“Yes, our power company has a DEATH TOLL.”
—via ‘Anthony,’ as read by Louis Black
I grew up with relatives who worked for Pacific Gas and Electric.
PG&E had a funky logo with dancing ‘and’ and really drab beige trucks. Like, they’d blend into the dirt next to the utility poles. I had a toy beige PG&E truck as a kid and thought that was cool cause everyone else had the yellow Tonkas. And there’s one thing I’ve known for about 30 years that is finally out there.
I’ve heard stories all my life about PG&E’s ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ attitude – which has led to old, poorly maintained fucked up equipment. And in today’s commonplace ‘executives who give themselves bonuses’ while companies tank, well, powder keg is the correct term here.
A 1930s GE equipment catalog was shown to me once, cause of my love of ‘retro’ design. It was filled with vintage airbrushed drawings of tech, fans, gears, you name it. Was told, This is what we use at work. Everything’s old, and it’s eventually going to catch up to us. And management doesn’t want to hear anything about it.
The first chapter of our current PG&E‑caused state was the explosion in San Bruno, 2010.
San Bruno is across from the San Francisco Airport, and my dad used to always joke that an airplane – someday – would come crashing thru our front window. And that was my first reaction when I saw the explosion talked about on Twitter.
The fire happened across town from where I grew up, it took lives and destroyed a home belonging to friends – this would be the first of wat would become common today: Friends in California losing homes to fires.
It’s been downhill ever since.
And in Sacramento Friday, some ‘thoughts and prayers’ read Lewis Black-style:
—steve mehallo
Flommist Steve Mehallo is a graphic designer, illustrator, font designer, educator, foodie and gadfly. He is the creator and founder of FLOMM! Images and some text came from a post on my old blog.
PLEASE SUPPORT FLOMM
TIPS + DONATIONS DISCREETLY ACCEPTED