This part bothers me:

    > Dabit’s energy problems reached a new level in December when a PG&E substation fire caused a three-day power outage for the neighborhood. In addition to losing business, Dabit lost $10,000 to $15,000 worth of ingredients.

(2) Why didn't the owner immediately run to a hardware store to buy a portable (diesel?) generator to save as much food as possible? At least run one fridge and pack the most expensive ingredients into that one fridge.

Overall: My sympathy is low for the owner's situation.

If the city buys (or runs) its own (traditional) electricity utility, they will be assuming all of the wildfire risk. That is the primary cause of rises electricity rates by PG&E in the last ten years. However, if SF wants to create some power generation in the form of solar panels and batteries or wind, then sign power trade agreements with PG&E, I think that could be tenable/workable. If they spent 100M USD per year building truly reliable, green power generation, then 10 years later would look much better.

1. Spoilage claims are not usually covered by insurance if the power interruption starts at the utility company instead of in your building. It's pretty rare that anyone knows to ask for that particular endorsement, and you're SoL without it.

2. You don't think everyone else was thinking the same thing?

Also, you can just have sympathy for people even if it were their own mistake. It doesn't cost you anything.

The fires have been caused by the transmission grid, not the distribution grid. SF would be taking the distribution. There is not a ton of wildfire risk from the electric utility in SF, and it would be fairly easy to manage.

Restaurants have very thin margins, they can’t afford that stuff.