Allen Anton, assistant director of Stockton's emergency services, pulls a thick notebook off his shelf, the city's emergency plan. But it's not much use in a rolling blackout. Like everywhere else in the state, city and county managers are outgunned by uncertainty. When the power goes out, water pressure in the city's system can drop by half, depending on how long the power stays off and how much water residents use. City police are outnumbered by the number of signaled intersections, and officials think staffing some and not others could be a liability problem.
Motorists go it alone when the traffic lights blink out.
It doesn't always happen. Baldwin doesn't fear brief rolling outages. He figures any community can handle those. But an extended breakdown of the power grid in 105-degree summer temperatures isn't something he rules out, or something he can really plan for. Just staying informed is a challenge.