5 ms·

Case study in importance of maintenance. 1 broken century-old hook => $16,650,000,000 damages.

• jbay808 6y ago
  Only a $4 million fine, though right? How much do you think a maintenance program would cost?
  • quadrangle 6y ago
    Good point (about the dysfunction of how maintenance costs get considered), but maintenance of that one hook is nothing. And lack of maintenance of the whole system risks more such fires. I'm assuming it's $4 million fine plus requiring the missing maintenance program to be implemented.
  • imtringued 6y ago
    From an economics perspective I can't deny that PG&E did the right thing. Maybe they should have gotten a bigger fine?
• umvi 6y ago
  Like the thread points out though, maintenance is just one piece of the puzzle. There were multiple points of failure here, not just the hook. That's like blaming the welders for the Lebanon explosion when in reality it was a combination of like 4 different fails over the course of many years.
  • Dylan16807 6y ago
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Unless you count "power lines active during dry conditions" which is unavoidable, the only meaningful failure here is repeated lack of maintenance. The design was fine, and it was installed fine; it lasted a hundred years! Lack of maintenance will kill anything eventually, all by itself.
    • umvi 6y ago
      The power line failure just lit the fuse of the existing powder keg. Had the power line not failed, an equivalent fire could have eventually come from a cigarette butt of a hiker, lightning bolt, etc. The PG&E maintenance/record keeping fails are egregious, but the article also mentions climate change and forest management as things we need to address as well; it's not enough to eliminate one ignition source - we need to also prevent the powder keg from forming (or at least getting so big).
    • brianpan 6y ago
      The maintenance was the last thing to fail. There are always other causes and improvements. From how the maintenance is performed and verified, to how the system works and is designed, to the process and culture of the organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys
      • Dylan16807 6y ago
        It's impossible to design a system that won't need maintenance. There is nothing wrong with designing something that needs some parts replaced every 50 years, and that's the only design factor that was involved. There were multiple failures on PG&E's part, to an extent, but they were all under the maintenance umbrella. Performing maintenance. Verifying maintenance. The culture around maintenance.
    • michaelt 6y ago
      > the only meaningful failure here is repeated lack of maintenance The proximate cause of the fire was a broken hook. The other failures were: * Hook was not maintained * Tower was not adequately inspected * Record keeping was insufficient to recognise the need for maintenance * Power lines were built in hard-to-maintain, fire-prone places * Nobody within PG&E sounding the alarm about this the hook problem specifically, or the lack of maintenance more broadly (or not sounding it loud enough) * Lack of controlled burns (or equivalent forestry management) that would have reduced the spread of fire * Homes built in fire-prone areas * Low population density, with higher per-capita costs of infrastructure maintenance * Dry conditions, due to climate change, due to energy policy(?) * PG&E's bizarre blend of the worst parts of public and private business, and their perpetual bankrupt-but-still-operating status. * Lack of political leadership able/willing to come up with and enact a master plan to stop wildfires
• ronyfadel 6y ago
  Beirut: 2755 tons of AN stored in the port, <1M$ cost => 10-15B$ in damages