Many of you I know have been following the recent tragedy in San Bruno, California. This one is a bit personal for me as I frequently drove by the area damaged by the gas explosion, some of the dead were friends of friends, and many of my colleagues are working on the scene, either in their official capacity or as volunteers.
We've reached that stage in disaster response where the shock is wearing off and the finger-pointing is beginning. Pacific Gas and Electric is taking flak for its maintenance procedures and has just been ordered to inspect more than 5,700 miles of pipeline. At this point, they're probably wishing they'd spent more on maintenance.
PG&E is cooperating fully with investigators and has pledged $100 million to help rebuild San Bruno. The pipeline was inspected in March and passed and rumors of complaints about the smell of gas days prior to the explosion do not seem to be substantiated. A portion of the damaged line was scheduled for replacement. This is all good news for PG&E.
However, PG&E is also supporting a proposal before the California Public Utilities Commission that would require customers to pay the uninsured portion of catastrophic fires, such as the one in San Bruno. It doesn't help that a lot of locals recall that PG&E spent about $40 million in the last election to defeat a public power initiative. Both of these are decisions based on the business needs of the company and were in place before the explosion. However, they do not play well with the public and are already beginning to affect PG&E's reputation. If it also emerges that there were corners cut in maintenance or delays in replacing the pipeline because of cost, PG&E may well find it itself in the same position BP did - in the cross-hairs with no place to hide.
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