Amazing How Fast Things Can Change -- October 12, 2016

This graphic says it all:

Legend:

• Red: 2016
• Yelllow: 2015
• Dotted blue: ten year median
• Light blue spread: ten year max-min range

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Scary

One wonders. From PennEnergy:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Power was restored to tens of thousands of customers following an outage Tuesday across several communities in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, a utility spokesman said.

Nearly 90,000 customers were without electricity starting shortly before 6 a.m. in Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, Gardena and Torrance.

About 25,000 customers got their power back within a half-hour and it was restored to the remainder by about 7 a.m.

The cause of the power loss was under investigation.

A major oil refinery run by PBF Energy in Torrance began burning off its product in response to the outage. A huge flare could be seen for many miles, and residents near the refinery were briefly urged to close their windows and turn off fans because of resulting smoke.

Refineries typically respond to outages by burning off product to relieve pressure and ensure gases are safely combusted.

The refinery, which PBF bought from Exxon Mobil in July, was briefly shut down last month following a power outage affecting more than 57,000 SoCal Edison customers in Los Angeles County.

Terrorists are watching.