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Power lines in Redondo Beach, Los Angeles: »Try to reduce your electricity consumption as much as possible«
Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP
The records tumbled on Wednesday: just over 44 degrees were measured in Woodland Hills in northwest Los Angeles, more than ever in August.
It was hardly less a few miles to the east in Burbank, an all-time high for that date.
In Lancaster, an hour and a half drive north of downtown Los Angeles, the thermometer read 109 degrees Fahrenheit, which corresponds to around 43 degrees Celsius - a record set.
And that is just the beginning.
It will remain extremely hot, say the meteorologists, for a few days in any case, but the long-term forecasts for the next two weeks hardly promise any relief.
Even on the coast, where it is mostly bearable in Southern California in summer, up to 38 degrees are expected for the coming long
Labor Day
weekend - Monday is a holiday in the USA.
Just a few miles inland, temperatures could soar to as high as 46 degrees at the peak of the year's worst heatwave so far.
In Death Valley, already known as a furnace, it should be more than 50 degrees.
"This is not a normal heat wave," the Los Angeles Times quoted meteorologist Trevor Boucher of the
National Weather Service
in Las Vegas as saying.
California Governor Gavin Newsom warned: “We expect this extreme heat to last longer than we have seen in a long time.” As a precaution, Newsom declared a state of emergency so that help could be provided quickly if the worst came to the worst.
Nationwide, residents can
seek refuge in so-called
cooling centers .
Are rolling blackouts
threatening again
?
The heat doesn't just make people groan.
It is also a stress test for the California power grid.
When the air conditioning is running at full blast everywhere, the authorities fear power outages.
These would not necessarily occur unforeseen, but possibly deliberately: Two years ago, the energy supplier PG&E repeatedly turned off the power to hundreds of thousands of Californians during a heat wave - as a precautionary measure, because otherwise the entire grid would have collapsed under the huge demand.
Such
rolling blackouts
, so the concern, could now become necessary again.
California's power grid is vulnerable anyway, and the mega drought in the west coast state has been straining energy reserves for years, as it is causing the proportion of electricity generated by hydropower to continue to fall in view of empty reservoirs.
Now energy imports from neighboring regions are also falling away because they themselves are suffering from the extreme conditions.
And at the same time, in times of extreme heat, the demand for energy increases.
Elliot Mainzer, head of the California network operator ISO, said power outages are possible but not inevitable - provided people reduce their energy consumption.
The ISO issued a so-called “Flex Alert” for Wednesday and Thursday, calling on California residents to voluntarily save electricity and, above all, to refrain from excessive use of air conditioning.
In the rush hour between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., when energy demand is normally at its highest, people should not cool their apartments and houses down to more than around 26 degrees.
Likewise, they should not use larger appliances such as washing machines or dishwashers, switch off unnecessary lights and not charge electric cars - which many owners usually do after work.
More “flex alerts” are expected in the next few days.
Governor Newsom also urged the citizens of his state to save electricity: "Try to reduce your electricity consumption as much as possible." We live in an age of extremes, said the US Democrat on Wednesday.
Extreme heat and extreme drought are a reminder
how »real« the climate crisis is.
Does that do anything?
Such appeals are quite effective and could lead to a reduction in total electricity consumption of around ten percent, said energy expert Daniel Kammen from the University of Berkeley in the newspaper »USA Today«: »Normally there is a pretty good response.« However: The longer the heat wave lasts, the greater the urge to return to old habits.
And this heat wave is going to last a while.
Adding to the heat and risks to the power grid is the ever-increasing risk of fire.
A large forest and bush fire has just broken out north of Los Angeles.
The
route fire
is currently raging on more than 2000 hectares near the town of Castaic.
So far there have been no injuries and no damage to buildings, but numerous threatened houses have been evacuated as a precaution and schools remain closed.
Several firefighters had to be treated for heat problems.
There are also fires on around 1,500 hectares near San Diego on the border with Mexico.
Four buildings have been destroyed so far, and many have been evacuated.
Four people were recently killed in northern California in
the largest bush fire this year, the so-called
McKinney fire .
The small town of Klamath River was almost completely destroyed.
