Blackout Was Only a Warning for the Latte Dependent

At 8:17 Tuesday morning, San Francisco went dark. No electricity. No traffic signals. Trains not running. Cable cars dead in their tracks. Flights diverted to Seattle and Salt Lake City. Schools with no hot lunches. Stores shut tight. (During the holidays yet.) No air conditioning. TV transmission kaput. Elevators stuck.

For six hours, San Francisco turned into an Amish village.

I believe this was no accident.

I believe this was a warning to that city of sin to stop all of its Merlot wine drinking, medical marijuana smoking, sourdough eating gluttony and 24-hour-a-day, we-never-close-Los Angeles-bashing, because The End Is Near.

In other words . . . permanent darkness.

Those poor fools up there, they are trying to pin the blame on a crew from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for the blackout. Yeah, sure. A guy named Buzz accidentally pulled a plug. We know better, don’t we? We know who’s really responsible. This was a message to demon San Franciscans and their ilk that their way of life must end. It won’t surprise me if by next Tuesday, the whole city is laid to waste by fire, flood or a whole mess of snakes.

Believe me, they have known about this terrible darkness coming to San Francisco for years.

That’s why they built Candlestick Park.

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I don’t know how many horror stories you have already heard from Tuesday’s blackout, but here are just a few of the things that happened Dec. 8, 1998 to those poor dim San Franciscans, sittin’ in the dark by the bay.

* Macon A. Krust, a pastry baker from Daly City, was driving his black BMW toward the Golden Gate Bridge when all of a sudden, a traffic signal went dark. He drove through a red light, under the bridge and into the water, where only by quick thinking did he save his life, using dozens of croissants as a flotation device.

* Jeff Boyardee, a marinara maker from Sausalito, was driving his black BMW in the vicinity of Union Square, when the entire street turned unexpectedly dark. His car struck six performing mimes, all of whom pretended to be hurt.

* Henry E. Panky, a confectionist from Carmel, attempted to climb out of a stalled elevator on the 27th floor of a downtown high-rise. He slipped and fell, dropping 26 stories and nearly being killed before being caught at the last possible second by Jerry Rice.

All true stories.

Or may lightning strike me, the next time I go anywhere near Willie or Jerry Brown.

(Oakland apparently was not affected by Tuesday’s power outage, having clearly stocked up on a really good supply of AA and AAA batteries for the winter.)

According to investigators, San Francisco’s big blackout--which paralyzed the city until midafternoon--was caused by a four-person crew of Pacific Gas & Electric workers at a substation in San Mateo, where they either: (a) “forgot to remove two grounding rods, causing a blowout and triggering a chain reaction that knocked generators off-line,” or (b) “found a squirrel chewing on a microchip, having somehow mistaken it for a hazelnut.”

So far, (a) is the accepted excuse.

These four workers--three of whom were reportedly named Howard, the other named Fine--were able to throw one of America’s great cities into total chaos, as opposed to its usual semi-chaos. A reported 435,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers were left without, well, gas and electric. Nobody could make espresso for hours.

“Oops,” I believe one worker was later quoted.

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San Francisco had no contingency plan during the blackout, leaving Mayor Brown without an acceptable explanation and with no choice but to go right out and spend $299.95 at Home Depot for a backup generator.

I can’t believe San Francisco could go totally dark this way, just because four guys from San Mateo couldn’t tell their AC from their DC.

One local resident told reporters this could be “a preview of the year 2000,” when, as you know, every computer in the Silicon Valley is expected to go bzzz-grrrk-BOING and self-destruct.

Me, I don’t think so.

I think this is the beginning of the end for San Francisco. And it’s also the end for L.A., because everybody there will move here, if they can find their way out.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053, or e-mail mike.downey@latimes.com