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East Bay Residents Happy To Avoid Planned PG&E Power Shutoff

PINOLE (KPIX 5) -- Tens of thousands of East Bay residents will be spared the latest PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff, but many were well prepared for it.

"See, it's all nice and vacuum packed," said Pinole resident Mike Nausin, pulling packages of smoked salmon out of his freezer. "You think I'm gonna let this go? No."

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In his garage, Nausin has some 32 pounds of salmon that he caught himself. So after a handful of power shutoffs in his neighborhood, he got to work.

"Put the generator out in the hot tub house," Nausin explained. "I guess I just bought a house in the wrong place 45 years ago. What do you know?"

His freezer now has two power access points.

"Little adjustment on the side," he says. "Don't have to move it."

But just about an hour later in Lafayette, Gayle Grant got the good news.

"Thank God,"  Grant said upon hearing her power would not be shut off. "I can't believe we don't have to deal with this tomorrow. I've got lots of things to do."

Her refrigerator is still empty after the last shutoff, partly because she doesn't see the sense in fully restocking.

"So now I just buy only what I need to buy for the week and think it's gonna go away," she says. "You can't stock up anymore."

So while the shutoff across the East Bay was powered down, thinking about the lights going off, still very much a way of life.

"PG&E says eight to ten years to fix this," said Nausin. "I bought a generator."

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