Hi Ron, Yes you are correct. It was petty of the photographer to demand $10,000 for our use of the burned our smart meter photo, and we felt it was petty to leave the explanation up on our site for longer than a couple of days. Extorting money from the public and putting profit above efforts to protect health and safety- I suggested this photographer might want to seek a career with PG&E. Let’s ignore these jokers who are just a distraction and focus on our real enemies.

Pertaining to a couple of anomalous edits you have made to this story: First, the very revealing photo of the bank of burned out Smart Meters that you had for its banner, disappeared. In its place was an explanation that the photographer demanded buku bucks if you left it there. Then the explanation itself disappeared. So now the photo is gone, and the outrageous history of its removal has likewise been deleted. Has there been some behind-the-scenes armtwisting? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the woman who wrote the Palo Alto Online News article that you cite, is the photographer’s wife?

For those wishing to view the original banner photograph of the burned out meters, for free, they can still be found with that updated report: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=22378

That was not the news segment broadcast on Sept. 5, that was the segment right after it happened.
Nowhere do they mention 80 smartmeters. And that is when PG&E said it was a surge of only 400 volts, it was more like 4000 volts. That much voltage fried not just smartmeters, but most any thing plugged in at the time, whether turned off or on. A surge like that will jump switches and damage or destroy anything.
The story about a tree knocking down a primary is used all across the country by utility companies when they really don’t know what happened.
During the hurricanes back east, utility companies might sometimes shut down parts of the grid intentionally to protect their equipment, especially in vaults when flooding is expected. They will just say that the power is out, but not say exactly why, or maybe the will use the tree story.
News flash from KTVU,
The City of Belmont has found that a PG&E natural gas pipeline buried under a street was only 12 inches deep !
They found it when they were doing improvements on a street. PG&E records indicated that the gas line was buried 3 feet deep. That is quite a disparity.
The rule is for electric and gas lines is , the trench must be deep enough to allow at least 24 inches from the top of the pipe to grade level, and 6 inches of sand must be placed on top of a gas line to warn backhoe operators that they are close to a gas line.
PG&E has had their feet in the fire almost daily now for at least the last year. Like the Dodge Boys used to say, “You in a heap-a-trouble son”.

Sorry, but you will have to do your own research.
If you search the KTVU website and don’t find it, there is nothing that I can do to get it back.
KTVU is my favorite news channel for reporting news that none of the networks will touch.
This news segment was very damaging to PG&E, and PG&E may have had it yanked for corporate and political reasons.

http://www.ktvu.com/video/28986639/index.html

Clearly states in KTVU video that 80 SMARTMETERS caught on fire, NOT caused by TREES, as most of the articles, and PG & E claim.

PG & E LIES, your Family, and House burn.

Please DEMAND that KELLY NANTELL of NTSB INVESTIGATE EVERY FIRE in CA for SMARTMETER implications.

Redi,

Many of us would like to see the KTVU Channel 2 news segment about the power surge in East Palo Alto that you saw yesterday morning, September 5. Up to 80 fried meters now? A search for that piece comes up with nothing. To reiterate Josh’s request, can you please document your source?

I forgot to add that not only the automated appliances must be purchased by the customer, the HAN system and all the computers necessary to read your usage data is entirely paid for, installed, programmed and maintained by the customer, and that includes the energy required to power the system that enables one to monitor how much energy required to power the system to monitor large appliances
We can easily see that these systems will not save any energy at all, and will actually increase energy consumption in all buildings.

CONTACT, TV and NEWSPAPERS/MEDIA to please investigate every fire for SMARTMETER IMPLICATION.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_18830986?nclick_check=1
Concord fire destroys two homes

By Paul Thissen
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 09/05/2011 04:57:13 PM PDT
Updated: 09/05/2011 08:59:04 PM PDT

Firefighters fight a fire that started from a new home under construction, left, on Skyler Ct….
One house burned almost to the ground and another was severely damaged in a fire Monday afternoon near Clayton Valley High School. Other homes suffered minor damage; no one was injured.
The fire started about 4:40 p.m. at a house under construction at the end of Skyler Court. That house was fully engulfed by the time firefighters arrived, said Battalion Chief Keith Cormier of the Contra Costa Fire Protection District. All that remains are parts of its charred wood frame.
“I was sitting there watching TV, and it looked like a cloud came over the sun,” nearby resident Dave Bolstad said. “My wife pulled back the curtain and the house was on fire. It was fully engulfed.”
Embers from that fire ignited a house on nearby Marvue Circle, right next to where Bolstad lives.
Bolstad said he tried to go around to the side of his house with a hose, but the heat kept him away.
“I couldn’t get around there. The flames were too high,” he said. The gas meters for his house and his neighbor’s house appeared to catch fire, he added.
Bolstad said his neighbor, whose house was severely damaged, is in Alaska.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, Cormier said. PG&E told him there was no gas or electric service at the house under construction where the fire started, he said.
Tobe Magidson, who lives on Marvue Circle, said embers from the first fire sparked another fire in an overgrown field under PG&E’s high-voltage

transmission lines next to his house.

“I put the whole field out with a garden hose” while waiting for firefighters, he said. It took too long for them to arrive on his street, he added.
Contact Paul Thissen at 925-943-8163.