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#  What the Heck has Gone Wrong Here In California? From Owning the Future to Blacked Out

October 14 2019

Written by Steve Lopez.

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**![](https://mail.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Oct-2019/083c.png)**

**WHAT THEY’RE SAYING**--I was on the phone the other day with my sister, who lives in the Bay Area, and she said she had to get ready to deal with a [planned power outage](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-10/millions-without-power-pge-blackouts-california) at the house we grew up in.

She also had to pick up a few items at the store, she said, but that was going to be a nightmare because the markets were flooded with shoppers stocking up on supplies in anticipation of the blackout.

What the heck has gone wrong here in California?

We reinvented the world from a garage in Silicon Valley and we have apps that can deliver a poke bowl and a boba to our houses in 10 minutes, but a stiff breeze comes along and we’re back to cooking over coals and lighting the cave with torches?

To be honest, it’s kind of embarrassing. In California, we like to think we’re the center of the can-do universe, progressive, all-inclusive and leading the war against the Trump administration in defense of the environment, innovation and civility.

But we’ve got tent villages up and down the state, a shameful rich-poor gap, three homeless people dying daily in Los Angeles County, and, in the midst of a housing shortage, homes going up in flames by the hundreds. [*(Read the rest.)*](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-12/column-steve-lopez-california-power-outages%20)*[ ](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-12/column-steve-lopez-california-power-outages%20)*

-cw

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