Radio and television stations used to broadcast emergency messages. Rail rapid-transit systems. SMUD and Roseville's blackout restrictions are much stricter. Parts of downtown Sacramento may also never see rolling blackouts because of old distribution circuits that cut through the area and are difficult to turn back on. Roseville exempts only hospitals, police stations and fire stations from outages.
Participants agree to conserve a pre-set amount of power when called on by the utility.
On April 3 the PUC granted a request by the Regional Council of Rural Counties to extend a blackout exemption to all hospitals, including those with fewer than 100 beds. An older ruling had limited the exemption to larger hospitals, reasoning that they'd be affected the most by rolling outages. Water agencies have also asked the PUC for blackout exemptions. The agencies say their entire systems should be exempt due to public health and safety concerns, said Jennifer Persike-Becker, spokeswoman for the Association of California Water Agencies. When water pressures drop, tainted water could be siphoned back into water systems, Persike-Becker said.