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Re:This electrical transmission tower has a problem by bhawks on Thursday September 17, 2020 @03:04AM (#24501930)
PGEs own linemen were concerned about wear on these towers. They sent samples from the field to labs for metallurgical analysis. PGEs own scientists estimated that the components would wear out in 100 years.

PGE took this information and did nothing.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiErOkaUMAA178t?format=png&name=...

This is not how you maintain critical infrastructure. This is embracing failure and simply not caring about the consequences.

Re:This electrical transmission tower has a problem by zaroth on Thursday September 17, 2020 @04:39AM (#24502410)
So they staff and run a metallurgical lab in house to which linemen can send samples for analysis, and then management simply throws away the reports?
Re:This electrical transmission tower has a problem by ClumsyPilot on Thursday September 17, 2020 @08:52AM (#24503965)
Of I personally, knowingly caused this much damage throug negligence, i'd be in jail forever.
Re:This electrical transmission tower has a problem by zaroth on Thursday September 17, 2020 @10:19AM (#24504920)
To be fair, first you would have build out a several hundred billion dollar state wide electrical grid, while allowing it to degrade in various ways over approximately a century.

I’m not sure a single person at any one time has ever knowingly caused this much damage through negligence. I mean ever in human history. Failures this large due to negligence tend to be systemic. But it would be a very interesting to hear an example.

The closest I can think of could be some of the famous bridge design failures, where people died, and people did go to jail, but not forever.