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“Our connection to the outside world is satellite internet – so no power, no internet,” Alexandre says. He and others at Shelterwood Collective were left without power for two weeks in early 2023 when massive storms hit California. “We ran the generator two to three hours daily to check in with the outside world and let people know we were OK.”
In 2010, PG&E malfeasance caused an explosion in San Bruno, California, blowing a hole in a major city and killing eight people. In 2018, PG&E’s crumbling electrical grid started a fire that ravaged Paradise, also in California, killing 85 people and burning 14,000 homes.
Milbern continued, “I use life-sustaining medical equipment – my ventilator – 16 hours a day. My doctor completed extensive paperwork telling PG&E why I need power to live. When I called PG&E, I was on hold for two hours. I hadn’t received any notice from PG&E, but my house was on four different maps as losing power. To PG&E, my life is not important.”
“Everyone waits in fear of a Wall Street corporation pressing a red button to turn their power on or off,” says Pete Woiwode, co-director of the That cohort includes fire-affected migrants in Sonoma County, Black high school students in East Oakland, immigrant elders in Oakland Chinatown, and queer and trans people of color acting as land stewards at Shelterwood. Through the cohort, 10 organizations thus far have learned about the energy system, their own consumption needs, and emerging technology.JOAN Lora inspects a propane tank damaged by a fallen tree during the winter 2023 storms in Northern California.
LAYEL Camargo and Nikola Alexandre stand amidst the burn piles at Shelterwood in May 2023. The land stewards did controlled burns on their land. Photo by Brooke Anderson“When I heard about the counts of manslaughter against PG&E after fires, I felt like it was my responsibility that if I was going to be in charge of electrical infrastructure for a 900-acre forest I would want to be less dependent on a company where our values are not aligned,” Camargo says.