Their business. And this weighs heavily on everyone, including those of us at pga. This is not how we want to and this is not how we want to run our business were actually in the business of. Not taking power away. So we feel the impact of the understand. Heres how it just wraps. The normal flow of life and the normal flow of commuters. He that worry us. With winds like we saw over the last 24 hours or so and the condition of the vegetation. We simply could not continue to run parts of this system. Given the risk to Public Safety. We struggle was decision as we do with any decision to turn. We weigh the level of acceptable risk given the circumstances the wind and the vegetation. So what exactly was the rest. Well, we know from history. That wind speeds have the wind speeds at which our lives can be effective and cause a fire. Wind speeds at about 45. Bleacher risk on the distribution line. A little light to go to your house for that same risk appears on the transmission lines which are the big liars out little little light. We also know what level of fuel come. What level of this brings a greater risk of fire and also how humidity effects. The 33 counties that were affected by our actions. So far at least 21 had wind gusts above 45 miles an hour. At least 15 had wind gusts of about 50. And we saw peak wind 77 Miles Per Hour and this event. So we faced a choice here between hardship on everyone or safety. And we chose safety and i do apologize for the hardship, this. Think we made right call on safety. A call by the way we made on the 2 Year Anniversary of the devastating north bay fire. And less than a year after the horrific campfire. Ive been asked this question is this new normal for us and our customers. For utilities and their customers actually for the entire west. A number of the western states have now gone into the p s p s kind of program. Answer is this is not the future any of us want to live i miss to reduce wildfire shut up are less frequently. An impact a shot that we can do this for several parts of our Community WildfireSafety Program to system hardening. Managing vegetation airlines. Are tools on situational awareness. She may sing my colleague here his team are in charge of these efforts. And are doing yeomans work. But again given the risk to Public Safety. The desired ciro spark. During conditions like the ones weve had over the last several days. We will very likely to have to make this kind of decision again in the future. And if and when we do there are many things we need to do better next time and then we did this. First we commit to communicating with our customers and communities with much notice is pa so. And as frequent and we did not deliver onthcommitme times are maps are inconsistent. Thats incorrect. Put it simply we were not adequately prepared to support the operational event. And this will improve. We commit to restoring power as quickly as possible. Now we have to wait for the weather pass. Have to respect every line we turn thats about 25,000 miles of line. And then when everything is good we can turn the power. In a moment, some able to tell you how many customers already been restored. So thats the process. As i said at the beginning want to be clear on this the buck stops with me on these events i do have. Benefit of 23,000 colleagues your page in a to help me in a number of contractors. And they worked in the case of the van an they do well. Vehousands men and women literally thousands. Sleet to restore power. Including many who actually lost power themselves. People here to help you. Theyre working for your safety there bring the lights back. Actually live in your communities. So important that we let them do their work. Because we need him to do it. Up include with this i personally have a very simple primary goal and its one of the reasons i came here to p which is to prevent any catastrophic events. And loss of life andriso now let me ask meet saying to provide an operational update. Thank you for joining us again. Pm this evening. Of more than 6 1300 employees and contractors. Along with 44 helicopters. Actively engaged. For supporting. Conducting. Safety inspections. Repairing equipment and the story. Across the service area. Approximately 738,000 customers impacted. As a result of this event. Only 31 228,000 of our customers. Have occurred in part sarah foot hills. 510,000 customers that remain currently out of power. More than 6,300 that are actively working at the moment to try i 2 s safely, lets quickly restore power to our customers who have been impacted. We have determined that the adverse weather conditions have subsided to the point where we could begin the safety inspections. Decision this earlier this afternoon. With the exception of a footprint in the sierra foothills that includes the paradise and the surrounding areas. And the kern county which we anticipate. And later tonight going into potentially. Tomorrow afternoon. And for these remaining counties or we have not commence the safety inspections. We will continue to monitor the weather. It will begin our safety inspections. As soon as the weather subsides. Seville touched on this reiterate the system was some of the discussions weve been having the last couple of nights. To ensure that we safety restore power back to our customers, its first our swizz the determination. Which is a determination where weather has. Respect to service territory. And theyre already pre staged at those locations so soon as we get the all clear. We are ready to move into action to conduct. The safety inspections. Assess for damage. Repair the damage and safely restore. Part of the safety inspections that we performed earlier today. We have found multiple cases of damage. Suspected to be caught. Could have potentially been the source of ignition not been for the shot off. The safety inspections during Daylight Hours and we will resume inspections. I also want to briefly recap the weather conditions. So we experience over the last 24 hours. As bill stated. Wind speeds. In fact did exceed our safety threshold in many areas. Thats where we start to see vegetation potentially coming in con back with our distribution line. As bill mentioned and 21 of the counties we have observed peak wind gust. Access a 45 mile. A couple of examples share with you 77 miles an hour on mount saint helena, sonoma county. S an hour recorded in pasco county. The cruz county. Falling to reiterate. But no nation. This is surely appreciate the patients. And our subsequent inspections. Fully understand and appreciate the impact. I can assure you that we are safely and as quickly as possible to ensure the lines are safe. And we can restore power as quickly as possible. To our customers and our communities. Ormotto. Thank you all for joining us this evening. Offering our sincerest upon gtr customers and our communities. We dont take these decisions lightly. Pg e customers. In the communities in which we serve. Answering customer inquiries. Well we have been working. E had. And she may see that there is an outage in your area, but it is not p s p s related so its important for customers to know that. We will resume. Communication channels become fragile. Our business communities. We have been. Us we appreciate the feedback. We own. Fights to meet and bill back up and well. Proceed to use the microphone you know the governor just in the past hour said that this is a story about greed mismanagement and neglect. Over the course of decades. He says that chose not to upgrade there power grid basically saying that you made a choice of profits over safety. The response. A mother and a black could deflect your question. I didnt come here to deal with that. Delta and all thim just trying to make this better. Are you doing enough to make these microgrids because was this blackout really such a wide level could really tough targeted. Thats fact what we did we started i fire threat area. Actually in the last several of these events we targeted them scope them down and the closer we got. Ability to do that as much enhanced over world. This was a widespread event. Affect a lot of transmission lines effect admission lines youre in for a lighter. We have to get better at this we have to get more surgical. Weve gotten. More surgical than we were. But we did everything we could hear to reduce scope this. Upwards of billion in terms of a loss for parking. Me dend the blackouts. Whats value human life would be my response. And we need to work we cannot live in a society where this happened straight. Different equipment on the transmission lines sexualize years and visitation management just take a little time. Over the past year pga. Try to get 11 million in bonuses for the top executives when youre bankrupt. How do you explain that to those are incentive payments that require you to hit certain performance goals that improved the performance of the organization. Almost every utility in the country has us. Bankruptcy court turns out to be a moot question. Said youre Getting Better at this. You told. In the bay area alone 8 of the 9 counties to be ready for a black out. Communication to the people is that that was going to be county wide people were filling up with gas gas lines like from the 70s. People having to spend thousands of dollars Small Businesses are out tons of money. What do you mean its gotten youve gotten better at this because which admit that the scope just seemed very large to the public. Theres a very large coke. The largest go that we can find ever. This is what we are Getting Better. If you look at the last 2. O we know this go significantly we projected event. The first number is close to 50,000 we squeeze the down to about 4,000 so were Getting Better ability to predict. But this was a Vice President when you look at the winds in those cars. This was a very widespread event the people in. Thinking it was going to be them. When it if im hearing you right you knew all along certainly narrowed it down to certain areas where the the fire has more and to go. I could not have been relayed to the public that there is some level of hysteria here. Dont think i said that we knew was going to be narrower than we predicted. We checked there are predictions. We need to get down to a city block or one street. And the other thing after remembers area where you are you may not any winterfell anything. You might be hooked to a transmission line 50 miles away thats in the heart of the threat. I think about this system is a big spider web everything is connect. And communicating broadly. I dont think we overcome unit take 8 of the so thats understand the scope of the weather that we saw maybe some make yes just to add on to that think about the weather. Its evolving and it continues to evolve 72 hours out 48 hours out 24 hours out. So we have a team of dedicated. Meteorologist are working 24 7. In our Emergency Operations center to evaluate. The wind direction, the wind speeds using multiple data sources Machine Learning to be able to help identify and pinpoint target. All of those areas so we minimize the her to say that for couple days now, but. To narrow down much more this b scope of an area that you have a broad. You know we never really got quite an answer and mister c o heres your chance to explain that to the public why so long without power. When all of our meteorologists were saying it was a narrower window. Know youre meteorologist, but i know my name. Great confidence in our. What youve just said that youre looking towards the future and you also just said. That there will like levy more fees. Were in the middle of fire season so from what youre saying its possible could even happen. And what the next month. Else are you going to do better to serve the community because its not just about your infrastructure right it seems like pg e was pretty and prepared in terms of at the last minute trying to keep the caldecott tunnel with backup generation. All the businesses medical Facilities Hotels that were scrambling to just keep people who they were trying to serve. Space where they can really just survive what is peachy needed do to really help the community full financially interest physically. As i said. This does create a hardship that understand the hardship that. We also spent a great deal of time hundreds of meetings hundreds of this is to make sure things like Critical Care facilities tell a communication facility and others that general patients, a fuel are prepared for these events week communicate very clearly with those people very directly so i think were doing about everything we can help with those situations. From pg to these businesses and community members. Other agencies like ca i think were giving him a lot. E them 3 times a day. Help you might be looking for here. Generations theres all sorts of businesses that. A twitch in some cases didnt even happen and for them so its just been mentioned before people are spending thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for an ad that never had. Guess is pg do anything more to have businesses to help agencies. Anything for the financial hardships that this creates. The next time we may asking the question here. As we have been working with some of those entities so we did provide a 6 megawatt generators working head and. You are listening to a lot News Conference with officials from pga trying to update the public on the status of the power shut off throughout the bay area of Northern California as well as take some very tough questions from reporters about concerns throughout the community about how the company has and has not handled number a lot of information coming out today lot of new obviously people frustrated, i think what reporters are doing is expressing. The frustration that theyve been hearing out in the community, the community. A lot of people angry at pga over all of this but here are the latest numbers in case you missed the a beginning of this News Conference, a 738,000 customers were affected by this outage. You may recall they said about 800,000 customers across northern and Central California could be affected the number was 7. 38 738,000 as of 05 00pm thats their latest number 31 of those customers have had their power restored that breaks out to 228,000 customers have their customers across california still do not have power but the process is under way to try to restore it and this is one of the first times weve seen the ceo bill johnson apg any come out he did admit to that end they did not deliver the website as many of you know crash. On a number of occasions their maps were incorrect. The call centers were not. Adequate adequately staffed and prepared to to handle the calls coming in from people needing information. They are trying to restore power to 25,000 on transmission lines and those inspections. Require crews to either be on the ground to look at them theyre usually or with drones and aircraft and the state is helping to do some of that 44 helicopters piccinini said is out there 6300. People are on the ground right now working to restore power and he apologized for what he called the hardship that people went through but he said his number one priority was to prevent a for Public Safety and that overrode all the other concerns about how much this was costing in