When SDG&E Cuts the Power for Fire Weather: Garage Doors, EVs and Dark Signals

A public safety power shutoff tends to arrive on exactly the kind of day you might need the car: hot, windy, fire weather. Shutoffs are aimed at the areas where fire conditions are most dangerous, and the problems they cause for drivers are small and predictable, which means they are easy to prepare for.

Why the power goes off

The California Public Utilities Commission explains that in 2012 it ruled that state law gives the investor-owned utilities — San Diego Gas & Electric among them — authority to shut off power to protect public safety. That allows them to cut power to prevent catastrophic wildfires when strong winds, heat events and related conditions are present. In 2018 the Commission strengthened the notification utilities must give customers before a shutoff. In other words, you will usually get warning. Use it.

Getting the car out of a powerless garage

An electric garage door with no power is the most common way a shutoff turns into a stranded car. Every opener has a manual release, usually a cord hanging from the rail; your opener's manual shows how it works and how to lock the door again afterward. Practise once on a calm day, not with smoke on the horizon. If you will be away during a planned shutoff and might need the car, leave it in the driveway.

EVs, fuel and the warning window

• Charge an electric car fully when the shutoff warning comes. A shutoff can last more than a day, and public chargers in the affected area may be down too.
• Fill a gas tank as well. Stations need electricity to pump, so an area without power may also be an area without fuel. The County's evacuation plan lists refuelling vehicles among the preparedness steps it asks people to take when wildfire threatens.
• Keep a phone charger in the car. A car can charge your phone while you wait for news.

Dark traffic signals: the legal rule

Vehicle Code section 21800 is specific. A driver approaching an intersection whose traffic signals are not working must stop, and may proceed with caution when it is safe. When two vehicles arrive from different roads at the same time, the driver on the left yields to the driver on the right; a driver on a road that ends at the intersection yields to traffic on the road that continues.

In practice: stop fully, take turns, make eye contact, and expect at least one driver who treats it as a green light. Collisions at dark signals are usually decided on who failed to yield, which makes stopping fully your best evidence as well as your best protection.

If a shutoff turns into an evacuation

Shutoffs happen in fire weather, and fire weather sometimes produces fires. Know your evacuation zone, keep the car facing a quick exit, and keep the go-bag in the trunk during the season. Our evacuation page covers how the County's warnings and orders work.

Where insurance comes in

A power shutoff is not an auto claim. The events around it can be: a branch or debris blown onto the car in high winds is generally a comprehensive claim, as is fire damage; a collision at a dark intersection is decided like any other right-of-way collision. If your policy is liability-only, neither your own car's wind damage nor its fire damage is covered.

If you live in the parts of the county that see shutoffs, ask us whether comprehensive coverage makes sense for your car; it is the line that answers wind and fire.