The Lights Go Out in Oroville
A winter cold snap leaves the town in darkness after ice dams the river, testing the limits of early infrastructure.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
For the first time in over a year, the electric light plant of the S. P. Co. was closed down for over twenty-four hours. The immediate cause of the shutdown was lack of water in the river, which became dammed up at some point above by floating ice. At the present writing, the company certainly deserves considerable credit for maintaining service under present weather conditions.
“The immediate cause of the shutdown was lack of water in the river, which became dammed up at some point above by floating ice.”
Infrastructure failure caused by extreme weather is as much a part of Oroville's history as its present, showing that the challenge of maintaining reliable utilities in a river valley environment is a century-old struggle.
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