conserve power.
National Weather Service forecasters say the extreme heat will continue into Friday.
This story was originally published September 7, 2022 at 12:14 PM with the headline "California sent a scary text message urging residents to cut their power use, and it worked."
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