Outage Block 50

PG&E has updated their web site to indicate that “if no outage block appears on your bill, you are in outage block 50.” They also say that outage blocks are subject to change without notice due to operational conditions.

Or, to put it another way, the lights may yet go out at home.

Diane Reese notes that:

They do say on the PG&E webpage that if no other designator appears on your bill, you are in Outage Block 50. Wonder if that means “a protected block, wherever it might happen to occur”? If so, we’re in one, too (but Charlie’s office is not).

I would swear that the bit about Outage Block 50 wasn’t on the PG&E web page on Tuesday (nor the part about outage blocks being changeable on short notice), but it’s certainly there now. My suspicion is that there were complaints about people not being in any outage block (yesterday I heard a KCBS reporter telling the audience how to find the outage block notation on their bill and commenting that “if you don’t see one listed, you’re money!”), so they invented Outage Block 50. But if the rolling blackouts go from block 1 to block 14 and then restart, block 50 may not be affected directly.