60,000 customer power outage in Northern California

PG&E, the power company for all of Northern California randomly shut off power to 60,000 customers across 12 counties yesterday and today due to "high fire danger".  What's interesting to me is that though it has been dry out here in the west and a dry October is nothing new, that month seems to be a little drier each year.  The major reason for the outage was said to be due to high winds.  As it turns  out, we were off the last two days and were out and about during that time covering a fair portion of El Dorado County, one the hardest hit by the outages, and live we live in that county.  In all of the ground we covered and over all of the last two days, I never saw anything more than a light breeze.  And like I said, the outages, which were intentional, were very random, often affecting one side of a street and not the other.  I have to wonder if the bureaucracy covering these things is running on all cylinders? 

Personally, I think PG&E was being overly cautious.  A little part of me wonders if this was run as a social experiment (local Sheriff's Dept. is encouraging people to write in and comment on how all this has affected them).  But more than a red flag  theory, I think it is further indication of something gone very awry in the west, i.e. climate change, over-population, inadequate infrastructure maintenance, a confused bureaucratic system and... what else?  I wonder.