Why the power goes off so much in Garden Valley

When we first moved to Garden Valley in 1978, the power would go off whenever it rained...sometimes for 10 minutes, other times for hours. Needless to say, it was very annoying and inconvenient. One summer day when it was over one hundred degrees outside, the power went off in the hottest time of the day and ice cream was melting and running down the outside of the refrigerator.
You can see the oak tree's branches are leaning over very close to the power line that runs along our dirt road. In January of 1990, we had 14 inches of snow, the most we'd ever had, and the power was out for 5 1/2 days. We had a wood-burning stove, so we kept warm, I cooked on the wood stove, and we put stuff from the fridge outside in the snow. School was closed for 4 days and the boys had great fun playing in the snow, sliding down our hill, building snowmen and having snowball fights, but as the wet, dirty clothes piled up, the novelty of living without electricity wore off fast for me. I finally drove 17 miles to a laundromat in Placerville with 3 big garbage bags of dirty, wet clothes, and spent several hours doing laundry. When I returned home that day, the power was finally back on!
Our electric company, Pacific Gas & Electric (fondly known as PG&E) hires a tree-trimming company to trim all overhanging branches they can find along the dozens of miles of power lines. They spend many days tree-trimming every year because those darn trees keep growing more branches.
Here you can see a line going across our dirt road, Oak Lane. In cities, power lines are underground, but not in rural areas, especially in the mountains...and that's where we live, in the mountains.
This morning, Saturday (3/13), the power went off for 2 1/2 hours and it wasn't even raining or snowing. It wasn't even windy until later in the afternoon. So I'm guessing an oak tree just couldn't take it any more and let a big overhanging branch break off. They are so unpredictable and temperamental!
Fortunately, we were gone most of the morning and when we came home, the power was back on.
But I must say that power outages are much rarer now compared to 1978. Frequently we have rainy days when the power never goes out, so that is a great improvement over 30 years ago! I think PG&E has a handle on it more. The tree service they hire will probably never go out of business because there are a lot of trees and a lot of power lines in these mountains.
But I love our mountain home despite the few inconveniences. The woods, streams and lakes are worth it all.

See other fascinating places at My World Tuesday.