Power outage just latest hardship to hit Calistoga

One of Calistoga’s two stoplights went dark Thursday, as the spa town at the northern elbow of Napa Valley was hit with another PG&E power shutoff.

It’s just a flashing red at the gateway intersection where Highway 29 splits from Highway 128 and veers through Calistoga’s picturesque downtown, and there are stop signs to alert drivers. Still, it was one more stark indication of the constant string of alarms that have rattled residents of Napa County’s more remote towns since mid-August.

Since then, days before a pre-dawn lightning storm sparked major fires throughout the region, Calistoga has experienced at least six red flag warnings, three full or partial power outages and one evacuation. The latter came as the Glass fire swept to the Silverado Trail just east of town on Sept. 28. Calistoga was under a mandatory evacuation order for a full week, and under an evacuation warning for another two days after that, until Oct. 7.

“I’m getting kind of tired of it,” said Nanci Smith, sitting in the shade of Pioneer Park with a leashed Australian cattle dog she was minding for a friend. “Especially because we happen to be on the other side of the tracks.”

Smith was referring to the line drawn by PG&E to isolate the area targeted for Thursday’s Public Safety Power Shutoff. Everything northeast of the Napa River, which is reduced to a trickle in Calistoga this time of year, was up and running. Everything to the southwest, which contains perhaps one-third of the town, lost power. The outage affected 2,300 customers in town, PG&E said.

“My understanding is there’s a petition going around to make things more fair,” Smith said. “Because we do feel slighted.”

Smith said she feels the latest round of calamities and frights have brought people closer. But it has created a couple of dividing lines. On which side of the river do you live? And how big is your generator?

Back at the lightless intersection, where an arrow sign beckons people to turn into downtown for Calistoga’s restaurants, tasting rooms, shops and mud baths, you almost had to shout to be heard over the gas-powered generators at the town’s competing gas stations, the 76 and the independent Fast & Easy Mart.

The 76 was using a hefty Generac 5500 to power its cash register and refrigerated cases. There wasn’t enough juice to run the pumps, so the station wasn’t selling any gas. Inside, cashier David Rosete sounded philosophical about the recent string of bad luck as he leaned into the protective Plexiglas to be heard. He lives in Calistoga, too, and had to leave to stay with friends in Santa Rosa during the Glass fire evacuation.

“Sometimes, it’s better,” Rosete said. “Because if the fire comes over, it’s more terrifying.”

Richard Hayman was using a smaller Honda generator to run overhead lights and clippers at his hair salon just off Lincoln Avenue, which is Calistoga’s Broadway. He could power a blow dryer, but not with heat, and he was unable to “finish” clients’ hair with no hot water.

“This is, ‘Here’s the situation. What can you do?’ ” Hayman said between trims. “You can sit and bitch all day long. At a certain point, you’ve got to get back to work.”

The situation has been more complicated for Irais Lopez, who owns and operates two senior care homes in Calistoga, the Cedars in the heart of town and L&B out on Foothill Boulevard. Both have generators. The Cedars was powering its air conditioning, two refrigerators and a freezer, and reclining chairs and beds Thursday. But the lights were off, and so were in the in-room television sets, not an insignificant development at a rest home.

The Glass fire evacuation was many levels harder, of course. Lopez and her staff had to help residents into cars and drive them up and down Mount St. Helena on winding Highway 29 to Clearlake, where they stayed in motel rooms. Lopez couldn’t go with them. She’s also a Calistoga City Council member, and had to stay behind to help with civic duties as the evacuation notice went from warning to order.

“It’s really stressful, because they have to get out of their environment,” Lopez said. “Normally they are sitting in comfort, doing what they like, watching their TV, reading the newspaper. When we had to evacuate, the whole thing changed. They are out of their comfort zone.”

If things have been rough in Calistoga, the disruption has only been worse in Angwin. That small town at the top of Howell Mountain, east of St. Helena, has been evacuated twice this fire season, during the LNU Complex fire and the Glass fire, and its PG&E shut-offs have lasted much longer.

Some locals will say things haven’t changed much over time, noting there have always been fires in these densely covered hills. Hayman, who grew up in nearby Knights Valley and has lived in the area more than 50 years, isn’t buying it.

“I have memory of fires in my lifetime,” he said. “There were some really big ones. But in my first 20 years here, I can remember not even three of ’em. And the last five to six years, we’ve had nothing but.”

The power outages, layered on top of fires and heat waves, and all wrapped inside the warping effects of the coronavirus pandemic, have battered the economy of Napa Valley.

This valley is heavily dependent on tourist dollars, much more so than the majority of Sonoma County, and the tourists just haven’t been coming in huge numbers since the pandemic exploded in March. Online wine sales are up, but on-site tours and tastings have been stop-and-start for months. Many vineyard owners are talking about dumping much of their 2020 harvest, because fears of smoke taint and heat damage are likely to send the grape market plummeting. The majestic Palisades and wooded hills from Mount St. Helena south to the town of St. Helena, normally a selling point as a backdrop to picnicking, are black.

The constant stream of bad news has affected more than finances here. People admit to being a little jumpy these days when they hear a helicopter whirring overhead or get another Nixle alert on their phones.

“Everyone sees the smoke from Buster’s and they say, ‘Oh, my god!’ ” Hayman said, standing in his salon and nodding toward a small plume rising from the wood pit at Buster’s Original Southern BBQ, a block away at the intersection. “No one can say the anxiety level isn’t high. But I think generally people are coping really well.”

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.