Norwegian police were alerted at 4 a.m. to the slide in the village of Ask, in the municipality of Gjerdrum, some 12 miles northeast of Oslo.
The landslide cut across a road through Ask, leaving a deep ravine that cars could not pass. Video footage showed dramatic scenes including one house falling into the ravine. Photos showed at least eight homes destroyed.
Police spokesman Roger Pettersen told Norwegian media there were no reports of missing, but officials could not rule out the possibility of people in collapsed buildings. He said some 21 people registered to live in the area are uncounted for.
“The 21 people may have evacuated themselves but may also still be in the landslide area,” Pettersen told news agency NTB.
One of the injured was seriously hurt, while nine had lighter injuries. Weather at the time was reported to be challenging, with snow and full winter conditions.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Illinois.
Snow was so heavy in western Nebraska Tuesday morning that Interstates 80 and 76 were closed for several hours in both directions after numerous accidents, and the Nebraska Department of Transportation warned people to avoid unnecessary travel.
By 4 p.m. Tuesday, the storm had mostly moved out of Nebraska. The Nebraska State Patrol said troopers responded to more than 150 weather-related incidents, including 129 motorist assists.
Many government buildings and properties closed ahead of the storm, including COVID-19 testing sites in Norfolk, O’Neill, Nebraska City, Beatrice, Bassett and Auburn. Planned testing sites in Nebraska City, Cozad, York and Valentine will not open today. State officials urged Nebraskans to continue registering for testing, which is expected to resume Thursday.
Heavy snowfall of up to a foot, and perhaps more in some spots, was forecast in parts of Iowa, where the state Department of Transportation urged people to delay travel plans. The department’s road conditions map showed most highways in the western part of the state covered or partly covered with snow by midday Tuesday.
“Travel conditions are likely to go downhill all day/night,” the Iowa department said on Twitter. “If you must travel in the impacted areas, buckle up, slow down and allow plenty of space between vehicles.”
Earlier Tuesday, snowfall was heavy, causing visibility problems for motorists and rapidly deteriorating road conditions, Iowa State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Alex Dinkla said. He added that crashes were happening across the state with heavy post-Christmas travel.
“All our troopers are very busy right now covering crashes all over Iowa. Road conditions are very dangerous,” he said.
AccuWeather said parts of southeast Nebraska, northeast Kansas, northern Missouri and southern Iowa could see ice accumulations of up to a quarter of an inch, which could weigh down power lines and branches and cause power outages.
In Topeka, morning snow gave way to freezing rain and then rain as the storm moved east.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The European Mediterranean Seismological Center said the magnitude 6.3 quake hit 28 miles southeast of Zagreb just before 12:20 p.m. local time. It caused widespread damage in the hardest-hit town of Petrinja. The same area was struck by a magnitude 5.2 quake on Monday.
Officials said a 12-year-old girl died in Petrinja, a town of some 25,000 people. Six people were killed in nearly destroyed villages close to the town, according to HRT state television. At least 26 people were hospitalized, six with serious injuries, officials said, adding that many more people remained unaccounted for.
In Petrinja, cries could be heard from underneath destroyed houses. One woman was found alive some four hours after the quake. Emergency teams used rescue dogs in the search for survivors, while family members looked on in despair.
“My town has been completely destroyed. We have dead children,” Petrinja Mayor Darinko Dumbovic said in a statement broadcast by HRT. “This is like Hiroshima — half of the city no longer exists.”
Firefighters worked to remove the debris from a collapsed building that fell on a car. A man and a small boy eventually were rescued from the vehicle and carried into an ambulance.
The town was left without electricity or running water as officials scrambled to set up temporary accommodation for all of the displaced residents in need. Residents fearing another earthquake seemed poised to spend the night outside their homes.
“The biggest part of central Petrinja is in a red zone, which means that most of the buildings are not usable,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said.
The earthquake was felt throughout the country and in neighboring Serbia, Bosnia and Slovenia, and was felt as far away as southern Austria.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The avalanches struck in four different areas on Friday following strong winds and heavy snowfall a day earlier.
The Alborz mountain range where the avalanches occurred is a popular weekend destination for hiking and climbing.
Fridays are typically a day off for most Iranian workers.
State TV aired footage showing emergency crews using a helicopter to search for the missing.
Iran’s Red Crescent Society also released photos of rescue workers unloading body bags from a helicopter Saturday.
The report said 11 people were found dead, and one died after being transferred to a hospital.
It said rescue teams found 14 missing people during the operation.
Authorities said many had disregarded reports by the meteorological office about possible strong winds Friday.
Deadly avalanches are a rare phenomenon in Iran. In 2017, two avalanches killed 11 hikers.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Formed when chemicals from power plants, cars and industrial operations are exposed to heat and sunlight, ozone is linked to an array of illnesses including childhood asthma and lung disease.
The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set air pollution standards every five years to a level that protects public health. Under the Obama administration in 2015, the EPA lowered the standard from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, averaged over an eight-hour period.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a call with reporters Wednesday the decision to keep the current ozone standards followed a careful review of the best available science regarding its health effects, noting that pollution levels have sharply declined since the creation of the agency in 1970.
“Air quality has made progress in this country for decades and the last several years have seen spectacular improvements benefiting the health of millions of Americans,” he said.
Members of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, all of whom have been appointed under President Donald Trump, endorsed the idea of keeping the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone at the current level.
But many public health experts argued it should be lowered to 60 parts per billion, given the growing scientific evidence that points to the heavier pollution burden carried by low-income and communities of color and ozone’s impact on at-risk groups. An average level of 70 parts per billion suggests that some communities breathe air that is much more heavily polluted, they say.
The problem is made worse by a warming planet, said Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association. Higher temperatures make ozone more likely to form.
“We’ve seen rollback after rollback under this administration. I can’t point to a single rule that’s reduced air pollution,” Billings said in a phone interview. “We know climate change makes things worse because it creates more hot, stagnant conditions that lead to more ozone pollution.”
Ozone is a persistent problem that affects more than one in three Americans, Billings said. Using EPA air quality data for the period between 2016 and 2018, the ALA found that 137 million people live in counties that received failing ozone grades in its State of the Air Report.
While ozone high in the atmosphere helps protect against the sun’s hazardous ultraviolet rays, it is a lung-damaging pollutant when it is closer to the ground.
Earlier this month, the EPA rejected more stringent standards for another air pollutant, fine particulate matter, despite an agency finding that reducing it significantly could save between 9,050 and 34,600 American lives each year.
The pollution levels set by the EPA have economic implications. A community that is deemed out of compliance with national air quality standards may not be able to proceed with industrial operations or transportation projects. Several trade associations had urged the administration to retain the current ozone requirements and hailed the EPA’s move.
“This decision, based on sound science, advances important goals while supporting sustainable domestic growth,” said Rachel Jones, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, in a statement. “We have long supported smart policies that protect the environment and improve public health, and the policy announced today is the right approach.”
The Trump administration said it is only the second time since the 1970 passage of the Clean Air Act that the agency has completed a review of an air pollutant within the five-year time frame required by Congress.
“The process had gotten out of control,” Wheeler said.
President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on combating both climate change and air pollution, particularly for so-called “fence-line” communities near industrial sites. While the incoming administration could reassess the newly finalized ozone standards, that, too, would take time.
(Juliet Eilperin & Dino Grandoni, WASHINGTON POST)
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Blizzard warnings were posted in the region as National Weather Service officials called for wind chills to dip to 35 degrees below zero, pushed by gusts of more than 60 mph. Numerous travel advisories urged motorists to stay off the road and several highways were shut down altogether.
“Winter has come to the area,” said Greg Gust, weather service meteorologist in Grand Forks, N.D.
The storm was centered in southeastern Minnesota and was expected to track steadily toward Eau Claire, Wis., and northern Michigan. The heaviest snow band stretched from the Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota back toward Watertown in eastern South Dakota, Gust said.
The storm was bearing down on the Twin Cities area Wednesday, where Gust said at least 8 inches of snow was expected. Eastbound Interstate 94 was closed west of Minneapolis for three hours due a multi-vehicle crash and pileup. State transportation officials said the interstate would likely be down to one lane each way overnight and warned travelers about vehicles in the ditch.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul airport had experienced about 300 flight cancellations and 40 delays as of Wednesday afternoon, airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said. It was expected to be the third busiest day of the Christmas holiday travel period, behind this upcoming Sunday and Saturday, he said.
Earlier in the day, a large gathering of people showed up at Hector International Airport in Fargo, N.D., only to discover that most of the flights had been canceled due to high winds and low visibility.
“Today was going to be probably our busiest day since COVID hit or definitely just before Thanksgiving,” said Shawn Dobberstein, Fargo Airport Authority executive director.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The board will now send a letter to county planners confirming they can meet the needs of the project should it win approval.
Two of the five board members last week voted to withhold the information — Joel Scalzitti and Mark Gracyk.
Horizon Hill El Monte Investors, LLC, is the latest company with plans to bring a sand mining project to the picturesque spot in Lakeside, rich in the kind of aggregate that is favored by home builders. The area north of Lake Jennings between El Monte Road and Willow Road is zoned for sand mining and the extracting of product has been in the plans of different developers for more than 20 years.
Several speakers watching the board meeting on Zoom joined a dozen letter writers in asking Helix to do what it could to stop the process. The Helix legal team said that if the district didn’t show it would provide water for the sand mining, it could set itself up for possible litigation by the county.
The water assessment is needed as part of the California Environmental Quality Act in order to get approval from San Diego County so the sand mining operation can move forward. The water supply for new owner Horizon Hill will be used for the 20-year project, planned along 476 acres in Lakeside.
Both Scalzitti and Gracyk said they stood on the side of the El Monte Valley constituents concerned about what the sand mining will do to the valley.
Speakers and letter writers described how the future with a sand mine operation would be an environmental disaster, citing polluted air and airborne spores that could spread Valley Fever. They also said they are concerned about additional traffic, the killing off of natural vegetation and endangered wildlife, increased wildfire danger and negative changes to the region’s underground aquifer.
“The people of the El Monte Valley have spoken and I believe they do not want the sand mining to go forward,” Gracyk said. “I stand on the side of the El Monte Valley homeowners and residents even though this is a procedural motion in which our hands are tied.”
Scalzitti, whose district area covers the El Monte Valley, said he wanted his neighbors to know that the district heard their concerns.
In an interview before the meeting, Crystal Howard, the project manager consultant for Horizon Hill and an economist and market analyst with EnviroMine, said the project is different than previous versions.
She said the new proposal “reduces the amount of production of sand on an annual basis.” She said that Horizon Hills will preserve the San Diego River channel by mining for sand around the channel but not in it.
Previous proposals included a company that planned to extract up to 18 million tons of aggregate used in making concrete, then after 15 years, turn the valley back into open space with a water pond, riparian habitat and recreational trails; another planned to extract 12.5 million tons of sand and gravel for a period of 12 years and also turn the valley back into open space.
“We really took to heart the community concerns, that’s why we are now recirculating the EIR and the county is reviewing it, updating the studies and updating the public,” Howard said. “The most previously proposed project was going to extract 1.1 millions tons (of sand) a year. Our preferred new alternative is 650,000 tons (of sand extracted) a year. That reduction will also reduce truck traffic by 40 percent.”
(Karen Pearlman, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The city’s insurer would kick in $20 million as part of a sweeping deal to settle lawsuits against Flint, the state of Michigan and other parties. Facing a Dec. 31 deadline, the council approved its stake after an hours-long meeting that raised concerns about whether residents were getting shortchanged, MLive.com reported.
“It’s something. It’s better than nothing,” council President Kate Fields said, adding that she hopes a judge looks at a second resolution approved by the council that questions the claims process and the state’s share of the agreement.
Most of the money — $600 million — is coming from the state of Michigan. Regulators in then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration allowed Flint to use water from the Flint River in 2014 and 2015 without treating it to reduce corrosion. Lead in old pipes broke off and flowed through people’s taps.
The disaster made Flint a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement, with residents of the city of nearly 100,000 lining up for bottled water and parents fearing that their children had suffered permanent harm. The crisis was highlighted by some as an example of environmental injustice and racism.
Experts have blamed the water for an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which led to at least 12 deaths in the Flint area.
Before the council meeting, lawyers involved in the settlement appeared Monday before a federal judge in Ann Arbor who is overseeing the litigation. U.S. District Judge Judith Levy said preliminary approval could come in January, though she also pledged to hear from residents.
Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley was in favor of the city’s participation in the settlement, warning that the city could face major financial stress if it stayed on the sidelines and defended itself against lawsuits.
Separately, state Attorney General Dana Nessel told reporters Tuesday that prosecutors in her office were close to wrapping up a renewed criminal investigation of the Flint water crisis.
“It should be understood I have not put any pressure on this team to do anything. They should do what they (feel) they are ethically obligated to do,” Nessel said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials in at least three provinces — where a total of more than 150 million people live — have issued orders limiting energy use, warning of potential coal shortages.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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In the first hours of the eruption, lava mixed rapidly with water in the summit’s crater lake to create steam. The sky above the eruption turned shades of orange and red as people lined up to watch the billowing column of gas and vapor rise above the volcano in the middle of the night.
Tom Birchard, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Hawaii, said lava poured into the crater and mixed with the water to cause a vigorous eruption for about an hour. When lava interacts with water it can cause explosive reactions.
All the water evaporated out of the lake and a steam cloud shot up about 30,000 feet into the atmosphere, Birchard said.
The water was the first ever recorded in the summit crater of Kilauea volcano. In 2019, after a week of questions about a mysterious green patch at the bottom of the volcano’s crater, researchers confirmed the presence of water. The lake had continued to fill since then.
The eruption began late Sunday within the volcano’s caldera, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Because of the location of the erupting lava, no homes were evacuated. The crater, named Halemaumau, is located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and was home to a longstanding lava lake that was present for years before a 2018 eruption caused it to drain.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“It was a very difficult, fast storm and it dropped an unbelievable amount of snow,” Tom Coppola, highway superintendent in charge of maintaining 100 miles of roads in the Albany suburb of Glenville, said Thursday. “It’s to the point where we’re having trouble pushing it with our plows.”
The storm dropped 30 inches on Glenville between 1 and 6 a.m. Thursday, leaving a silent scene of snow-clad trees, buried cars and laden roofs when the sun finally peeked through at noon.
“If you do not have to be on the roads, please don’t travel,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who declared a state of emergency for 18 counties. He said there were more than 9,000 power outages, 600 accidents and two fatalities by midmorning Thursday.
Parts of northern New England saw as much as 7 inches of snow per hour, said Margaret Curtis, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. A rate of 1 inch per hour is typically enough to make it hard for snowplow trucks to keep up.
Snow totals topped 3 feet across a wide swath of New Hampshire, and Maine’s southernmost county saw 1 to 2 feet.
Much of Pennsylvania saw accumulations in the double digits.
Boston had more than 9 inches of snow early Thursday morning, breaking the previous record for the date of 6.4 inches in 2013.
Massachusetts’ transportation chief said it could take longer than usual to clear snow-clogged highways and streets because the coronavirus pandemic has knocked one in 10 plow drivers out of action.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm on Wednesday afternoon had sustained winds estimated at 160 miles per hour, which makes it the equivalent of a Category 5 storm. It threatens to cause damage on the scale of Tropical Cyclone Winston, which caused widespread destruction when it hit in 2016.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center is forecasting the storm to pass between the main islands of Fiji, but close enough to bring its fiercest winds and heaviest rains to the main island of Viti Levu as well as Vanua Levu and some smaller islands. It’s possible that the eye of the storm will come ashore on one or more islands, which could increase the threat of storm surge flooding.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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For the millions of people living in big East Coast cities like New York and Philadelphia — where snow began falling in the afternoon — the storm was set to be one of the biggest in several years.
“Everything that was predicted is right on track,” David Stark, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New York, said about 7 p.m.
The snow had started to accumulate in New York City several hours earlier and was expected to come with growing intensity until around midnight, Stark said. At that point, he added, the precipitation would most likely shift to a mix of snow and sleet, or perhaps turn entirely to sleet overnight before lighter snow returned later today.
The storm, a nor’easter, hit first in Maryland, Virginia and the Washington area, with a mixture of freezing rain and snow blanketing the region. Near Frederick County, Md., dozens of cars could barely inch forward on a packed highway. In Washington, about 50 miles southeast, the snow seemed to be turning to slush.
By early afternoon, the storm was creating dangerous travel conditions in parts of the Mid-Atlantic. A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police said a 19-year-old man had died in a car crash, one of about 200 the state police had responded to by 3 p.m.
The storm was expected to stretch nearly 1,000 miles, from North Carolina to New England, according to the National Weather Service, and threatened to fell trees, knock out power and cover roadways with ice. Western Maryland and southern central Pennsylvania were forecast to bear the brunt of the storm, with as much as 2 feet of snow falling in those areas.
Schools that have been holding in-person classes, including in New York City and Boston, had either already closed or announced plans to do so. Snow forced some coronavirus testing sites in the Baltimore area to close temporarily, and two city-sponsored mobile testing sites in Boston were also closed.
By the afternoon, some businesses in and around Boston made plans to close. Matt Otten, manager at Zaftigs Delicatessen, a Brookline, Mass., restaurant known for its Jewish comfort food, said he typically would not close because of bad weather. This time, though, he was worried. “We are concerned for our workers’ safety since the roads are going to be very treacherous,” he said.
In Massachusetts, where a foot of snow was expected, Gov. Charlie Baker asked residents to prepare and to avoid travel when the snowfall was heaviest. But even as state and municipal officials were issuing stern warnings, some people greeted the storm’s arrival with joy.
For Lucas Whiffen, 3, of Philadelphia, it would be the first big snowstorm of his life. His mother, Gail Whiffen, noted that his new snow pants had not yet arrived, but Lucas was confident he had plenty of winter gear: “A jacket and mittens and a hat, shoes, boots,” he said, eagerly awaiting the snow in which to use them.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Environmentalists said delaying that long could spell disaster for the beloved black-and-orange butterfly, once a common sight in backyard gardens, meadows and other landscapes now seeing its population dwindling.
The monarch’s status will be reviewed annually, said Charlie Wooley, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes regional office. Emergency action could be taken earlier, but plans now call for proposing to list the monarch under the Endangered Species Act in 2024 unless its situation improves enough to make the step unnecessary.
The proposal would be followed by another year for public comment and development of a final rule. Scientists estimate the monarch population in the eastern U.S. has fallen about 80 percent since the mid-1990s, while the drop-off in the western U.S. has been even steeper.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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European leaders, who are keen to position themselves as at the forefront of the global fight against climate change, had failed in October to reach a deal on an even less ambitious target of 40 percent.
But after an agreement on a $2.2 trillion budget Thursday evening — with billions earmarked for member states to spend on the transition to a greener economy — momentum for a consensus environmental policy gathered speed.
Shortly after dawn, Charles Michel, the head of the group of the EU leaders, announced the news on Twitter.
“Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change,” he wrote. “We decided to cut our greenhouse gas emissions of at least 55% by 2030.”
Also Friday, Britain announced that it will end billions of dollars a year in government subsidies for overseas oil, gas and coal projects.
The decision on the new target comes just in time for the United Nations climate summit today, where it will be announced by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said it was “worth losing a night’s sleep” over the climate deal.
“I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been able to achieve such a result,” she said during a news conference Friday, following the meeting.
Still, the details and language in the agreement were kept vague after many hours of often tense negotiations, leaving it up to the commission to hammer out the specifics.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The new cost-benefit requirements, which apply to all future Clean Air Act rules, instruct the agency to weigh all the economic costs of curbing an air pollutant but disregard many of the incidental benefits that arise, such as illnesses and deaths avoided by a potential regulation. In other words, if reducing emissions from power plants also saves tens of thousands of lives each year by cutting soot, those “co-benefits” should not be counted.
“This is all about transparency and conducting our work in a transparent fashion,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said Wednesday as he announced the rule during a webinar at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “Our goal with this rule is to help the public better understand the why of a rule-making, in addition to the what.” He said the agency’s past approach “has meant inconsistent rules and a disoriented private sector.”
Wheeler said the change would not prevent the EPA from factoring in indirect benefits of new regulations in the future but that it requires the agency to be “upfront” about these calculations. “We will also require reports that distinguish between domestic and international benefits,” Wheeler added, “so that Americans can see what their regulators are doing for people here in the United States.”
The move is one of several major environmental rollbacks that the administration is pushing through before President Donald Trump leaves office next month. This week, it rejected calls to tighten national standards for fine particle pollution, known as PM 2.5, which ranks as the country’s most widespread deadly air pollutant. The EPA also plans to finalize a rule in coming weeks that will restrict the kinds of scientific studies the agency can use in crafting public health rules.
The EPA’s proposal has faced criticism from environmental advocates, who suggested that it will not withstand legal challenges. The incoming administration probably will overturn the rule, though that would take time because there are legal procedures that must be followed to eliminate an existing regulation.
Wheeler on Wednesday dismissed criticism of the effort as misleading, saying environmental groups and some media “are ignoring what we are trying to do here and mischaracterizing this. This is all about transparency.”
Some conservative and industry groups praised the move, saying the change marked an overdue change in how the EPA shapes its regulations.
Daren Bakst, a senior research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, said the move would address the “abuses” of past administrations when it came to weighing the costs and benefits of new regulations.
(Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska and one of the editors of the assessment, said it “describes an Arctic region that continues along a path that is warmer, less frozen and biologically changed in ways that were scarcely imaginable even a generation ago.”
The Arctic is heating up more than twice as quickly as other regions.
That warming has cascading effects elsewhere, raising sea levels, influencing ocean circulation and, scientists increasingly suggest, playing a role in extreme weather.
This year the minimum extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, reached at the end of the melt season in September, was the second-lowest in the satellite record, the scientists reported.
On land, the Greenland ice sheet and glaciers in Alaska and elsewhere lost mass at above-average rates, although the rate in Greenland slowed from last year.
And perhaps most stunning, snow cover across the Eurasian Arctic reached a record low in June.
The drying of soils and vegetation that followed contributed to wildfires that burned millions of acres of taiga, or boreal forest, particularly across Siberia.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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A second, smaller fire broke out Tuesday afternoon along the border south of Otay Mountain, with the flames charring about two acres on the U.S. side and about eight acres on the Mexican side, Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Thomas Shoots said.
Crews worked quickly on the ground and from the air to halt that blaze, which firefighters initially thought might grow to about 200 acres because of strong winds, Shoots said.
The larger fire erupted Monday about 16 miles south of Tecate, according to Shoots. Mexican officials said it started near a mountain close to the town of Valle de las Palmas, with strong winds — the same Santa Ana winds battering San Diego County — blowing it west into the eastern city limits of Tijuana and Playas de Rosarito.
Mexican officials said the fire had mostly burned vegetation, although flames destroyed three mobile homes.
Tijuana Mayor Arturo Gonzalez Cruz said Tuesday morning that the fire was 70 percent contained.
Smoke from the fire reflecting the reddish-orange glow of the flames after sundown Monday night prompted residents across San Diego County to call in reports of a fire, according to law enforcement personnel.
One caller as far north as Ramona reportedly called in, believing the glowing clouds were signs of a nearby blaze. The smoke column and glowing clouds were also visible Monday night in La Mesa, according to a witness, and in Chula Vista, according to police.
By Tuesday, the strong Santa Ana winds had spread the smoke across the sky, filling the southern horizon from much of San Diego County.
(Alex Riggins, SD-UT)
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Morning rain gave over to snow in the afternoon in New England. Accidents littered the Massachusetts Turnpike, where speed limits were reduced to 40 mph. Massachusetts and New Hampshire utilities quickly reported thousands of customers without power.
Forecasters warned the windy nor’easter could result in near-blizzard conditions and could dump a foot of snow on suburban Boston. In Canada, southern Quebec and New Brunswick also expected a wallop.
In some areas, snowfall of 3 inches per hour was possible, said National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Clair in Gray, Maine.
“This is the first big one,” Clair said of the beginning of the winter season. “There has been some snow up in the mountains, but this is the first one across where most people live.“
Areas south of New England, including the New York region, expected heavy rain and strong winds.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The region’s notorious Santa Ana winds decreased slightly but red flag warnings of extreme wildfire risk were in place into the weekend because of low humidity. After the weather calms in the southern part of the state, winds are expected to increase in Northern California starting Sunday, forecasters said.
Firefighters were still busy trying to contain a number of blazes south and east of Los Angeles. The biggest began late Wednesday as a house fire in Orange County’s Silverado Canyon that spread to dry brush by fierce winds. Some 25,000 people were ordered to flee their homes, although some evacuations orders were later lifted.
Larry and Carol Pfaffy owned the canyon house where the blaze is believed to have started. The couple told KNBC-TV that they had started up a generator after the power was shut off by Southern California Edison as a precaution against high winds knocking down power lines and sparking a fire.
Larry Pfaffy said they turned off the generator before going to bed Wednesday night but a half-hour later they heard something fall in the garage and smelled smoke. They still don’t know the cause of the fire.
The fire grew to 10 square miles [6400 acres] and blanketed a wide area with smoke and ash. It was 10 percent contained as calmer conditions helped hundreds of firefighters who fought the flames on the ground and by air.
Crews elsewhere mostly tamed two small fires that prompted evacuations in Riverside County.
Santa Ana winds hit 50 mph to 85 mph at times throughout the region beginning Wednesday night.
The fires erupted as Southern California utilities cut the power to more than 100,000 customers to avoid the threat of winds knocking down or fouling power lines and causing wildfires.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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One miner was found alive following the disaster Friday in the Diaoshidong mine in Chongqing, the report said. Rescuers are looking for five others.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Two firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries that they suffered Thursday while trying to contain the Bond fire, which had begun the previous night in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, authorities said.
Fire officials attributed the spread of the Bond fire to the fierce Santa Ana winds.
On Wednesday, several hours before the wildfire began, the Orange County Fire Authority had placed the county under a red flag warning and urged residents to be aware of increasing fire danger because of dry, windy conditions.
The blaze began as a house fire in Silverado and quickly spread to the surrounding area, fire officials said. The cause was under investigation.
As of Thursday evening, about 25,000 people had been evacuated in several communities northeast of Irvine, according to emergency responders, who said that there was no containment of the fire.
“We know that a number of houses have been damaged, potentially destroyed,” Brian Fennessy, the Orange County Fire Authority chief, said during an afternoon news conference.
Fennessy said that more than 500 firefighters were battling the flames and that more than 30 agencies were involved in the effort, which included fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.
He urged residents of the affected communities, some of which were still reeling from a wildfire in October, to use their common sense when deciding whether to evacuate.
“You don’t have to wait for us to call,” Fennessy said. “If there’s any doubt, please evacuate.”
Greta Gustafson, a spokesperson for the American Red Cross in Orange County, said Thursday that the organization had provided hotel rooms to 170 evacuees. The Red Cross had set up a temporary evacuation point at a local high school, she said.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Conservation groups criticized Thursday’s announcement as rushed and based on environmental reviews that are being challenged in court as flawed.
“Today we put the oil industry on notice. Any oil companies that bid on lease sales for the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should brace themselves for an uphill legal battle fraught with high costs and reputational risks,” Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation celebrated the passage of legislation in 2017 allowing for drilling in the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, seeing it as a way to boost oil production, create jobs and generate royalties. The legislation called for at least two lease sales to be held within 10 years.
Alaska political leaders for years pushed for opening the area for exploration in a state that relies heavily on oil. But the Indigenous Gwich’in people have opposed development within the refuge, citing concerns about the effects on a caribou herd that they have relied on for subsistence. Conservation groups also have fought drilling in the refuge.
In a lawsuit filed in August, opponents alleged that the Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately consider potential effects of a leasing program on climate change, polar bears, caribou and other resources in its environmental review.
Last month, the land agency announced a 30-day period for parties to nominate or comment on land in the refuge’s coastal plain that could be part of a sale. It said it also would seek comments on whether the size of any tracts of land should be reduced and whether any should receive special considerations.
The agency said a notice that solicits bids would be published at least 30 days ahead of the sale, which it expects to hold on Jan. 6. However, the comment period was not set to end until Dec. 17.
The Bureau of Land Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Its Alaska director, Chad Padgett, said in a news release that oil and gas from the coastal plain “is an important resource for meeting our nation’s long-term energy demands and will help create jobs and economic opportunities.”
Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said companies are not likely to discuss publicly any plans to participate in a lease sale for competitive reasons.
With the announced timeline, she said companies will have less time to prepare bids. But she said the area is not unknown.
“It’s an area that people have been aware of for over 40 years,” she said.
The Trump administration has moved forward with other oil and gas projects in the state, including approving development plans within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said would make “a significant contribution” to keeping oil flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline for years to come. This fall’s decision is being challenged in court.
But the administration halted another resource development project last month, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to provide key approvals for a gold and copper mine near a major salmon fishery.
(Becky Bohrer, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“We’re also to see gusts of 30 mph to 40 mph in places like Escondido and Valley Center,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster. “We’ll be getting dry winds in an area that’s already dry from the Santa Anas.
“The relative humidity will drop into the teens on Thursday and into single digits in some places on Friday.”
A red-flag fire weather warning will be in effect until 6 p.m. on Saturday for the eastern half of the county.
On Wednesday, San Diego Gas & Electric had notified more than 90,000 customers — many living in backcountry areas — that they could lose power in the coming days.
“The time to prepare is now,” said Brian D’Agostino, SDG&E’s director of fire science and climate adaptation. “It’s time to charge all your devices — your cell phones, your computers, anything you can charge. You want to get them charged (Wednesday) afternoon into this evening.”
The pre-emptive de-energizing of lines, called Public Safety Power Shutoffs, is something utilities in California have increasingly used to reduce the risk of high winds knocking down power lines and potentially igniting wildfires.
Today’s winds could cause hazardous driving conditions on Interstate 8, east of Alpine. The dangers include rapidly forming dust clouds.
(Gary Robbins & Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The heat has been more notable than the bush fires at this point, with Sydney seeing back-to-back days with temperatures exceeding 104 degrees over the weekend, a feat that had not been accomplished before during November in 160 years of record-keeping.
Sydney also saw its hottest November night on record, with the temperature dropping to just 77.5 degrees on Sunday. In the afternoon, the temperature reached 108.7 degrees as fire danger reached extreme levels in southeastern New South Wales.
Typically, Australia’s hottest weather comes during January, which is the height of the summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
The ongoing heat wave is forecast to continue through at least midweek across New South Wales and Queensland, according to Dean Narramore, a meteorologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Narramore said the heat is expected to peak in southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales on Wednesday, with temperatures up to 32 degrees above average for this time of year. Temperatures in inland areas are expected to soar above 113 degrees.
A few locations set spring records over the weekend, including Andamooka in South Australia, which reached 118.4 degrees.
More temperature records are expected to fall during this event.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The plan released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management aims to limit wildfires in a 350,000-square-mile area of mainly sagebrush habitat that includes parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah.
The plan, which cost about $2 million, originated during the Obama administration as officials sought to avoid listing sage grouse as protected under the Endangered Species Act, which could have severely limited mining, ranching and recreation.
Giant rangeland wildfires in recent decades have destroyed vast areas of sagebrush steppe ecosystems that support some 350 species of wildlife. Experts say the blazes have mainly been driven by cheatgrass, an invasive species that relies on fire to spread to new areas while killing native plants, including sagebrush on which sage grouse depend.
Sage grouse were never listed but remain imperiled. The Trump administration, while lifting restrictions on mining and other extractive industries, moved ahead with efforts to control the giant blazes that typically also destroy rangeland needed by cattle ranchers.
“Restoring sagebrush communities improves the sustainability of working rangelands and can reduce the expansion of invasive annual grasses,” Deputy Director for Policy and Programs William Perry Pendley said in a statement. “People in the Great Basin depend on these landscapes for their livelihoods and recreation, and wildlife rely on them for habitat.”
The plan released Friday does not authorize any specific projects. Instead, its analysis can be used to OK treatments for projects involving prescribed fires, fuel breaks and other measures to prevent or limit massive blazes that have worsened in recent decades.
U.S. land managers typically analyze proposed projects by writing environmental impact statements to avoid inadvertently harming some aspect of the environment.
The plan released Friday would allow approval of projects without having to duplicate previous studies, saving time and money. The plan could lead to more treatments such as mechanical removal of vegetation, prescribed fire, targeted grazing by cattle and revegetation.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The administration, which is racing to lock in a series of regulatory changes before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, can now publish a final rule modifying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s interpretation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act as soon as Dec. 28. For three years, officials at the Interior Department have sought to shield energy companies, construction firms, and land developers from prosecution if their operations “incidentally” kill birds, weakening protections under the law.
The new analysis suggests that all three alternatives — including codifying the administration’s narrower interpretation into law or returning to the historic definition that holds firms liable for accidental bird deaths — will “have incremental effects on current environmental conditions.” It identifies scaling back the rule as its “preferred alternative,” and says including accidental deaths “would be inconsistent with the Department’s current view of the law.”
The analysis suggests, however, that finalizing the rule would likely have “negative effects” on migratory birds because industry would have less of an incentive to adopt precautions to prevent birds from becoming ensnared in development projects.
In August, a federal judge struck down its first attempt to weaken the rule, a Dec. 22, 2017, solicitor’s opinion, as illegal. Referring to Harper Lee’s famous novel, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni wrote, “It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime ... But if the Department of the Interior has its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country will be killed without legal consequence.”
Trump administration officials argue that the previous legal interpretation of the law — which makes it illegal to “pursue, hunt, take, (or) capture” migratory birds without a permit — was too broad. Under a Jan. 10, 2017, Interior solicitor’s opinion, companies could be held liable for birds ensnared by uncovered oil-waste pits or unmarked transmission lines. And for decades prosecutors have sought fines of up to $15,000 per bird for accidental deaths.
BP pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of violating the act in connection to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed hundreds of thousands of birds, and as part of the settlement paid $100 million to fund wetlands restoration in the U.S.
Under Interior’s proposed rule, companies and individuals would not face prosecution if they “incidentally” killed birds in the course of their operations.
Environmentalists decried the move as legally flawed, and argued the rule would undermine industry’s incentive to take precautions that could avoid needless bird deaths. Former Interior officials from both parties, who have served under the past eight presidents, have urged the administration not to change the law’s interpretation.
“This is another step by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to jam through a rule to cement an interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that a federal court has already declared illegal,” said Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark.
While a legal opinion can be reversed with the stroke of a pen under a new administration, a final rule can take years to undo. But Eric Glitzenstein, litigation director for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, said he was confident his organization and others could overturn it in court if the agency issues it before Biden takes office.
(Juliet Eilperin & Sarah Kaplan, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The resulting atlas of migration corridors in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming published by the U.S. Geological Survey can help elk, mule deer, antelope and other animals by focusing efforts to reduce man-made obstacles along their journeys, biologists and wildlife advocates say.
“The new technology, the GPS collars and the computer programs that are able to analyze this data, is giving us such a different picture of what migrating wildlife do,” said Miles Moretti, president of the Salt Lake City-based Mule Deer Foundation, which funded some of the research. “This has given us some information like we’ve never had before, which will also now in turn drive the policy.”
A former wildlife biologist, Moretti used to venture into the field every couple weeks to locate animals fitted with radio collars. These days scientists can follow animals from their computers in almost real time, gathering vastly more data with a lot less trouble.
They watch as big game animals in the West chase emerging spring greenery to ever-higher elevations, then return to lowlands to avoid the worst of winter’s cold and snow. Some mavericks meander off on their own squiggly computer lines. Most follow the crowd — or literally the herd — on migration corridors, a kind of highway for animals.
“The big highways, a lot of the herd is using. Once you identify those, that becomes an important target for conservation,” said Matthew Kauffman, USGS lead scientist for the mapping project.
Human development — homes, roads, fences, oil and gas fields and mining operations — increasingly interferes with Western migrations, sometimes with little awareness of what’s at stake for animals cherished by wildlife watchers and hunters alike.
The new migration atlas documents 26 migration corridors, 16 migration routes, 25 places where wildlife linger while migrating and nine areas where animals congregate during winter.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Nearly 5,000 customers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties lost electricity Thursday and more than 100,000 other customers are at risk of losing power, according to Southern Edison.
San Diego Gas & Electric has notified roughly 2,700 customers that it might have to temporarily turn off their power early today to prevent power lines from sparking and causing wildfires. The affected communities are mostly in Alpine, Julian, Jacumba, Ramona and Pala.
A red flag warning of extreme fire danger is in effect in a large swath of Southern California, including eastern San Diego County, where very dry conditions and Santa Ana winds were expected to last through Saturday.
The Santa Anas will affect the region from northwest of Los Angeles down to the Mexico border, according to the National Weather Service.
The winds began to whip through the Borrego Springs and Palomar Mountain areas Thursday afternoon and were expected to peak early today. Forecasters expected gusts of 30 mph to 50 mph in the mountains and 25 mph to 40 mph across inland valleys and foothills.
At the same time, the relative humidity inland will drop to the 10 percent to 15 percent range.
Common in the fall but possible at other times, the winds have fanned many catastrophic wildfires.
Southern California Edison’s public safety power shutoff website showed that blackouts were under consideration for 2.2 percent of its 5 million customers, including about 51,000 customers in San Bernardino County and nearly 28,000 in Los Angeles County.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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In a report released Thursday, the group revealed research illustrating the effects of discarded plastic on ocean wildlife. The group surveyed dozens of government agencies and other organizations that collect data on plastic pollution, and tallied reports of animals that ingested or became entangled in plastic. The data was collected from 21 of 23 coastal states in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii.
“I think having data that shows that these are problems here in the United States, on our shores, gives weight to the idea that we do more to handle the problem of ocean plastics here at home,” said Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist with Oceana.
Warner and her staff, Elizabeth Linske, Patrick Mustain, Melissa Valliant and Christy Leavitt, contacted the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with aquariums, universities and rescue organizations to find out about marine mammals and turtles that were stranded or died from plastic ingestion or entanglement.
They received data from 21 out of 23 coastal states, and identified a total of 1,792 cases between 2009 and 2019. In California alone, they found reports of 104 animals harmed or killed by marine plastics during that time, Warner said.
Most of the animals affected in California were seals or sea lions, but the group also found some instances of plastic injuries to green sea turtles off of San Diego and other parts of Southern California, as well as some leatherbacks and loggerhead turtles.
The animals had choked, drowned or been entangled in plastic ranging from fishing line and swim goggles to packing straps, food wrappers, plastic bags, bottle caps and balloons.
The biggest problem was plastic ingestion. Animals may mistake a plastic item for food, or inadvertently swallow it, and then suffer obstruction or lacerations to their digestive system that eventually cause starvation and death. In addition to large plastic pieces, many animals consumed microplastics, and then vomited or passed those particles in their waste, Warner said.
“Plastics ranged in size and type, from microplastics that were perforating the gastrointestinal tract of a baby sea turtle, to DVD cases and huge plastic sheets that had been swallowed by whales,” the report stated.
Animals may also become entangled in plastics, which can cause them to “drown, choke to death or suffer physical trauma, amputation and infection,” the report stated.
“In one of the saddest cases, an elephant seal was nursing a pup, and was choked by a packing strip around her neck,” Warner said.
Of the animals identified, 83 percent were listed as threatened or endangered, the report stated. Moreover, the cases Oceana identified represent just a portion of the full number of animals affected, the report noted.
The findings indicate a need to reduce plastic waste, particularly by cutting back on single-use plastics, Warner said.
“We need to stem the flow of plastic going into the ocean,” she said. “And we need to start now.”
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The inferno struck with sudden ferocity midday Tuesday during strong winds high in the eastern Sierra Nevada, destroying more than 80 structures, including homes, in the unincorporated town of Walker near the Nevada state line, according to the Mono County Sheriff’s Office.
By early Wednesday, rain and snow were falling, reducing the fire to smoldering remnants after it scorched over 32 square miles [20,500 acres].
By then, grave damage had been done to Walker, a community of widely spaced homes and businesses perched in a valley along a highway and the West Walker River, a six-hour drive north of Los Angeles. Homes and outbuildings were reduced to charred rubble. One person was dead.
The same ferocious winds, part of winter-like weather that blew into California and Nevada, also sent a wildfire roaring through a neighborhood about 100 miles north in Reno, Nev. The flames forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate Tuesday — including the mayor — destroyed five houses and damaged 24. People began returning home Wednesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Nicaragua Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo on Wednesday raised the nation’s death toll to 16. The victims were spread across the country, swept away by swollen rivers or buried in landslides.
Rescuers searched at the site of a landslide in northern Nicaragua, where the local government confirmed four deaths and neighbors spoke of at least 16. A short video from the nation’s emergency management agency showed a massive bowl-shaped mountainside shrouded in clouds that collapsed. Police blocked media access to the site on the Macizo de Penas Blancas, a mountain in Matagalpa province, about 80 miles north of Managua.
There were seven confirmed dead at the mountain, and the search continued, Murillo said.
Miguel Rodriguez, who works on a ranch next to the site, said he saw at least seven bodies.
“The landslide came with all the dirt, and it became like a river going down. It took all of the little houses that were there. There were five homes, five families,” Rodriguez said.
One home was spared on the other side of the slide. But it was in a precarious position, and rescuers were trying to reach it, he said.
Nicaragua’s army said it was sending 100 rescuers to the site. Access was complicated by downed trees blocking roads.
Rolando Jose Alvarez, the Roman Catholic bishop of Matagalpa, said via Twitter that priests were being sent to the area.
In the coastal city of Bilwi, a distraught Filimon Wilfred, 72, said Iota had destroyed his family’s five houses, leaving its 18 members homeless.
“The hurricane came, it destroyed my house, my daughter’s house. It destroyed five houses in total,” Wilfred said. “Where am I going to live?”
Iota arrived Monday evening with winds of 155 mph, hitting nearly the same location as Hurricane Eta two weeks earlier.
By early Wednesday, Iota had dissipated over El Salvador, but the storm’s torrential rains remained a threat. Parts of neighboring Honduras were still under water from Eta.
The storm’s center passed just south of Tegucigalpa, the mountainous capital of Honduras, where residents of low-lying, flood-prone areas were evacuated, as were residents of hillside neighborhoods vulnerable to landslides.
Along Honduras’ remote eastern coast, people fled their homes as waters rose.
“What affected us most here was the flooding,” said Teonela Paisano Wood, mayor of the Honduran town of Brus Laguna. “We are in danger if it keeps raining.”
Mirna Wood, vice president of the Miskito ethnic group in Honduras’ far eastern Gracias a Dios region, was in Tegucigalpa collecting donations for her community ravaged by Eta when Iota hit.
Some 40,000 people in the area had moved to shelters, but others remained stranded near the border with Nicaragua. Some were rescued by Nicaraguan authorities, she said.
“We are facing an incredible emergency,” Wood said. “There is no food. There is no water.”
Panama reported that one person was killed and another missing in its western Indigenous autonomous Ngabe Bugle area near the border with Costa Rica.
Iota was the 30th named storm of this year’s historically busy Atlantic hurricane season. It also developed later in the season than any other Category 5 storm on record, topping a Nov. 8, 1932, Cuba hurricane, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Another fire about 100 miles south and across the border in California also exploded in strong winds Tuesday, killing one person, driving hundreds from their homes and destroying 80 structures in and around a small community, including some houses.
Rains overnight helped tamp down the flames in both places. Crews in Reno had feared another lashing of strong winds would revive the fire Wednesday, but those conditions subsided. Firefighters even got better control of the flames that damaged 15 other structures near the Sierra Nevada foothills. The fire, which has charred about 2 square miles, was halfway contained, and they expected to have it fully contained by Friday.
Extremely dry conditions helped fuel the blaze in rugged, hard-to-reach canyons that run between homes in the densely populated neighborhood, Reno Fire Chief David Cochran said.
Nevada is experiencing drought, with much of the state in extreme drought. Numerous studies have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, which has made parts of the U.S. West much drier and more flammable.
Investigators from the state and Reno fire marshal’s office as well as the utility NV Energy were trying to find the cause of the fire.
The other blaze, across the border in California’s remote Mono County, exploded to more than 45 square miles Tuesday, burning into the tiny community of Walker. Rain and snow slowed its growth Wednesday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
One person died, but authorities offered no details.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, leaving the new administration of Joe Biden, who has opposed drilling in the refuge, to try to reverse them after the fact.
“This lease sale is one more box the Trump administration is trying to check off for its oil industry allies,” Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement. “But it is disappointing that this administration until the very end has maintained such low regard for America’s public lands, or the wildlife and Indigenous communities that depend on them.”
The Arctic refuge is one of the last vast expanses of wilderness in the United States, 19 million acres that for the most part are untouched by people, home instead to wandering herds of caribou, polar bears and migrating waterfowl. It has long been prized, and protected, by environmentalists, but President Donald Trump has boasted that opening part of it to oil development was among the most significant of his efforts to expand domestic fossil fuel production.
The Federal Register on Monday posted a “call for nominations” from the Bureau of Land Management, to be officially published today, relating to lease sales in about 1.5 million acres of the refuge along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. A call for nominations is essentially a request to oil companies to specify which tracts of land they would be interested in exploring and potentially drilling for oil and gas.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said it welcomed the move. In a statement, the organization said that development in the refuge was “long overdue and will create good-paying jobs and provide a new revenue stream for the state — which is why a majority of Alaskans support it.”
The administration’s announcement establishes a tight timeline for lease sales, with the earliest they could occur being on or about Jan. 17. The call for nominations will allow for comments until Dec. 17, after which the bureau, part of the Interior Department, could issue a final notice of sales to occur as soon as 30 days later.
Normally the bureau would take time to review the comments and determine which tracts to sell before issuing the final notice of sale, a process that can take several months. In this case, however, the bureau could decide to make the entire coastal plain available and issue the notice immediately.
An Interior Department spokesman, Conner Swanson, did not respond to emailed questions about the timing of the call for nominations, which was first reported by Bloomberg News. Swanson referred only to a Bureau of Land Management news release announcing the move. In the release, the bureau’s state director for Alaska, Chad Padgett, said the call for nominations “brings us one step closer to holding an historic first Coastal Plain lease sale.”
Any sales would be subject to review by agencies in the Biden administration, including the bureau and the Justice Department, a process that could take a month or two. That could allow the Biden White House to refuse to issue the leases, perhaps by claiming that the scientific underpinnings of the plan to allow drilling in the refuge were flawed, as environmental groups have claimed.
In 2017, in a reversal of decades of protections, the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress opened the refuge’s coastal plain to potential oil and gas development.
The coastal plain is thought to overlie geological formations that could hold billions of barrels of oil, although that assessment is based on data collected in the 1980s. Only one exploratory well has ever been drilled in the refuge, and a New York Times investigation found that the results were disappointing.
Should sales proceed, it is unclear how much interest drilling in the refuge will attract from oil companies. It would be at least a decade before any oil would be extracted, and by then the drive to wean the world from fossil fuels may have lessened any need for it. Arctic oil production is also difficult and costly; companies may decide it’s not worth the effort financially. They also may fear the potential effect to their reputations by drilling in such a pristine place.
(Henry Fountain, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. It was centered near the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi, and moving westward at 9 mph. Iota was hitting the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras with torrential rains and strong winds while the western edge began battering the Nicaraguan coast.
Authorities warned that Iota would probably come ashore over areas where Eta’s torrential rains saturated the soil, leaving it prone to new landslides and floods, and that the storm surge could reach 15 to 20 feet above normal tides.
Iota is forecast to drop 10 to 20 inches of rain in northern Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and southern Belize, with as much as 30 inches in isolated spots. Costa Rica and Panama could also experience heavy rain and possible flooding, the hurricane center said.
Iota is the record 30th named storm of this year’s extraordinarily busy Atlantic hurricane season. It’s also the ninth storm to rapidly intensify this season, a dangerous phenomenon that is happening more often. Such activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.
Eta hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, killing more than 130 people as torrential rains caused flash floods and mudslides in parts of Central America and Mexico. Then it meandered across Cuba, the Florida Keys and around the Gulf of Mexico.
Eta was this year’s 28th named storm, tying the 2005 record. Remnants of Theta, the 29th, dissipated Sunday in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Hurricane experts were closely watching the Caribbean, where Tropical Storm Iota formed Friday afternoon. Forecasters warned that Iota could power up quickly, to major hurricane strength, as it approaches Central America late Sunday or Monday, and wreak more havoc in a region where people are still grappling with the aftermath of Eta.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Iota could bring dangerous wind, storm surge and as much as 30 inches of rainfall to northern Nicaragua and Honduras. The storm was about 335 miles south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. There were no coastal warnings or watches in effect as of Friday afternoon.
Iota is a record-setting 30th named storm of this year’s extraordinarily busy Atlantic hurricane season. Such activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms.
Eta was the 28th named storm of this year’s hurricane season, tying the 2005 record for named storms. Theta, the 29th, was centered Friday south-southeast of the Azores, and moving east with top sustained winds of 60 mph.
Forecasters said Eta’s remnants would pick up forward speed in the next day or so as it pulls away from the Southeastern seaboard. Eta also triggered flash flooding, water rescues and at least one bridge collapse in South Carolina.
Eta hit Nicaragua last week as a Category 4 hurricane, killing at least 120 people as torrential rains brought flash floods and landslides to parts of Central America and Mexico. Then it meandered across Cuba, the Florida Keys and around the Gulf of Mexico before slogging ashore again near Cedar Key, Fla., and dashing across Florida and the Carolinas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Troops, police, coast guard and disaster-response teams rescued tens of thousands of people, including many who flooded radio and TV networks and social media with desperate pleas for help.
Floodwaters receded and the weather cleared in many areas after Typhoon Vamco blew out into the South China Sea on Friday, but the military said it was still rescuing people trapped in some flooded communities.
Amphibious assault vehicles usually used in counterinsurgency operations were deployed for the rescue work, military chief of staff Gen. Gilbert Gapay said in a meeting with disaster-response officials.
“We’ll continue to look for the missing, help in damage assessment,” Gapay said.
The national police reported that the death toll had risen to at least 42 with 20 missing.
Among the dead were at least 12 villagers who were dug out from mud and rockslides in the northern provinces of Cagayan and Nueva Vizcaya, police said.
After slamming into northeastern Quezon province, Vamco gained strength with sustained winds of 96 miles per hour and gusts of up to 158 mph. It blew north of metropolitan Manila overnight Wednesday, toppling trees and power poles, swelling rivers, flooding residential communities and setting off landslides and storm surges.
NB: a sustained windspeed of 96 mph would make this a category 2 hurricane
In hard-hit Marikina city in the capital region and the towns of Rodriguez and Cainta in nearby Rizal province, several villages were inundated by water that reached the second and third floors of many houses, prompting hundreds of residents to flee to their roofs and call TV and radio networks or post desperate messages on social media. The panic was exacerbated by widespread power outages and loss of Internet access.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Typhoon Vamco, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane, struck the northern island of Luzon, the third typhoon and fifth tropical cyclone to affect the Philippines in less than three weeks.
Super Typhoon Goni narrowly sidestepped the capital region of more than 12 million this month, but Vamco brought rain and winds of up to 105 mph Wednesday night into Thursday. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration issued a Signal 3 warning, on a 1 through 5 scale, for much of Luzon, including the Manila metropolitan area.
The consecutive storms present double trouble for the Philippines’ overcrowded evacuation centers — usually tent setups in gyms and schools — as the coronavirus continues to spread. The country surpassed 402,000 cases this week, the second-highest number in Southeast Asia.
On Thursday, houses were submerged and Filipinos were stranded on rooftops. The hashtag #RescuePH trended on social media, with people posting their whereabouts and contact details, begging for help. Many were stranded with the elderly, children and pets. Some were rescued on rubber life boats; in one video, a child was floated out in a basin.
In the capital region, a river cutting through Marikina City swelled, forcing residents to seek higher ground. A steel bridge swept away by floodwaters lodged against an elevated roadway outside a mall. A ship rammed into another bridge north of Manila.
A Marikina resident, Lester Abuel, said that after the river rose by more than three feet in less than an hour, he and his parents began packing up. At 5:30 a.m., they left with the clothes on their backs and some supplies — but the damage proved to be far worse than they expected.
“Looking at the photos and videos in our Facebook village group, we knew that there wouldn’t be anything to salvage after,” he said. “It was gut-wrenching to see the calls for help.”
The Manila Electric Company said almost 2 million households had no electricity at midday Thursday.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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In a series of overnight rescues in Madeira Beach, near St. Petersburg, firefighters used high-riding firetrucks and an inflatable Zodiac boat to ferry 15 people, a cat, two birds and five dogs from several flooded households to dry land.
In the middle of the night, they encountered a woman in waist-high water on her front lawn — a toddler strapped to her chest and a 4-year-old child on her back. With no time to bring in a boat, they hustled what turned out to be her family of five onto a firetruck along with two caged parrots and a dog, said Dominic Bueller, an acting lieutenant with the Madeira Beach Fire Department.
To make room, a paramedic and another lieutenant left the truck and waded toward dry land until a boat piloted by a team of Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies picked them up.
No serious injuries were reported in the long night of emergency calls, which Bueller said included floodwaters inside homes triggering fires in electric wall units.
“I was not expecting when we turned the corner to see a lady in waist-deep water with two kids strapped to her,” Bueller said. He said that floodwaters overflowed the Intracoastal Waterway, making it difficult to determine where roads ended and the large canal began.
Eta’s landfall was its second in the state this week. It hit the central part of the Florida Keys late Sunday and made landfall again about 4 a.m. Thursday near Cedar Key, roughly 130 miles north of Tampa. Floodwaters receded by late morning as the storm moved out into the Atlantic near Florida’s border with Georgia.
The storm, which continued to weaken through the day, passed northwest of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
In Tampa, streets were briefly overrun with floodwaters.
Eta was barely hanging onto tropical storm strength as it was moving over Jacksonville at 10 a.m., according to the hurricane center. By early afternoon, the storm’s sustained winds were down to 40 mph as it moved off the coast near Fernandina Beach.
The storm’s latest destruction came days after Eta soaked the central part of the Florida Keys and its strongest winds battered the Upper Keys and Miami-Dade and Broward counties over the weekend.
On Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged Florida residents to prepare for the storm and said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had granted his request for “a pre-landfall emergency declaration” to help mobilize federal aid to the affected parts of the state.
“It’s really been a crazy storm to watch,” DeSantis said.
Eta is the 28th named storm and the 12th hurricane of an unusually busy Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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In addition to the three deaths at the Hiddenite Family Campground in Alexander County, a motorist was killed in the county while traveling on a road that was washed out by rising water, said Doug Gillespie, county director of public services.
“Just massive amounts of flooding,” Gillespie said. “We’ve had approximately 50 roads across the county (that) have been compromised. Four bridges have been washed away.”
In Rolesville, just north of Raleigh, police reported a child drowned Thursday in a creek swollen by the rain. The child, whose name and age were not released, was recovered unresponsive from the water about an hour later, according to Rolesville police.
According to Gillespie, the floodwaters either covered or swept away the recreational vehicles at the campground. Swift-water rescue personnel and local fire departments saved 31 people from their vehicles, some of them hanging onto their campers, according to Gillespie. He said three people were taken to the hospital for treatment, and two have been released.
National Weather Service meteorologist Nick Tatro said the rain was the result of a band of tropical moisture moving up ahead of Tropical Storm Eta in the southeast and interacting with a cold front moving across the Carolinas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Warmer ocean waters from climate change are likely making hurricanes lose power more slowly after landfall, because they act as a reserve fuel tank for moisture, the study found. With Eta threatening Florida and the Gulf Coast, the study’s lead author warned of more damage away from the coast than in the past.
The new study looked at 71 Atlantic hurricanes with landfalls since 1967. It found that in the 1960s, hurricanes declined two-thirds in wind strength within 17 hours of landfall. But now it generally takes 33 hours for storms to weaken that same degree, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
“This is a huge increase,” study author Pinaki Chakraborty, a professor of fluid dynamics at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. “There’s been a huge slowdown in the decay of hurricanes.”
Hurricane Florence, which in 2018 caused $24 billion in damage, took nearly 50 hours to decay by nearly two-thirds after making landfall near Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Chakraborty said. Hurricane Hermine in 2016 took more than three days to lose that much power after hitting Florida’s Apalachee Bay.
As the world warms from human-caused climate change, inland cities like Atlanta should see more damage from future storms that just won’t quit, Chakraborty said.
“If their conclusions are sound, which they seem to be, then at least in the Atlantic, one could argue that insurance rates need to start going up and building codes need to be improved to compensate for this additional wind and water destructive power reaching farther inland,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, who wasn’t part of the study.
“That’s an amazing signal that they found,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate and hurricane scientist Jim Kossin, who wasn’t part of the study but did review it for the journal Nature.
This study joins previous studies, many by Kossin, that show tropical systems are slowing down more, wetter, moving more toward the poles — and that the strongest hurricanes are getting stronger.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm’s maximum sustained winds remained at about 70 mph off Florida’s west coast as the storm moved northward, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Additional weakening was possible as Eta approaches the coast.
Forecasters had posted — but later discontinued — a hurricane watch for a 120-mile stretch that includes Tampa and St. Petersburg. Eta had briefly attained hurricane strength Wednesday morning but then weakened. Subsequently, a tropical storm warning was issued for the same general area.
The storm has been in the Gulf of Mexico since crossing over South Florida on Sunday. On Wednesday evening, Eta was located 45 miles west of St. Petersburg and was moving north at 12 mph, the hurricane center reported.
The Tampa Bay region is home to more than 3.5 million people across five coastal counties. No mandatory evacuations were immediately ordered but authorities began opening shelters for anyone needing them. No serious damage or flooding was immediately reported.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said special care is taken at shelters to protect people from the coronavirus, such as social distancing, and suggested people bring their own masks.
“Everything will be done to make sure all of our residents are safe,” Castor said.
The forecast prompted school officials in Pinellas and Pasco counties, which includes St. Petersburg, to send students home early Wednesday. Both counties announced schools would remain closed today, as did neighboring Hillsborough County.
The Florida Highway Patrol closed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that links Pinellas and Manatee counties because of high winds. Tampa International Airport tweeted that it would suspend operations at 3 p.m. Wednesday.
In Pasco County, officials set up four do-it-yourself locations for people to fill sandbags. In Tampa, the Busch Gardens theme park announced it was closed Wednesday and several Veterans Day events in the area were canceled.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an expanded emergency declaration to include 13 counties along or near the Gulf coast, adding them to South Florida counties. DeSantis also asked for an early emergency order from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to free resources needed to tackle the storm. President Donald Trump granted the request Wednesday evening.
U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, who represent Florida, had sent a letter to Trump earlier Wednesday in support of DeSantis’ request.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami declared hurricane and storm surge warnings for the Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay, with the storm expected to reach that area by Sunday night or early today.
Florida officials closed beaches, ports and COVID-19 testing sites, shut down public transportation and urged residents to stay off the street. Several shelters also opened in Miami and the Florida Keys for residents in mobile homes and low-lying areas. Broward County also shut down in-person schooling Monday, and Miami seemed poised to do the same.
Eta had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph on Sunday evening and was centered north of Cuba, about 65 miles east of Marathon, and about 90 miles south-southeast of Miami. It was moving northwest at 14 mph.
Some 60,000 people had been evacuated in Guatemala.
At least 20 people also were reported dead in southern Mexico and local officials in Honduras reported 21, though the national disaster agency had confirmed only eight.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency Saturday for eight counties at the end of the state as Eta approached, urging residents to stock up on supplies.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The 3.6 magnitude earthquake centered off the coast of New Bedford, Mass., in Buzzards Bay struck just after 9 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center.
The earthquake hit at a depth of a little more than 9.3 miles and was felt across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and into Connecticut and Long Island, N.Y.
It was the strongest earthquake in the area since a magnitude 3.5 temblor hit in March 1976, said Paul Caruso, a USGS geophysicist.
About 14,000 people went to the agency’s website to report the earthquake, including people from Easthampton, Mass., and Hartford, Conn., both about 100 miles away, and several from more than 50 miles away in Boston, he said.
That’s not unusual in New England.
“It’s common for them to be felt very far away because the rock here is old and continuous and transmits the energy a long way,“ Caruso said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center, Hanik Humaida, warned that Merapi, Indonesia’s most active volcano, could erupt at any time, possibly sending hot gas clouds down its slopes as far as 3 miles.
Edy Susanto, a local disaster mitigation agency official, said about 300 people from two villages, mostly the elderly, pregnant women and children, were taken to emergency shelters in Central Java’s Magelang district.
On Thursday, Indonesia’s geological agency raised Merapi’s alert level to the second-highest level after sensors picked up increased activity.
About a quarter million people live within a 6-mile radius of the 9,737-foot mountain.
Merapi spewed ash and hot gas in a column as high as 3.7 miles into the sky in June, but no casualties were reported. Its last major eruption, in 2010, killed 347 people and caused the evacuation of 20,000 villagers.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Governments worked to tally the displaced and dead, and recover bodies from landslides and flooding caused by Eta, now a tropical depression, that claimed dozens of lives from Mexico to Panama.
In southern Mexico, across the border from Guatemala, 19 people died as heavy rains attributed to Eta caused mudslides and swelled streams and rivers, according to Chiapas state civil defense official Elias Morales Rodriguez.
The worst incident occurred in the mountain township of Chenalho, where 10 people were swept away by a rain-swollen stream; their bodies were later found downstream. Mexico’s National Meteorological Service said Eta’s “broad circulation is causing intense to torrential rains on the Yucatan peninsula and in southeastern Mexico.”
In Guatemala, the first army brigade reached a massive landslide Friday morning in the central mountains where an estimated 150 homes were buried Thursday. They recovered three bodies, according to an army spokesman. In a news conference, President Alejandro Giammattei said he believed there were at least 100 dead there in San Cristobal Verapaz, but noted that was still unconfirmed.
“The panorama is complicated in that area,” he said, noting rescuers were struggling to access the site.
Tropical Depression Eta was centered 115 miles east of Belize City. It was moving northeast at 7 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph.
Hurricane Eta’s arrival Tuesday afternoon in northeast Nicaragua followed days of drenching rain as it crawled toward shore. Its slow, meandering path north through Honduras pushed rivers over their banks and pouring into neighborhoods where families were forced onto rooftops to wait for rescue. The death toll in Honduras rose to at least 21 people Friday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm that hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday had become more of a vast tropical rainstorm, but it was advancing so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America remained on high alert.
Governments and aid organizations warned that the flooding and landslides the heavy rain generated had created a slow-moving humanitarian disaster across much of the region.
On Thursday afternoon, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said a water-soaked mountainside in the central part of the country had slid down onto the town of San Cristobal Verapaz, burying homes and leaving at least 25 dead.
Two other slides in Huehuetenango had killed at least 12 more, he said. Earlier Thursday, five others had been killed in smaller slides in Guatemala.
Guatemala’s toll was on top of 13 victims in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. Panamanian authorities reported eight missing.
Eta is predicted to slowly move toward Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for forecasters to warn of 7 inches of rain for South Florida in the next five to seven days. And next week, Eta could even move into the Gulf of Mexico.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 30,000 people were evacuated ahead of Hurricane Eta, with Nicaragua’s navy pitching in Monday to help. At least 17 shelters were opened in Puerto Cabezas, a city of more than 60,000, to house those fleeing the impending surge and wind. The city took a direct hit from Eta most extreme winds and surge.
Two municipalities, Bilwi and Waspam, were cut off from the rest of the country by land due to flooding from the Wawa River. In Honduras, collapsed bridges severed access to communities in Colón, Atlántida, Yoro and Olancho.
La Prensa reports that some Nicaraguan communities 100 miles inland were unaware of the approaching hurricane until it hit.
Eta had since degenerated into a tropical storm as it moved inland through northern Nicaragua while bands of torrential downpours pinwheeled across Central America. The storm’s center of circulation will drift into Honduras in the coming days and work northwestward before emerging over the Caribbean once again on Friday.
Thereafter, a restrengthening Eta could impact Cuba, Florida, or even the northern Gulf Coast.
Slow-moving Eta will drift northwest into Honduras, meandering northwestward before clipping coastal Guatemala and Belize between today and Friday morning. On Friday afternoon, Eta is likely to slip into the northwest Caribbean, where water temperatures are plenty warm to support re-intensification, and begin what could be a problematic second act.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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All but two of the victims were killed in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. Two teenagers died on the Greek island of Samos, which lies south of the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey registered the quake’s magnitude at 7.0, although other agencies recorded it as less severe.
Mehmet Gulluoglu, head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, said search and rescue operations had been completed at 17 buildings that fell in Izmir. The rescue operation has been roaring at full tilt since Friday, pulling 107 survivors from the rubble.
Of the 1,035 people injured in the quake, 137 remained hospitalized on Wednesday, the agency added.
Following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged not to give up until the final person was recovered. Rescuers’ spirits were raised Tuesday when they pulled a 3-year-old girl from the wreckage of her family home 91 hours after the quake.
The temblors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul, as well as in the Greek capital of Athens. Some 1,700 aftershocks followed, 45 of which were greater than 4.0 magnitude.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The move, long threatened by President Donald Trump and triggered by his administration a year ago, further isolates Washington in the world but has no immediate impact on international efforts to curb global warming.
Still, the U.N. agency that oversees the treaty, France as the host of the 2015 Paris talks and three countries currently chairing the body that organizes them — Chile, Britain and Italy — issued a joint statement expressing regret at the U.S. withdrawal.
“There is no greater responsibility than protecting our planet and people from the threat of climate change,” they said. “The science is clear that we must urgently scale up action and work together to reduce the impacts of global warming and to ensure a greener, more resilient future for us all. The Paris Agreement provides the right framework to achieve this.”
“We remain committed to working with all U.S. stakeholders and partners around the world to accelerate climate action, and with all signatories to ensure the full implementation of the Paris Agreement,” they added.
The next planned round of U.N. climate talks takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021. At present, 189 countries have ratified the accord, which aims to keep the increase in average temperatures worldwide “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5°C (2.7°F), compared to pre-industrial levels. A further six countries have signed, but not ratified the pact.
Scientists say that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.
The world has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial time, so the efforts are really about preventing another 0.3 to 0.7 degrees Celsius (0.5 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) warming from now.
“Having the U.S. pull out of Paris is likely to reduce efforts to mitigate, and therefore increase the number of people who are put into a life-or-death situation because of the impacts of climate change: this is clear from the science,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a co-author of U.N. science reports on global warming.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The hurricane had sustained winds of 110 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, down from an overnight peak of 150 mph. Even before it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Honduras reported the first death after a mudslide trapped a 12-year-old girl in San Pedro Sula.
Tuesday afternoon, the strong Category 2 hurricane crawled inland from the coast, about 25 miles southwest of coastal Puerto Cabezas or Bilwi, and it was moving west near 5 mph.
Landfall came hours after it had been expected. Eta’s eye had hovered just offshore through the night and Tuesday morning. The unceasing winds uprooted trees and ripped roofs apart, scattering corrugated metal through the streets of Bilwi, the main coastal city in the region. The city’s regional hospital abandoned its building, moving patients to a local technical school campus.
“It was an intense night for everyone in Bilwi, Waspam and the communities along the northern coast,” Yamil Zapata, local Bilwi representative of the ruling Sandinista Front, told local Channel 4 Tuesday.
Guillermo Gonzalez, director of the country’s emergency management agency, said in a news conference earlier that there were reports of corrugated metal roofs flying off homes, trees, poles and power lines falling and rivers rising in the coastal area. So far, there were no reported injuries or deaths, he said.
About 10,000 people were in shelters in Bilwi and an equal number in smaller towns across the region, he said. The area had already been lashed with strong winds and heavy rain for hours.
The storm has been drenching neighboring Honduras with rains since at least Sunday and the country reported its first death attributed to Eta early Tuesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Wrapped in a thermal blanket, the girl was taken into an ambulance on a stretcher to the sounds of applause and chants of “God is great!” from rescue workers and onlookers.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca identified her as 3-year-old Ayda Gezgin on Twitter. The child had been trapped inside the rubble for 91 hours since Friday’s quake struck in the Aegean Sea and was the 107th person to have been pulled out of collapsed buildings alive.
“We will not lose hope (about finding survivors) until our search-and-rescue efforts reach the last person under the wreck,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said following a Cabinet meeting.
Erdogan said around 6,700 people who lost their homes or were too frightened to return to them were being temporarily housed in tents.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Eta had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph and was centered about 70 miles east of the Nicaragua-Honduras border in late afternoon, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving west at 9 mph.
It said the Category 4 hurricane was likely to strengthen further before running ashore by early today in Nicaragua, where it could bring rains measured in feet rather than inches.
Forecasters said central and northern Nicaragua into much of Honduras could get 15 to 25 inches of rain, with 35 inches in isolated areas. Heavy rains also were likely in eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica.
Storm surge up to 15 feet above normal tides was possible for the coast of Nicaragua.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The magnitude-7.0 tremor, centered in the Aegean Sea, hit Friday afternoon, rocking Izmir, a city in western Turkey that is the country’s third most populous, after Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. As well as the 71 deaths in Turkey, at least two people were killed on the Greek island of Samos, authorities there said.
Anxious family members of those still missing kept vigil around the wrecked husks of buildings they had called home just a few days ago, many of them wailing in agony as they prayed for the best and feared the worst.
Along with the devastation in Izmir, the quake created a small tsunami about 30 miles to the southwest in the area of Sigacik, a coastal town around 10 miles from the epicenter.
An aid operation included the dispatch of thousands of tents, beds and blankets to the area for survivors who had lost their homes or were unable to return to their buildings as powerful aftershocks reverberated.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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At least 20 people were killed in Turkey and hundreds were reported injured. Two more people were killed in Greece from the earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.0 according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and was centered off Samos, a Greek island near Turkey’s coast.
More than 1,200 workers were involved in rescue efforts involving at least 13 buildings in Izmir, the country’s third-most populous city with about 3 million people.
Nearly 10 hours after the quake struck, three people were rescued from the rubble of an eight-story building, Turkish television reported, showing dramatic footage of one being pulled from the debris.
The quake struck just before 3 p.m., causing panicked residents of Izmir to dash into the street. Murat Kurum, the Turkish environment minister, said much of the damage was in the Bayrakli neighborhood of Izmir.
Two teenagers died in Samos when a wall collapsed on them, Greek state news reported.
The quake was felt in Istanbul, about 200 miles northeast of Izmir, and rattled parts of Greece. But much of the damage appeared to be in the city of Izmir, a center for tourism and industry that is prone to earthquakes.
One young man was pulled from the debris of a fallen building in Izmir and was quickly reunited with his mother, who embraced him.
“My three children were at home. I was not,” his mother told Haber Turk Television. “They are all fine, survived.”
Teoman Cuneyt Acar, a resident of Izmir who felt the quake, told Haber Turk TV that the tremor lasted for around 45 seconds.
Gulen Kurtcebe, who was at a market in the Kahramanlar neighborhood of Izmir when the earthquake struck, said that although locals were accustomed to earthquakes, “this was different.” Initially, she said, she thought she was having a dizzy spell, but then a woman nearby started screaming, “Earthquake!”
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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From the bayous of the Gulf Coast to Atlanta and beyond, Southerners used to dealing with dangerous weather were left to pick up the pieces once again just days ahead of an election in which early voting continued despite the storm.
In Atlanta and New Orleans, drivers dodged trees in roads and navigated intersections without traffic signals. In Lakeshore, Miss., Ray Garcia returned home to find a shrimp boat washed up and resting against its pilings.
“I don’t even know if insurance is going to pay for this,” Garcia said. “I don’t know what this boat has done.”
As many as 2.6 million homes and businesses lost power across seven states, but the lights were coming back on slowly. The sun came out and temperatures cooled, but trees were still swaying as the storm’s remnants blew through.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state sustained “catastrophic” damage on Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish, where Zeta punched three breaches in the levee. Edwards ordered the Louisiana National Guard to fly in soldiers to assist with search and rescue efforts and urged continued caution.
“Oddly enough, it isn’t the storms that typically produce the most injuries and the fatalities. It’s the cleanup efforts. It’s the use of generators. It’s the carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s the electrocution that comes from power lines. So, now is the time to be very, very cautious out there,” Edwards said.
Lines of cars stretched more than 20 deep at one of the few gas stations open in Marrero, La. The owner was using an industrial generator to run the pumps and accepting cash only.
“The wait is kind of ridiculous, but it is what it is, you know?” said resident Jeanne Guillory. “I have no lights. I have no idea how long I’ll be without power. I’m hopeful that my generator gets fixed. That’s why I’m coming to put gas in the tanks. If it doesn’t, then I guess I just have a lot of gas to ride the four-wheeler.”
A Category 2 hurricane when it hit the southeastern Louisiana coast Wednesday, Zeta weakened to a post-tropical storm by Thursday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The fast-moving storm was centered about 25 miles southwest of Cape May, N.J., and forecast to head east-northeast over the open Atlantic.
North Carolina and southeastern Virginia were still being buffeted with gusty winds, but Zeta was moving along at 53 mph, meaning no single place was blasted too long.
Still, the latest punch from this historically busy hurricane season left people shaken.
Will Arute of New Orleans said it sounded like a bomb went off when part of a large oak snapped outside and crashed into his car and a corner of his home.
“I did not anticipate this to happen. It was pretty intense along the eyewall when it went through here,” he said.
Mackenzie Umanzor didn’t make many preparations because the last hurricane to threaten her home in D’Iberville, Miss., a few weeks ago, did little damage. Zeta blew open doors she had tried to barricade, leaving her with a cut hand, and the top of her shed came loose.
“You could hear the tin roof waving in the wind. And there was a couple of snaps, lots of cracks of branches and trees falling,” she said. “It was pretty scary.”
(Jeff Amy & Rebecca Santana, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it has decided to exempt the Tongass National Forest, the country’s largest national forest, from the so-called roadless rule, protections that ban road construction and timber harvests with limited exceptions.
The rule, dating to 2001, has long been a focus of litigation.
About 9.4 million of Tongass’ 16.7 million acres are considered roadless areas, according to the U.S. Forest Service, which falls under the USDA. The majority of Tongass is in a natural condition, and the forest is one of the largest, relatively intact temperate rainforests in the world, the agency said.
The USDA, in a notice released Wednesday, said it concluded that a policy change for Tongass “can be made without major adverse impacts to the recreation, tourism, and fishing industries, while providing benefits to the timber and mining industries, increasing opportunities for community infrastructure, and eliminating unnecessary regulations.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Roughly 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate Monday after the wildfires broke out in brushy hills above cities in Orange County amid fierce winds and extremely dry weather conditions.
On Wednesday, evacuation orders were lifted for all residents in the city of Irvine, which saw more than a quarter of its 280,000 people forced from their homes. Evacuation orders remained in place in other areas as firefighters sought to contain the blazes as the winds subsided.
“With favorable weather, fire crews will find opportunities to establish more control lines,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.
Firefighters were battling the Silverado fire near Irvine, which burned 21 square miles and was 25 percent contained on Wednesday, and the Blue Ridge fire just to the north, which destroyed one structure, damaged seven and charred a similar-sized area near the city of Yorba Linda.
Scientists have said climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable. October and November are traditionally the worst months for fires, but already this year 8,600 wildfires in the state have scorched a record 6,400 square miles [4,100,000 acres] and destroyed about 9,200 homes, businesses and other buildings. There have been 32 deaths.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Roads were flooded near the coast, where forecasters said Zeta made landfall around Terrebone Bay near Cocodrie, an unincorporated fishing village at the end of a highway with a marine laboratory but few if any full-time residents.
Streams of rainfall ran off roofs in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter, signs outside bars and restaurants swayed back and forth in the wind and palm trees along Canal Street whipped furiously. A few trees were down, and one that fell across utility lines sparked a bright orange flash.
Almost 300,000 customers were without electricity in Louisiana, including more than 230,000 in metro New Orleans.
Zeta had top sustained winds of 110 mph as a Category 2 hurricane and was the 27th named storm of a historically busy Atlantic hurricane season — with over a month left before it ends. It set a record as the 11th named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. in a single season, well beyond the nine storms that hit in 1916.
Tropical storm warnings were issued as far away as the north Georgia mountains, highly unusual for the region. New Orleans has been in the warning areas of six previous storms that veered east or west this season. This time, Zeta stayed on course.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fierce Santa Ana winds that fueled the blazes eased significantly late in the day, and firefighters hope that could help them get the upper hand after two days of pitched battle defending subdivisions from Yorba Linda to Lake Forest.
Together, the Silverado and Blue Ridge fires have consumed more than 27,000 acres, but destruction to property has been relatively light.
Officials said 10 homes were damaged in the Yorba Linda area. And by Tuesday afternoon, the massive evacuations in Irvine had been lifted.
Even people who live far from the flames felt the affects of the Santa Ana wind storm, which saw gusts topping 90 mph Monday. In addition to smoke from the two Orange County fires, winds carried ash and soot left from the Bobcat fire earlier this month back into the skies, further choking Southern California with bad air.
By Tuesday morning, the government’s air quality monitoring agency had reported that Southern California had the worst air quality in the nation, with parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties and the city of Corona all hovering in the “unhealthy” range. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a smoke advisory for Orange County.
The Silverado fire broke out shortly after 6:45 a.m. Monday in the brush country around Santiago Canyon and Silverado Canyon roads. It swept toward Irvine, forcing a large swath of the city’s north side to be evacuated. By 2 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters had achieved 5 percent containment on the blaze, which had burned through more than 12,000 acres — sparing structures but injuring five firefighters, including two who were critically burned.
The firefighters, ages 26 and 31, were placed on ventilators after suffering second- and third-degree burns over half their bodies. They “remain in critical condition, fighting for their lives, with their families by their sides,” Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said Tuesday.
Hours after the Silverado fire ignited, the Blue Ridge fire erupted in Santa Ana Canyon — a notorious wind tunnel said to have given the blustery Santa Anas their name. The flames spread quickly as the fire pushed west toward Yorba Linda, threatening the town’s Hidden Hills community. By Tuesday evening, the blaze had surpassed its predecessor, engulfing more than 15,000 acres and damaging at least 10 homes. Firefighters had not been able to achieve any containment on the growing blaze.
Marc Church, 63, joined a group of passersby Tuesday who were snapping photos of a canyon burning from the Silverado fire. The smoke had lessened from the previous day, he said, motioning to the hills, where patches of charred black peeked through the brown haze. Church lives in Mission Viejo, where he moved a year and a half ago from Irvine because his wife wanted to be closer to the hills. Now, they fear the wind could carry burning embers and ignite their backyard. “It’s a risk whenever you move near these hills,” he said.
The family had packed a few boxes of important documents — car titles, birth certificates, bank information — and spent the morning gathering other necessities, including clothes, computers and chargers. They took shifts sleeping and keeping watch overnight, he said, and awoke to voluntary evacuations and the sound of helicopters circling. “We didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Church said, adding that if the evacuation orders became mandatory, they would load up the car. “If we have to go, we’ll have to go.”
John Lologo, 49, fiddled in his garage in the Yorba Linda neighborhood of Country Hills, which was under voluntary evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon. Blackened palm fronds had blown in and lined his driveway, and clumps of ash floated to the ground. In the distance, three separate smoke plumes billowed from the hills where the Blue Ridge fire was burning.
Lologo said he drove through Riverside on Tuesday morning and saw flames leaping over the Chino hills. Soon after he returned home, authorities knocked on his door to announce voluntary evacuations. Lologo had planned a trip to Utah to coach a softball game Friday, so his bags were already packed. But he doesn’t expect to leave before then. “I’m not going to leave until it’s mandatory, and even then, I’ll probably stay,” he said. “I’m far enough away from everything that even if it burns down to the end of the block, I don’t perceive too much happening this side of the street.”
Adriana Cruz and her daughter, Roxana, 11, had to evacuate their Yorba Linda home and stayed in a hotel Monday night. With the two of them and their lumbering dog, Jacqs, kept in his crate, the room was crowded. The Cruz family brought Jacqs to the O.C. Animal Care shelter in Tustin, which was welcoming evacuees’ small animals. Jacqs would stay Tuesday night while Cruz and her daughter waited to learn more about their neighborhood. The whole process was confusing, Cruz said while wiping out the dog’s crate with a towel. As for when the family could return home, Cruz shook her head: “We don’t know.”
Southern California Edison said its equipment may have played a role in starting the Silverado fire. The fire raised more concerns about whether utilities have substantially improved their safety efforts, and whether the company should have more broadly shut off power in Southern California this week. Edison’s posture stood in contrast to Pacific Gas & Electric, which turned off power to a broad swath of Northern California beginning Sunday over fears of dangerous wildfire conditions.
Investigators have not determined what ignited the fires, but on Monday, Southern California Edison filed its second wildfire incident report this year, saying that a telecommunications line might have struck its equipment and might have caused the Silverado fire. Last month, the utility filed a report that said its equipment was part of an investigation into the cause of the Bobcat fire, which burned about 116,000 acres near Pasadena.
Edison said Tuesday that it did not cut power to the line possibly connected with the Silverado fire because wind speeds were not high enough to warrant it. Even critics of the utilities cautioned against drawing conclusions about the incident reports. Telecommunications companies hang their wires on utility poles and are responsible for their own equipment. “We don’t want to make any wide-eyed accusations without having the evidence,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, which represents consumers before the utility commission.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said California had received a fire management assistance grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that will allow the state to receive 75 percent reimbursements for firefighting efforts related to the Silverado and Blue Ridge fires. California is experiencing its worst fire season on record, with the Orange County fires adding to the list but still much smaller than many other blazes in 2020.
“We talk in historic terms,” Newsom said, “and I remind you that six of the top 20 wildfires in our state’s history have occurred in 2020.” More than 4 million acres have burned this year, and wildfires across the state have resulted in at least 30 fatalities, he said.
(Faith E. Pinho & Hayley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES)
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The moves threaten to stifle a major source of objective U.S. government information about climate change that underpins federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions and offer an indication of the direction the agency will take if President Donald Trump wins re-election.
An early sign of the shift came last month, when Erik Noble, a former White House policy adviser who had just been appointed NOAA’s chief of staff, removed Craig McLean, the agency’s acting chief scientist.
McLean had sent some of the new political appointees a message that asked them to acknowledge the agency’s scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or presenting ideologically driven findings.
The request prompted a sharp response from Noble. “Respectfully, by what authority are you sending this to me?” he wrote, according to a person who received a copy of the exchange after it was circulated within NOAA.
McLean answered that his role as acting chief scientist made him responsible for ensuring that the agency’s rules on scientific integrity were followed.
The following morning, Noble responded. “You no longer serve as the acting chief scientist for NOAA,” he informed McLean, adding that a new chief scientist had already been appointed. “Thank you for your service.”
It was not the first time NOAA had drawn the administration’s attention. Last year, the agency’s weather forecasters came under pressure for contradicting Trump’s false statements about the path of Hurricane Dorian.
NOAA has, so far, remained remarkably independent in its ability to conduct research about and publicly discuss changes to the Earth’s climate. It also still maintains numerous public websites that declare, in direct opposition to Trump, that climate change is occurring, is overwhelmingly caused by humans and presents a serious threat to the United States.
Replacing McLean, who remains at the agency, was Ryan Maue, a former researcher for the libertarian Cato Institute who has criticized climate scientists for what he has called unnecessarily dire predictions.
Maue, a research meteorologist, and Noble were joined at NOAA by David Legates, a professor at the University of Delaware’s geography department who has questioned human-caused global warming. Legates was appointed to the position of deputy assistant secretary, a role that did not previously exist.
Neil Jacobs, the NOAA administrator, was not involved in the hirings, according to two people familiar with the selection process.
The agency did not respond to requests for comment and a request to make the new officials available for an interview.
NOAA officials have tried to get information about what role the new political staff members would play and what their objectives might be, with little success. According to people close to the administration who have questioned climate science, though, their primary goal is to undercut the National Climate Assessment.
The assessment, a report from 13 federal agencies and outside scientists led by NOAA, which the government is required by law to produce every four years, is the premier American contribution to knowledge about climate risks and serves as the foundation for federal regulations to combat global warming. The latest report, in 2018, found that climate change poses an imminent and dire threat to the United States and its economy.
(Christopher Flagella & Lisa Friedman, NEW YORK TIMES)
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It’s the latest in a seemingly ceaseless barrage of storms to target the country this year. Zeta is set to become the 11th named storm to impact the Lower 48 since May. Four hurricanes have hit the Gulf Coast so far, with two of them — Laura and Delta — hitting within 15 miles of each other in western Louisiana.
After striking the Yucatán Peninsula, the storm was reemerging over the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday morning, and is expected to intensify and reach hurricane intensity while churning northward and increasing its forward speed.
“Hurricane conditions and life-threatening storm surge are expected along portions of the northern Gulf Coast by late Wednesday,” the National Hurricane Center wrote.
Hurricane warnings span the coastline from Morgan City, La., to the Mississippi-Alabama state border. That includes New Orleans proper and much of the Mississippi River Delta. Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas are included in the warning.
Farther east, a tropical storm warning continues along the shore to the Okaloosa-Walton County line in the Florida Panhandle.
Sustained winds of 74 mph with a gust to 87 mph were reported late Monday night just south of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, while winds in Cancun gusted to 79 mph. Zeta is the third named storm to hit the Yucatán Peninsula in just over two weeks, joining Gamma and Delta.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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A smoky fire exploded in size to more than 11 square miles after breaking out around dawn in Orange County. Gusts pushed flames along brushy ridges in Silverado Canyon and near houses in Irvine, home to about 280,000 residents. There was no containment.
Two firefighters, one 26 and the other 31 years old, were critically injured while battling the Silverado fire, according to the county’s Fire Authority, which didn’t provide details on how the injuries occurred. They each suffered second- and third-degree burns over large portions of their bodies and were intubated at a hospital, officials said.
In a report to the state Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison said it was investigating whether its electrical equipment caused the blaze. The brief report said it appeared that a “lashing wire” that tied a telecommunications line to a support cable may have struck a 12,000-volt conducting line above it, and an investigation was under way.
The report came as Edison shut off power to some 38,000 customers in five counties — including the fire areas — as a safety precaution against gusts knocking down equipment or hurling tree branches or other vegetation into power lines.
More than 90,000 people in the fire area were under evacuation orders. Nearby, a fire in the Yorba Linda area had grown to nearly 4.7 square miles and prompted the evacuation of at least 10,000 people, officials said.
At the Irvine-area fire, Kelsey Brewer and her three roommates decided to leave their townhouse before the evacuation order came in. The question was where to go in the pandemic. They decided on the home of her girlfriend’s mother, who has ample space and lives alone.
“We literally talked about it this morning,” Brewer said, adding that she feels lucky to have a safe place to go. “We can only imagine how screwed everyone else feels. There’s nowhere you can go to feel safe.”
“The winds are horrible,” said Brian Alexander, 43, who evacuated his house Monday morning with his wife and 5-year-old son.
While packing his vehicle before he evacuated, Alexander said, one gust was so strong that it slammed his car door as he tried to load up his belongings.
With the wind came particles of ash and dust, creating “by far the worst air quality that we’ve had,” Alexander said.
Helicopters dropping water and fire retardant were grounded for much of the afternoon because strong winds made it unsafe to fly. However, a large air tanker and other aircraft began making drops again several hours before sunset.
Video from news station KTLA showed cars parked along an overpass on the 133 Freeway as flames raged below and columns of smoke covered the roadway.
Charlane Stephenson, 67, a retired nurse, said she was at a doctor’s appointment Monday morning when she received an evacuation alert on her cellphone. When she got home, a police officer outside her condominium door was ordering her and other residents to evacuate the building.
“When I got up this morning, I smelled smoke,” Stephenson said. “It was scary. I have lived in Irvine for four years since my husband died, and I have never been through anything like this.”
In the northern part of the state, Pacific Gas & Electric began restoring power to some of the 350,000 customers — an estimated 1 million people — in 34 counties that were left in the dark Sunday because of some of the fiercest winds of the fire season.
PG&E said it had restored power to nearly 100,000 customers as winds eased in some areas, with electricity to be back on at the other homes and buildings by tonight after crews make air and ground inspections to make repairs and ensure it’s safe.
A dozen reports of damage had been received, PG&E said.
However, the fire threat was far from over in many parts of PG&E’s vast service area.
“We’re already starting to see winds pick back up,“ hitting 50 mph in some regions with bone-dry humidity leading to extreme fire danger Monday evening, said Scott Strenfel, PG&E’s head of meteorology.
The winds were expected to calm Monday night before renewing again today, the National Weather Service warned. Officials extended a red-flag warning through 5 p.m. today for the region’s eastern and northern mountainous areas.
The safety shut-offs “probably did prevent dangerous fires last night. It’s almost impossible to imagine that winds of this magnitude would not have sparked major conflagrations in years past,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said on Twitter.
Scientists have said climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable. October and November are traditionally the worst months for fires, but already this year 8,600 wildfires in the state have scorched a record 6,400 square miles and destroyed about 9,200 homes, businesses and other buildings. There have been 31 deaths.
The electricity shutdowns marked the fifth time this year that Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has cut power to customers to reduce the risk of downed or fouled power lines or other equipment that could ignite blazes amid bone-dry weather conditions and gusty winds.
The conditions could equal those during devastating fires in California’s wine country in 2017 and last year’s Kincade fire that devastated Sonoma County last October, the National Weather Service said. Fire officials said PG&E transmission lines sparked that fire, which destroyed hundreds of homes and caused nearly 100,000 people to flee.
Many of this year’s devastating fires were started by thousands of dry lightning strikes, but some remain under investigation for potential electrical causes. While the biggest fires in California have been fully or significantly contained, more than 5,000 firefighters remain committed to 20 blazes, state fire officials said.
The Orange County fire is only the latest in a season that has uprooted the lives of thousands across the American West. More than 5 million acres have burned across California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state.
In Colorado, a weekend blizzard knocked back two huge wildfires that killed an older couple, displaced thousands of people and destroyed dozens of homes in the northern mountains. But fire officials said the blazes, though weakened, were still smoldering under the snow.
“Things really laid down,” said Noel Livingston, the incident commander on the East Troublesome Fire, which has been burning through ranches and second homes in Grand County, on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. “But it’s not going to put the fire out.”
Most of Colorado is in a severe or exceptional drought, which means that one early winter snow dump will not alleviate the dangerously dry conditions and dead brush that ignited like a mountainside of matchsticks last week, allowing the fires to explode.
Weather forecasters said there was little precipitation in the forecast for the next week, meaning the fires could continue to grow once the snow melts off.
(Christopher Weber & Olga R. Rodriguez, ASSOCIATED PRESS; NEW YORK TIMES)
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That’s good news for astronauts at future lunar bases who could tap into these resources for drinking and making rocket fuel.
While previous observations have indicated millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles, a pair of studies in the journal Nature Astronomy take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level.
More than 15,400 square miles of lunar terrain have the capability to trap water in the form of ice, according to a team led by the University of Colorado’s Paul Hayne. That’s 20 percent more area than previous estimates, he said.
The presence of water in sunlit surfaces had been previously suggested, but not confirmed. The molecules are so far apart that they are in neither liquid nor solid form, said lead researcher Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
“To be clear, this is not puddles of water,” she stressed at a news conference.
NASA’s astrophysics director Paul Hertz said it’s too soon to know whether this water — found in and around the southern hemisphere’s sunlit Clavius Crater — would be accessible. The surface could be harder there, ruining wheels and drills.
These latest findings, nonetheless, expand the possible landing spots for robots and astronauts alike — “opening up real estate previously considered ‘off limits’ for being bone dry,” Hayne said in an email to The Associated Press.
For now, NASA said it still aims to send astronauts to the lunar south pole, especially rich in frozen water. The White House deadline is 2024.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Zeta — the earliest ever 27th named storm of the Atlantic season — was centered about 90 miles southeast of Cozumel island Monday afternoon, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
The hurricane was moving northwest at around 10 mph after being nearly stationary over the weekend. Forecasters said Zeta was expected to move over the Yucatan Peninsula late Monday before heading into the Gulf of Mexico and then approach the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, though it could weaken by then.
A hurricane watch was posted from Morgan City, La., to the Mississippi-Alabama state line.
Trees felled by Hurricane Delta barely three weeks earlier still litter parts of Cancun, stacked along roadsides and in parks. There is concern they could become projectiles when Zeta scrapes across the peninsula.
Local authorities are taking the storm seriously, but with a distinctly less alarmed tone than when Delta strengthened to a Category 4 storm off the coast. Quintana Roo state suspended alcohol sales Monday and Gov. Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez said everyone should be off the streets by Monday afternoon.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Zeta was the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm recorded in an already historic hurricane season.
The system was centered about 275 miles southeast of Cozumel island early Sunday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The storm was nearly stationary, though forecasters said it was likely to shear the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula or westernmost Cuba by late today or early Tuesday and then close in on the U.S. Gulf Coast by Wednesday, but could weaken by then.
The storm had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, and forecasters said Zeta was expected to intensify into a hurricane today.
Officials in Quintana Roo state, the location of Cancun and other resorts, said they were watching the storm. They reported nearly 60,000 tourists in the state as of midweek. The state government said 71 shelters were being readied for tourists or residents who might need them.
The government is still handing out aid, including sheet roofing, to Yucatan residents hit by Hurricane Delta and Tropical Storm Gamma earlier this month.
Zeta may dawdle in the western Caribbean for another day or so, trapped between two strong high pressure systems to the east and west. It can’t move north or south because nothing is moving there either, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.
“It just has to sit and wait for a day or so,” McNoldy said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 1 million people are expected to be in the dark today as utilities sought to prevent the chance of their equipment sparking wildfires and the fire-weary state braced for a new bout of dry, windy weather.
It’s the fifth time this year that Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has cut power to customers by instituting “public safety power shutoffs.”
On Sunday, the utility cut off power to 225,000 customers in Northern California and planned to do the same for another 136,000 customers in a total of 36 counties.
That amounts to more than 900,000 people, assuming that each customer account represents two to three people.
Southern California, which saw cooler weather and patchy drizzle over the weekend, is also bracing for extreme fire weather and possible power shutoffs.
San Diego Gas & Electric has notified 21,481 customers in North County and south Orange County that it may have to turn off power to reduce wildfire risk today and Tuesday.
Within the utility’s service territory in North County, the strongest winds were expected overnight Sunday through today in the Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Pala Reservation and Fallbrook areas.
Southern California Edison said it was considering safety outages for 71,000 customers in six counties starting today, with San Bernardino County potentially the most affected.
A weather system is expected to bring strong, dry, north-northeast winds through the mountain passes up and down California — winds referred to as Diablos in Northern California and Santa Anas in the southern part of the state.
Winds started to pick up in some northern areas Sunday afternoon and were expected to become most widespread and intense into today, though critical conditions were expected to last well into Tuesday.
“It’s definitely the strongest wind event of this fire season and probably the lowest humidity as well,” said Duane Dykema, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. “So overall, these are the most dangerous and critical conditions we’ve seen this fire season.”
The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings for large swaths of California, including all of Los Angeles and Ventura counties except for the Antelope Valley, as well as the entire San Francisco Bay Area.
The advisory means forecasters have high confidence that dangerous fire conditions will be in place.
The Santa Ana winds are expected to hit with less force through the wildlands of San Diego County, which will be under a wind advisory.
“The winds will mostly be out of the north, which means they won’t be as bad here,” said Brandt Maxwell, a National Weather Service forecaster. “San Diego tends to get stronger Santa Anas when they arrive from the east.”
Santee received 0.02 inches of rain before 8 a.m. Sunday, and Alpine recorded 0.01 inches. Forecasters say the region could get a little more by dawn today.
“But this isn’t enough to make even a dent in our dry weather situation,” Maxwell said.
Greater San Diego County has gone without significant rain for more than 110 days. That includes all of August, when the seasonal monsoon was so weak that mountain areas didn’t receive lush thunderstorms that can help moderate the risk of wildfires.
In Southern California, isolated gusts of up to 80 mph were possible in mountain areas, and gusts of 50 mph to 60 mph were expected in valley and coastal areas.
“So if any wildfires do break out, there could be a rapid rate of spread and downwind spotting for a significant distance,” said Joe Sirard, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “It could spread very rapidly and be exceptionally dangerous to control.”
The state has already seen an early start to a record-breaking fire season, with more than 4 million acres burned, 31 people killed and more than 8,200 structures destroyed over the last three months.
Previously, California’s worst year of fire was 2018, when more than 1.8 million acres burned and more than 100 people were killed, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.
Lightning in August ignited many of California’s biggest blazes, but scientists say climate change has also contributed to the conflagrations.
It was the hottest August on record in the state, and trees and brush were already abnormally combustible after much of the state saw exceptionally dry conditions last winter.
The winds forecast to sweep through the region could take down tree limbs and power lines and affect travel on highways, especially for those in high-profile vehicles, Sirard said.
“It’s by far the strongest Santa Ana event we’ve had in 2020,” he said.
People are cautioned to avoid any activity that could spark a fire, and those in fire-prone areas are advised to assemble emergency supply kits and familiarize themselves with evacuation routes.
PG&E’s equipment has already been blamed for starting some of the worst wildfires in state history, including the 2018 Camp fire pleading guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter, which led to the utility [sic].
PG&E has also agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle damage claims stemming from a series of deadly fires sparked by its power lines between 2015 and 2018.
Most recently, PG&E said California investigators were looking at its equipment as a possible cause of the Zogg fire that started last month in Shasta County, killing four people and burning more than 56,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
PG&E officials said the planned outages are a safety measure and understood they burden residents, especially with many working from home and their children taking classes online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sheriff Kory Honea of Butte County said he's concerned about residents in foothill communities during the blackouts because cellular service can be spotty and it's the only way many can stay informed when the power is out.
“It is quite a strain on them to have to go through these over and over and over again,” he said.
(Alex Wigglesworth, Gary Robbins, LOS ANGELES TIMES, UT NEWS SERVICES, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The East Troublesome fire, which forced nearby evacuations and closed Rocky Mountain National Park, took over 265 square miles [170,000 acres] — an area larger than the city of Chicago — and was only 5 percent contained as of Friday afternoon.
The fire reaching the No. 2 spot means that Colorado’s top three largest fires have occurred during the 2020 season.
Polis said the two main reasons for Colorado’s increased wildfire risk are the state’s warmer climate and increased population, which means more land utilization.
The biggest takeaway from this devastating and record-breaking wildfire season is a “sense of great humility in the face of nature that we have with regards to these large events,” he said.
Colorado is expecting precipitation to arrive tonight into early Sunday with the hopes that snow will tame the fire’s activity and growth.
Noel Livingston, incident commander for the East Troublesome fire, said Friday they were expecting the fire to grow throughout the day as winds posed challenges to firefighters on the ground and aviation efforts to calm the spread from above.
“We’re not withholding information. We’re not trying to delay information getting out there. We don’t know,” Schroetlin said at a fire briefing Friday. “I’ve been through many of these areas up in there and things change every pasture that I go.”
Polis activated Colorado’s National Guard to assist in any search and rescue operations, conduct aerial reconnaissance of the state’s fires and conduct damage assessment.
Polis said more than 6,500 homes had been evacuated and that officials were working to secure hotel rooms for evacuees from Grand County and the resort town of Estes Park, which was evacuated as a precaution on Thursday. The national park itself was closed as fire encroached on the west and to the north.
Peter Comer who was working a seasonal job at the YMCA in Estes Park said he and some friends weren’t expecting to evacuate until the alert was issued.
“It was pretty hectic ’cause we left in about 20 minutes. We just kind of had to throw our stuff together and pack up and leave,” he said.
Comer said evacuating because of a wildfire was surreal.
“This is the first time I’ve ever had to do anything like this; it’s been a learning experience,” said Comer.
Although the plan is to return to Estes Park, for now, Comer is staying at a YMCA camp in Grant until given permission to return.
(Patty Nieberg, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The blaze has all the hallmarks of climate change. It’s burning at an elevation of 9,000 feet at a time of year when snow should be falling. The fire is also raging during a severe drought, aggravated by record heat, through stands of trees killed or weakened by a bark beetle infestation.
The East Troublesome fire is now the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado history. Three of the state’s five largest wildfires on record have now occurred in 2020. The largest, the Cameron Peak fire, is still burning just west of Fort Collins.
Noel Livingston, who leads the team of firefighters tackling this blaze as incident commander for Pacific Northwest Team Three, said that crews saw an “amazing amount of fire spread.”
“We saw about 20 miles of fire growth throughout the day and throughout the night, which equated to about 100,000 acres of additional fire activity,” Livingston said.
At times, National Weather Service Doppler radar showed the smoke plume from the blaze towering almost 40,000 feet above the surface, a sign of extreme fire behavior. Typically, at such a high elevation in the state, the weather at this time of year would not result in such a high wildfire danger.
Livingston said the fire burned quickly through heavily forested areas north of Granby and Grand Lake. A pre-evacuation notice was issued for Granby on Thursday.
There are indications via satellite imagery and ground observations from park rangers that the fire jumped the continental divide in Rocky Mountain National Park, despite being areas that are above the tree line. That is an extremely rare occurrence and may put new downwind areas to the east, such as Estes Park, at risk. A merging of this fire with the Cameron Peak fire is even possible, Livingston said during a news conference Thursday.
Evacuation orders for the national park and parts of Estes Park have been issued, with traffic backups reported Thursday afternoon for people leaving Estes Park.
On Thursday afternoon, the sky in Estes Park had turned dark as night, contrasted against the lights from cars backing up on local roads out of town.
The ingredients for the massive, rapid growth of this fire, Livingston said, were the thick stands of trees, many of which had been weakened or killed by beetle invasions in recent years, a phenomenon linked to climate change that is occurring across vast stretches of the West and into Canada.
As temperatures have increased in Colorado, it has given once-scarce pests, including mountain bark beetles, that were held in check by extremely cold winter temperatures, an opportunity to spread and damage or destroy trees. Studies have shown that in some ecosystems, these dead or weakened trees can accelerate blazes, while in others they may actually slow down some wildfires.
Livingston also pointed to extremely dry conditions and strong winds that pushed the fire through the timbered areas. Winds near the fire were gusting to 60 mph at times on Wednesday.
Winds are predicted to remain strong for the rest of the week, said Nick Nauslar, a predictive-services meteorologist with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
(Andrew Freedman, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The investigative results for two fires that broke out northwest of Los Angeles a year ago were released as power cuts were under way in parts of Northern California to prevent electrical equipment from igniting fires amid gusty, dry weather.
The 1,800-acre Easy fire, which threatened the library and nearby Simi Valley homes, ignited Oct. 30, 2019, when an insulator attached to a Southern California Edison power line swung into a steel power pole during windy, dry conditions, the Ventura County Fire Department said in a statement.
At the time, the utility reported to regulators that its equipment may have been involved in the fire, which damaged two buildings.
The Ventura County department also said the Maria fire near Santa Paula was ignited the next day by failure of a conductor on an electrical distribution line owned by California Resources Corp.
Nearly 15.6 square miles [10,000 acres] were scorched, and four buildings were damaged.
California Resources Corp., a publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company, claimed in a statement that Southern California Edison was at fault.
The fire started when Southern California Edison “re-energized its power distribution to our field after a power safety shutdown without giving us prior notice and opportunity to inspect our equipment,” it said.
The company said it has filed a lawsuit against the utility in Ventura County Superior Court regarding the fire.
Southern California Edison fully cooperated in the investigation of the Easy fire, but it has not received the Fire Department’s report, company spokesman David Song said.
The company’s internal review indicates that a circuit interrupted shortly before the fire was reported, but the cause cannot be determined until the utility can analyze equipment currently in the department’s possession, he said.
Southern California Edison disputes California Resource Corp.’s allegation regarding the Maria fire but it cannot comment because of the pending litigation, Song said.
In Northern California, a public safety power shutoff begun by Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday night was underway in parts of nine counties, affecting around 32,500 customers.
The shutoffs included parts of Butte County, where a 2018 blaze ignited by Pacific Gas & Electric equipment destroyed much of the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.
(John Antczak, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Scientists won’t know until next week how much was gathered at asteroid Bennu — they want at least a handful of the cosmic rubble. But close-up pictures and video of Tuesday’s touch-and-go operation raised hopes that goal was achieved.
“We really did kind of make a mess on the surface of this asteroid, but it’s a good mess, the kind of mess we were hoping for,” said lead scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona at Tucson.
It was the first asteroid-sampling effort by the U.S., coming four years after the spacecraft rocketed from Cape Canaveral and two years after it reached Bennu. Japan has taken asteroid samples twice.
The carbon-rich Bennu is a time capsule believed to contain the original building blocks of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago and, as such, can help scientists better understand the origins of Earth and life as we know it.
Osiris-Rex scored a near bull’s-eye, reaching down with its robot arm to within a yard of its intended target zone in the center of boulder-rimmed Nightingale Crater. The sampling container on the arm made contact with the black, crumbly terrain for about six seconds and pushed at least three-quarters of an inch into the ground, crushing a large rock in the process, officials said.
As planned, pressurized nitrogen gas fired onto the surface a second later, to kick up a shower of debris so the spacecraft could suck up as much dust and as many pebbles as possible.
The spacecraft quickly backed away and, by Wednesday, was a safe 50 miles from Bennu.
Several hours passed before the pictures started pouring in. Lauretta said he was up until the wee hours Wednesday, overjoyed at what he saw. He watched the touch-and-go video about 100 times — “it’s just so cool” — then went to sleep.
“I dreamed of a wonder world of Bennu regolith particles floating all around me,” he said.
Over the next few days, a camera on the spacecraft will aim at the sampler on the end of the robot arm, looking for signs of asteroid residue. If the lighting is right, the camera might even be able to peek into the sample chamber. The spacecraft will also be put into a slow spin, with its arm extended, to provide a more accurate measure of the precious payload.
Based on the images, “the sampling event went really well, as good as we could have imagined it would, and I think the chances that there’s material inside have gone way up,” Lauretta said.
If fewer than 2 ounches were collected, the team must decide by Oct. 30 whether to try again. A second attempt would not occur until January — at another location.
(Marcia Dunn, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Colorado fire officials posted the video by tweet this week to drive home the unprecedented late-season fire danger crews face in trying to contain the state’s largest recorded wildfire ever, west of the cities of Fort Collins and Loveland. Firefighters confronted another red flag day Wednesday with sustained winds of up to 50 mph in trying to protect structures in a handful of hamlets threatened by the Cameron Peak fire.
Just 52 percent contained, the Cameron Peak Fire has crept into portions of Rocky Mountain National Park, sent massive billowing clouds of smoke over Fort Collins and Colorado’s Eastern Plains, forced hundreds to evacuate their homes and damaged or destroyed more than 100 structures since it erupted Aug. 13.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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It was a first for the United States — only Japan has scored asteroid samples.
“Touchdown declared,” a flight controller announced to cheers and applause. “Sampling is in progress.”
Confirmation came from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft as it made contact with the surface of the asteroid Bennu more than 200 million miles away. But it could be a week before scientists know how much, if much of anything, was grabbed and whether another try will be needed. If successful, Osiris-Rex will return the samples in 2023.
“I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” said lead scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”
Tuesday’s operation was considered the most harrowing part of the mission, which began with a launch from Cape Canaveral back in 2016.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The quake was centered near Sand Point, a city of about 900 people off the Alaska Peninsula where wave levels late Monday topped 2 feet, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. The warning was downgraded to an advisory just over two hours after the quake hit.
“It was a pretty good shaker here,” said David Adams, co-manager of Marine View Bed and Breakfast in Sand Point. “You could see the water kind of shaking and shimmering during the quake. Our truck was swaying big time.”
Adams didn’t take any photos or video: “It just kind of happened all of a sudden.”
The quake struck in the North Pacific Ocean just before 1 p.m. It was centered about 67 miles southeast of Sand Point, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The community is about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage. The quake was recorded at a depth of 19 miles.
The National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said the tsunami warning — and later advisory — was in effect for roughly 950 miles, from 40 miles southeast of Homer to Unimak Pass, about 80 miles northeast of Unalaska.
The quake was felt widely in communities along the southern coast, including Sand Point, Chignik, Unalaska and the Kenai Peninsula, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center, which said a magnitude 5.2 aftershock was reported 11 minutes later, centered roughly in the same area.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The CalWood fire started around noon Saturday near the Cal-Wood Education Center, which is about 17 miles from downtown Boulder. It was pushed by strong winds. The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Mesa lab recorded gusts of 59 mph on Saturday.
More than 1,600 residences and nearly 3,000 people were under evacuation orders, including the small town of Jamestown, Boulder County officials said.
Based on the path of the fire, officials believe it is likely multiple houses were lost, Mike Wagner, the Boulder County sheriff’s division chief, told the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder on Saturday.
On Sunday, Wagner said damage assessment teams haven’t been able to get into the area to determine how many homes were lost. A news photographer later captured several images of what appeared to be burned homes.
Shannon Kiss said smoke from the CalWood fire started seeping into her condo near Gunbarrel on Friday night, so she and her 14-year-old daughter taped up the doors and placed towels and blankets on the floor.
“We went outside and the ash was hitting our face,” she told The Associated Press on Sunday. “The wind was blowing and it felt almost like a windy rain, but it was ash hitting our face.”
On Saturday, they prepared to evacuate.
“We saw the huge, billowing smoke coming from the foothills,” she said. “I’ve seen (fires) in the distance in the mountains, but never a populated area. Never this close.”
But by Saturday evening, it was clear the fire wouldn’t force them from their home.
The fire had burned nearly 14 square miles [9000 acres] by Sunday morning, but more humid weather was expected to help fire crews.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Gusts of up to 70 mph overnight created “very significant” fire activity, especially along the southeast section, said Cass Cairns, a spokeswoman for the Cameron Peak fire efforts.
“The plan today is to try to hold the fire to the east,” Paul Delmerico, operations chief for the Cameron Peak fire said early Saturday. “We’re facing the same critical fire conditions today as we did yesterday.”
The fire grew to 293 square miles [187500 acres] by Saturday morning and was 57 percent contained.
Boulder County fire officials reported a new fire had sparked west of Boulder on Saturday afternoon. The Boulder Office of Emergency Management said on Twitter that Jamestown was being evacuated and Highway 7 was closed between the Peak-to-Peak Highway and the town of Lyons.
The new fire was near the Cal-Wood Education Center, which is about 17 miles from downtown Boulder. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said the Hall Ranch and Heil Valley trails were being evacuated because of the CalWood fire.
Cameron Peak fire officials said fire activity had increased Saturday afternoon and a spot fire was growing east of the main fire and was moving toward Masonville.
People along U.S. 34, the highway leading to Rocky Mountain National Park, were evacuated on Friday but Delmerico said the town of Estes Park may be spared.
“The way the fire’s moving and the lay of the land, the terrain, the features, the ridge lines, we know that Estes Park is not out of the woods but we feel that as the fire progresses and moves to the southeast, the way it’s moving we do feel that the community of Estes Park is not imminently threatened or in the direct line of fire.“
A wind shift could change that, he said, but that was unexpected.
Firefighters focused on protecting homes in and around Drake and Glen Haven, an area with hundreds of cabins perched on heavily forested slopes and ridges. The wind, however, kept not only slurry-dumping airplanes from flying but aircraft that gave firefighters a view of the deteriorating situation from on high.
The blaze set Colorado’s size record after strong winds Tuesday night and Wednesday morning caused it to grow by more than 40 square miles [25600 acres]. The fire sent thick smoke into Fort Collins and prompted evacuations all the way to Horsetooth Reservoir on the city’s western edge.
It started in mid-August in the high country 30 miles west of Fort Collins and has persisted despite getting more than a 1 foot of snow on Labor Day. It was more than 50 percent contained before this past week’s flare-ups.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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(Joseph Serna & Phil Willon, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Pacific Gas and Electric cut power starting Wednesday evening to more than 45,000 customers — about 100,000 people — mainly in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the San Francisco Bay Area. Another 22,000 people were expected to lose power later Thursday.
Many in wine country were feeling drained by what seems like a never-ending wildfire season in the region.
Kathleen Collins has had to evacuate her home in the mountains of Napa County four times in the past five years due to fires. This summer, she lived in a motel for two weeks after leaving her home when a massive cluster of fires reached her tiny community of Pope Valley.
“It’s all very stressful. People are not happy but there’s not much they can do about it,” said Collins, assistant manager at Silverado Ace Hardware store in Calistoga, a Napa County town of 5,000 people who were allowed to return home just last week after the Glass fire forced them out last month. The blaze that ravaged areas of Napa and Sonoma counties was contained Wednesday after destroying more than 1,500 homes and other buildings.
People have been buying generators, electrical cords, flashlights, batteries, gas cans and other supplies to help them deal with the latest outage, expected to last through this evening, Collins said.
More than 8,500 wildfires have burned more than 6,400 square miles in California since the start of the year.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In addition, 2020 is likely to be the hottest year when a La Niña event was present in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This climate phenomenon is characterized by cooler-than-average ocean temperatures near the equator in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, and it tends to lower global temperatures slightly. (El Niño events, on the other hand, add even more heat to the planet, causing temperature spikes on top of global warming.)
These trends are all consistent with rapid global warming driven primarily by human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average global temperature in September was 1.75 degrees above the 20th-century average, surpassing previous records for the month that were set in 2015 and 2016 by about 0.04 degrees.
The 10 warmest Septembers have occurred since 2005, and the seven warmest Septembers have occurred in the past seven years, NOAA stated in a news release.
In the United States, September was a month of devastating climate events, as massive wildfires broke out amid record heat in California, Oregon and Washington. Climate change is already heightening wildfire severity and size in the West, with these trends expected to continue.
NOAA found that three large areas of the globe have had their warmest year so far: Europe, Asia and the Gulf of Mexico.
Using much of the same data but different methodology, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies also found that September set a heat milestone.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Fire weather watches will go into effect in much of Northern California early today due to high pressure producing hot and dry conditions with gusty offshore winds, the National Weather Service said. Peak gusts are likely to start late Wednesday.
Anticipating the potential for the 40-mph-plus winds to damage some of its infrastructure, Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, informed customers it may preemptively cut power to some areas to avoid causing a spark. The company’s equipment was blamed for igniting the Camp fire in 2018, the deadliest blaze in state history.
Southern California, which started the week with triple-digit high temperatures, is predicted to see particularly gusty northeast winds Friday.
The heat and wind event this week stems from an expansive area of high pressure, or heat dome, that is building over the West.
More than 8,400 wildfires have burned well over 6,250 square miles in California since the start of the year, but mostly since mid-August. Thirty-one people have died and more than 9,200 structures have been destroyed.
Going into this period of “critical” fire risk, Cal fire, the state fire agency, counts 14 major wildfires as still burning across the state, with 12,600 firefighters assigned to battle these blazes.
The 2020 wildfire season has broken long-standing records, and with no end to the dry season in sight, it’s likely that even more fires will occur.
Numerous studies have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Power had returned in many neighborhoods, and some traffic lights were working again. Some outlying areas were still underwater after a double dose of storm surge from Delta on Friday and Hurricane Laura in August, though water levels had lowered across the city.
Statewide, almost half of power outages stemming from Delta had been restored by Sunday evening, officials said, after peaking at nearly 690,000 — more than during Laura. But in a testament to the storms’ lasting devastation, more than 9,000 Louisianans remained in shelters; most of them were displaced by Hurricane Laura and still need temporary housing, authorities say.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency promised to deliver alternative housing for residents whose homes were destroyed in Laura by mid-October, said Mayor Nic Hunter in an interview Sunday, and the agency said that will still be the case after Delta.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The center of the hurricane made landfall about 6 p.m. near the town of Creole — about 15 miles from where Laura struck in August.
Delta hit with top winds of 100 mph but rapidly grew weaker. Within an hour of hitting land, the National Hurricane Center downgraded it to a Category 1 storm with 85 mph winds.
Still, forecasters warned that Delta was pounding the coast with life-threatening storm surge that could reach up to 11 feet. Flash flood warnings were posted for much of southwest Louisiana and parts of neighboring Texas.
In the city of Lake Charles, about 30 miles inland from where Delta made landfall, winds lashed at tarp-covered roofs of buildings that Hurricane Laura battered when it barreled through in late August and killed at least 27 people in the state.
Ernest Jack lay in bed trying to sleep as water leaked through the ceiling of his Lake Charles home while Delta marched inland Friday night. He said the tarp he had used to cover his damaged roof after Laura hadn’t blown off and his windows were covered to protect against flying debris.
“It’s raining real hard; it’s flooding; the wind is strong,” Jack said. “I’m OK. I’m not worried about nothing, just praying that everything goes well.”
Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said the latest storm was tearing tarps off homes across the city — where he estimated 95 percent of buildings suffered damage from Laura. Piles of moldy mattresses, sawed-up trees and other leftover debris lined the city’s largely vacant streets when Delta arrived. Hunter said some of that debris was being blown around and floating in streets.
The hurricane was expected to weaken rapidly over land. Forecasters predicted Delta would be downgraded to a tropical storm overnight. The storm’s projected path showed it moving into northern Mississippi today.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Thursday night, Delta had strengthened back into a Category 3 hurricane as it bore down on the state carrying winds of 120 mph and the potential to deliver a storm surge of up to 11 feet when it arrives this evening.
The projected path included the southwest area of Louisiana where Category 4 Hurricane Laura made landfall less than two months ago. Laura has been blamed for more than 30 deaths.
The mayor of Lakes Charles, where thousands of residents remain without shelter following the earlier hurricane, told residents that even if their homes survived Laura, they shouldn’t assume that would be the case with Delta.
“This is not a bad dream. It’s not a test run. These are the cards that we have been dealt,” Nic Hunter said in a Facebook video. He added, “I know that we’ve been through a lot, and I know that we’re tired. But we have a job to do right now, and that job is to keep ourselves safe.”
Residents in coastal towns appeared to be taking the latest threat seriously. Boarded windows and largely empty streets made New Iberia in south-central Louisiana look like a ghost town Thursday evening. The few signs of life included cars lined up at a drive-thru daquiri shop and people grabbing food at take-out restaurants.
“The last two storms, we didn’t even board up, but this one’s supposed to be worse,” Charles Fuller said as he covered the windows of the fried chicken restaurant he manages.
At least five southwest Louisiana parishes that were hit hard by Laura in August were under mandatory evacuations as of midday Thursday. Gov. John Bel Edwards said President Donald Trump approved his request to declare a federal emergency, which frees up federal resources.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Delta weakened to a Category 1 storm during the afternoon, but it began strengthening again while moving over the southern Gulf, rising to maximum sustained winds of 90 mph by evening. It was expected to gain even more strength before reaching the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Delta could make landfall, possibly as a Category 3 storm, sometime Friday south of Morgan City, La., the forecast said. On Wednesday evening, the storm was centered about 550 miles south-southeast of Cameron, La., and heading northwest at 17 mph.
The hurricane came ashore in Mexico around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday with top winds of 110 mph. Officials said it caused no deaths or injuries, but did force hundreds of tourists to take refuge in storm shelters. It knocked out power to about 266,000 customers, or about one-third of the total on the Yucatan peninsula.
There were no reports of any deaths or injuries, said Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez, the governor of the state of Quintana Roo.
“Fortunately, the most dangerous part of the hurricane has passed,” Joaquin Gonzalez said, noting the big problem was downed trees that had knocked out power lines and blocked roadways.
Civil defense official Luis Alberto Ortega Vazquez said that as the storm approached, about 39,000 people were evacuated in the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan.
He said about 2,700 people took refuge in storm shelters in the two states.
Joaquin Gonzalez said Wednesday that most of the tourists had returned to their hotels but a shelter had been opened to accommodate people stranded in Cancun by the cancellation of 157 airline flights.
He said the international airport would resume its normal operations today.
There were reports of some flooding in Cozumel and Playa del Carmen. Overnight emergency calls came in from people whose windows or doors were broken and they were taken to shelters, the governor said.
More than a thousand trees were knocked down by strong winds, but authorities expressed confidence that electricity would be restored to 80 percent of those affected Wednesday night.
Early Wednesday, guests of the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel awoke in the sweltering classrooms of the Technological Institute of Cancun campus where they had been moved Tuesday.
All of the windows at the campus had been covered with plywood so they couldn’t see what was happening, but they said the howling winds started around 2 a.m. and there had been heavy rain.
The power — and with it the air conditioning — had been knocked out early Wednesday so it was steamy as tourists used their cell phone light to get up and make their way for a first cup of coffee.
By early afternoon, they were returned to their hotel and the state announced that businesses could reopen at 3 p.m. and the ban on alcohol sales was lifted.
(Luis Andres Henao, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A total of 12 deaths have been reported since the storm pounded France’s Alpes-Maritimes region and Italy’s northwestern regions of Liguria and Piedmont starting Friday — four on the French side, eight on the Italian side.
Prime Minister Jean Castex said French rescuers were still searching Tuesday for 21 people missing.
“My thoughts go to grieving families, those who are waiting to hear from their relatives or who have lost everything,” he said at the National Assembly.
Castex said more than 900 rescuers, 500 police officers and some troops were involved in the emergency operation in the mountainous region, which is home to 12,000 residents.
He added that about 700 people were staying in hotels or other accommodation sites after being evacuated from their homes.
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the area today.
Corpses unearthed from cemeteries have washed up on the Italian side, a spokeswoman for the Alpes-Maritimes regional administration told The Associated Press. She could not say how many or where they came from, and it was unclear whether the bodies were among the eight reported dead in Italy from the storm. Italian local authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The worst of the immediate impact was expected along the resort-studded northeastern tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where hurricane conditions were expected Tuesday night and landfall early today.
From Tulum to Cancun, tourism-dependent communities still soaked by the remnants of Tropical Storm Gamma could bear the brunt of the storm.
In Cancun Tuesday, long lines stretched at supermarkets, lumber yards and gas stations as residents scrambled for provisions under mostly sunny skies. Officials warned that residents should have several days of water and food on hand. Boat owners lined up at public ramps to pull their boats out of the water.
Mexico began evacuating tourists and residents from coastal areas along its Riviera Maya Tuesday. Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin said that buses were carrying people off Holbox Island and hotels in Cancun and Puerto Morelos were busing their guests inland to government shelters.
Some hotels that had exemptions because their structures were rated for major hurricanes were preparing to shelter their guests in place and testing their emergency systems.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Anna Strelchenko was walking along the beach last week when she encountered clusters of dead sea creatures. She recorded a video of one small stretch covered with fish, sea urchins, starfish and octopuses and posted it to her social media accounts. Within days, the images were widely shared across Russia — evidence of the country’s latest ecological disaster.
“I never expected my video to get so much attention — at first I thought that maybe this was just the product of a really strong storm,” Strelchenko said. “But I had just felt awful seeing all of those dead octopi on the beach. It wasn’t just one or two; there must have been 20.”
Four months after a ruptured reservoir at a power plant in the Siberian city of Norilsk spilled 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into two rivers, another oil leak is believed to be responsible for the incident in Kamchatka. And just as in the Norilsk incident, authorities’ initially dismissive response has come under sharp scrutiny.
On Saturday, Kamchatka’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology posted a video of Khalaktrysky Beach to Instagram with the caption: “The color of the water is normal, the smell of the air is normal, the beach is completely clean. ... Nothing anomalous was recorded.”
The backlash was swift. Yuri Dud, a Russian video blogger with more than 4 million followers on Instagram, responded with a post of his own: video showing discolored streaks of contamination in the water and another video of a dead octopus on the shore.
Khalaktrysky Beach, a popular surfing spot about 20 miles from the place where Strelchenko initially discovered the dead marine life, has been the subject of local surfers’ gripes for weeks. Katya Dyba, who works at the local Snowave Surf School, said she experienced foggy vision, a sore throat, nausea and fatigue after surfing on Sept. 14. She said other surfers were later diagnosed with poisoning.
The Russian branch of Greenpeace said tests conducted on water samples from Khalaktyrsky Beach showed petroleum levels four times higher than usual, and phenol levels were 2.5 times higher. Local scuba divers reported seeing more dead sea animals at shallow depths over the weekend.
“There was this yellow-green film over the water,” Dyba said. “Now at Khalaktrysky Beach, the situation seems better, but we know that the contamination just moved south because people there are seeing the signs with the dead animals.”
On Sunday, the government’s tone changed. Kamchatka Gov. Vladimir Solodov said samples of the water had been sent to Moscow for analysis and he vowed to fire anyone who is found to have deliberately tried to cover up or embellish the crisis.
“We learned about the environmental situation from bloggers,” Solodov said. “I’m going to address the federal authorities with a proposal to establish a unified system of monitoring harmful factors for the environment.
“We should constantly monitor the condition of our main treasure, the ocean, and take proper steps. Today’s situation proves that this work on monitoring should be intensified — it is not sufficient as of now.”
The source and cause of the leak remain unclear. Russia’s Tass news agency, citing unnamed sources, reported that a commercial oil tanker was the likely culprit. But some locals have speculated that recent military training exercises could have caused the damage. The Defense Ministry has rejected the theory.
Cristina Rozenberg, who works for a tour company in Kamchatka, said locals pick berries and mushrooms around their beaches. She went to visit the site herself on Sunday morning.
“You just feel helpless,” Rozenberg said. “It’s a real tragedy because we don’t know how we can help. We all live on this ocean, we eat out of this ocean, our kids play in this ocean.”
(Isabelle Khurshudyan, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The new mark for the August Complex fire in the Coast Range between San Francisco and the Oregon border came a day after the total area of land burned by California wildfires this year passed 4 million acres, more than double the previous record.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the amount of land scorched by the August Complex fire is larger than all of the recorded fires in California between 1932 and 1999.
“If that’s not proof point, testament, to climate change, then I don’t know what is,” Newsom said.
The August Complex fire began as dozens of fires ignited by lightning in the Mendocino National Forest in mid-August and became California’s largest fire on record in September. As of Monday, it covered nearly 1,566 square miles.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 8,200 California wildfires have scorched “well over 4 million acres” or 6,250 square miles, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Sunday in a statement. There have been 31 deaths and nearly 8,700 buildings have been destroyed, the governor said.
Numerous studies have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable.
The August Complex fire has destroyed 242 structures and damaged a half dozen. One firefighter has died and one has been injured. Containment was estimated at 54 percent on Monday.
A fire burning in Northern California wine country has burned more than 102 square miles and destroyed more than 1,200 buildings since it started Sept. 27.
California remains largely warm and dry, but fierce winds that fanned infernos a week ago were gone.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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With crews on the biggest fire of them all, the August Complex, reporting more vigorous activity within the fire’s perimeter Sunday and another warm day ahead of them, “difficult conditions remain,” officials said.
Before this year, 2018 was California’s biggest year for wildfires with more than 1.8 million acres burned.
The fires this year have burned an area larger than Connecticut and have killed 31 people, according to Cal Fire. More than 100 people died in the 2018 fire season, the majority of them in the Camp fire disaster in Paradise.
Fires this year have destroyed more than 8,200 structures and displaced tens of thousands of people.
Fortunately, the extent of property damage has not yet approached that of 2018, when more than 17,000 homes and 700 businesses were destroyed.
Still, the sheer magnitude is staggering. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California’s history, five burned within the space of a few months this year, consuming a combined total of nearly 2.4 million acres.
Lightning in August ignited many of California’s biggest blazes, but scientists say climate change has also contributed to the conflagrations. It was the hottest August on record in California, and trees and brush were already abnormally dry and combustible after Northern and Central California saw exceptionally dry conditions last winter.
The August Complex fire, the largest in state history, came back to life Saturday night after winds pushed away the smoke and fed oxygen to the flames. Residents in the rural towns of Wildwood and Platina were told to prepare to leave when the fire jumped a containment line Saturday, but the clearer air has also offered an opportunity for firefighters, officials said.
“On the aircraft side, it’s good because they need the visibility,” said Cal Fire spokeswoman April Newman.
As the week progresses, the weather is expected to work in firefighters’ favor, according to the National Weather Service.
Though winds will continue to push the fire around on hilltops and sour air in the valleys with smoke, the ridge of high pressure that’s been keeping the air warm and dry will be displaced by mid-week with cooler, more humid air that will also feed moisture back into the vegetation during the night.
Until then, much of firefighters’ efforts will be focused on the fire’s northern and western zones, where persistently warm conditions have pushed the flames over containment lines, up steep hills and into treetops.
On both flanks of the fire, crews challenged by rugged terrain are building contingency lines — a more distant, secondary defensive line away from the fire.
The August Complex fire has burned 985,304 acres and was 51 percent contained Sunday.
Fire officials have reported 100 percent containment of two other large fire complexes that were sparked by lightning in mid-August — the 396,624-acre SCU Lightning Complex fire in Santa Clara, Alameda and Stanislaus counties, and the 363,220-acre LNU Lightning Complex fire in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.
Fire crews on Sunday also reported progress against the Creek fire, burning in the Sierra National Forest, which was 315,413 acres and 62 percent contained.
The fire’s southern and western flanks, closest to large population centers, have been tamped down, but the fire’s eastern edge flared up overnight and jumped a bulldozed containment line, said the fire’s operations commander, Don Fregulia.
The North Complex fire, which killed 15 people after it raced into the towns of Berry Creek and Feather Falls, was 317,459 acres and 83 percent contained Sunday.
In the Los Angeles area, crews fighting the Bobcat fire in the Angeles National Forest said they were mostly focusing on mopping up and strengthening containment lines Sunday. Fire officials said a 300-acre internal island of unburned fuel northeast of Mount Wilson burned Saturday, producing a smoke plume.
The fire has burned 115,548 acres, was 84 percent contained and has destroyed 87 homes and 83 other structures as of Sunday, though that number could rise as teams continue to perform damage assessments, officials said.
Conditions around the fire are expected to cool later in the week, said National Weather Service meteorologist David Gomberg. Though cooler air has an obvious benefit for the crews outside, it also can limit the fire’s potential behavior, Gomberg said.
When there’s a large fire on a day with little wind, rising hot air can play an outsize role in influencing what the fire does, experts say. The hot air and rising smoke can become so powerful that they overcome outside influences and control the fire’s weather, making it more extreme and unpredictable as a plume-dominated fire.
With temperatures dropping into the 80s at the highest elevations and 90s in the foothills by midweek, that plume-dominated fire potential is expected to decrease, Gomberg said.
“The hotter it is, the worse it can be,” he said. “You still have some potential for some plume development, but it won’t be as severe as what we’ve seen the past couple of weeks.”
(Alex Wigglesworth & Joseph Serna, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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So it was on two summer days in 1987 and 1988, when officials held four-hour parties in the center of soon-to-open stretches of state Route 52 in Kearny Mesa. There were refreshments, live music, dancing, military exhibits, parades — mini-carnivals, minus the thrill rides.
Those would come later.
These new patches of pavement, which stretched about 5 miles east from Interstate 805 to Santo Road and cost about $33 million, were built in part over portions of the Miramar Landfill that had closed 14 years earlier.
Before too long, the roadway started sinking in various places, creating a roller coaster ride of dips and undulations that made driving it an adventure — fun to small kids bouncing up and down in the backseat, aggravating to drivers worried about shock absorbers and front-end alignments.
Maintenance crews went out and put down an overlay of asphalt, smoothing the roadway. Then parts of it sank as the ground underneath shifted again. That meant more asphalt. This has gone on every few years, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in repairs.
Now Caltrans is trying a different approach.
Crews are drilling thousands of holes in the pavement, through all those layers of asphalt, and injecting columns of grout — a mixture of sand, water and cement — that they hope will compact the underlying soil, fill in cavities and entomb some of the decomposing and ever-shifting trash.
They experimented with that approach on a small section of the freeway in 2016. “The results look promising,” said Shawn Rizzutto, the transportation agency’s acting division chief for maintenance in San Diego and Imperial counties. “It firmed up the subgrade and limited the instability.”
Since late August, they’ve been working in the area between the 805 and state Route 163, sometimes seven nights a week, flattening the roadway and strengthening nearby culverts. The $16.5 million project is scheduled to be finished in November, officials said.
Construction has meant lane closures and freeway ramp shutdowns, inconveniences that annoy motorists and leave them muttering unkind things about “your tax dollars at work.”
But this fix, if it works, could also make a significant difference to those using one of the county’s busiest east-west corridors. Caltrans records from 2017 show that, during the 24 hours of an average weekday, 112,000 vehicles travel in each direction on Route 52 where it meets Convoy Street.
That’s a lot of roller coaster rides.
‘Sweetheart of a freeway’
Rizzutto said he can’t speak for the Caltrans personnel who in the late 1980s designed and constructed the part of Route 52 that passes over the old dump.
He suspects they “did not anticipate the severity” of the roadway sinking caused by “the biodegradation, creep and consolidation” of the landfill materials, or the frequency of the asphalt overlays that would be required over the years to flatten it out.
Newspaper coverage of the freeway-opening celebration in 1987 suggests he is right. Officials back then said one reason they were having a party is because construction had gone so well.
“It’s been a sweetheart of a freeway to build,” one official told a reporter, noting the wide-open spaces it went through — no structures or trees to work around. That phase of the project, from the 805 to Convoy, was finished in about 18 months. It took another year to continue the highway to Santo Road.
These were the first new sections of the 52 to be built since the early 1970s, when it was known as the Soledad Freeway. Its original stretch connected Interstate 5 (where it meets Ardath Road) and Interstate 805, passing through San Clemente Canyon.
Subsequent extensions have taken the 52 through Tierrasanta and into Santee, where it links up with state Route 67. Those extensions have had their issues, too — funding, endangered species, rights-of-way — but a regularly sinking roadway hasn’t been among them.
The old dump in Kearny Mesa was known as the South Miramar Landfill. It started in 1959, after city officials leased 192 acres from the military on the southern end of what is now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, according to a history on the city’s website.
Used mostly for residential trash, the landfill was closed in 1973 and the city moved to new locations nearby, first north and then west, where the operations continue today.
The undulations on Route 52 became common enough over the years for Caltrans to install yellow “DIP” warning signs next to the freeway. Sometimes the conditions prompted motorists to complain to the transportation agency or the news media.
“The dip is so bad that it actually jars your suspension,” Ron Yager, a Santee resident, told the Union-Tribune in 2007, when the newspaper was running a regular “Just Fix It” feature. “You can hear it go ‘clunk’ as you hit it.”
He developed a strategy: staying in the fast lane. The other lanes, he said, had sudden drops that “could easily knock your front end out of alignment, or worse.”
Deadly concerns
A letter published by the Union-Tribune last year sounded a more ominous tone. “Cars encounter multiple dips that send them simultaneously down and side-to-side,” Don Johansson of Cardiff wrote. “Caltrans needs to stabilize the situation — a permanent fix would require moving the road — before people are killed.”
There have been deaths, primarily caused by excessive speed. In one of the accidents, in 2012, two East County teens were killed when the driver of a car racing another at more than 100 mph lost control near Convoy Street and crashed.
An attorney representing one of the victim’s parents sued the driver and also filed a liability claim against Caltrans — a possible precursor to a suit — alleging that the condition of the roadway contributed to the crash.
The claim was denied, and the attorney, Fred Cohen, said he dropped that part of the case after his traffic experts concluded that the freeway is reasonably safe as long as motorists obey the speed limit.
Caltrans doesn’t need driver complaints or threatened lawsuits to know the freeway has problems. “It’s something we monitor quite closely,” said Rizzutto, who’s been with the agency for almost 30 years.
Maintenance crews check when they’re working in the area, he said, and an automated system records the condition of the roadway when a specialized vehicle is driven over it. That information helps the agency prioritize repair projects.
The current work involves “compaction grouting,” a process that has been around since the 1950s. It was first used for soil-settling under buildings and later refined to address tricky subsurface conditions with roadways, Rizzutto said.
Cause for celebration again, perhaps, on Route 52.
(John Wilkens, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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A storm that moved overnight across southeastern France and then northern Italy caused major flooding on both sides of the border, destroying bridges, blocking roads and isolating communities.
In Italy, a firefighter was killed during a rescue operation in the mountainous northern region of Val d’Aosta. Another body was found in Vercelli province, near where a man had been swept away by flood waters late Friday.
A total of 16 people were reported missing in Italy, all but one travelers in cars on the Col de Tende high mountain pass between France and Italy, according to civil protection authorities.
The spokesman for Italy’s firefighters said a search was ongoing for a missing shepherd who was pulled into floodwaters on Col de Tende. His brother managed to grab onto a tree and was saved, while authorities were searching on the French side for the shepherd.
Firefighter spokesman Luca Cari said he suspects the other people reported missing in Italy have lost phone contact, but at the moment they are not thought to be in imminent danger.
Unrelenting rainfall overnight hit levels not seen since 1958 in northern Italy’s Piedmont region, where as much as 24.8 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period, according to the Italian civil protection agency.
On the other side of the border, in southeastern France, almost a year’s average rainfall fell in less than 12 hours in the mountainous area surrounding the city of Nice. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said more than 100 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the area.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who flew over the area in an helicopter, confirmed that at least eight people were missing, including two firefighters whose vehicle was carried away by water when the road collapsed during a rescue operation.
Rescue efforts included 871 personnel working on the ground, as well as military helicopters and troops helping with emergency assistance, Castex said.
France’s national weather agency, Meteo France, said that up to 19.7 inches were recorded in some areas, the equivalent of almost one year of average rainfall.
(Sylvie Corbet & Colleen Barry, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Flames have scorched an area larger than Connecticut. Fire crews at a blaze in the wine country north of San Francisco were on high alert Friday as forecasters warned of extreme fire danger into today.
Powerful winds didn’t materialize early Friday, allowing fire crews a chance to make gains. But winds up to 30 mph were forecast to push through the hills of Napa and Sonoma counties as the Glass fire, which exploded in size earlier in the week, threatens more than 28,000 homes and other buildings.
“So far we have not seen the velocity of the winds that we were expecting,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mark Brunton said. “But there will be gusts and we do have hot embers and it won’t take much to take that and blow it into a very dry receptive fuel bed. That gives us cause for concern.”
Winds were blowing at higher elevations on the western side of the fire. Crews expected a long battle to keep flames from jumping containment lines and to prevent spot fires from leaping ahead to spark new blazes.
More crews and equipment were deployed in and around Calistoga, a town of 5,000 people known for hot springs, mud baths and wineries in the hills of Napa County about 70 miles north of San Francisco.
The Glass fire is the fourth major blaze in the region in three years and comes ahead of the third anniversary of an Oct. 8, 2017, wildfire that killed 22 people.
Around the state, 17,000 firefighters were battling nearly two dozen major blazes. Virtually all the damage has occurred since mid-August, when five of the six largest fires in state history erupted. Lightning strikes caused some of the most devastating blazes.
Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox said wildfires have scorched 3.9 million acres in California since Aug. 15. That figure works out to more than 6,000 square miles.
“We’re at a historic moment where we are going to cross the 4 million acres burned mark in California this year,” Cox said. “And unfortunately, we’re just getting into some of the most critical fire months in California.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More fire crews and equipment were deployed in and around Calistoga, a town of 5,000 people known for hot springs, mud baths and wineries in the hills of Napa County about 70 miles north of San Francisco.
Winds gusting to 30 mph were forecast to push through the hills Thursday night and today, according to the National Weather Service. The area was also experiencing high temperatures and thick smoky air.
Fire and public safety officials warned that more evacuation are possible. They asked the public to remain vigilant, stay out of evacuation zones and quit demanding that officers let them back into off-limits neighborhoods.
“It’s been a long fire season and we’re still at the heart of fire season here in California,” said Billy See, an incident commander with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire.
By the end of the week, “hopefully Mother Nature will play nice for a bit so my folks can get a little more aggressive on the ground,” he said.
More than 2,000 firefighters were battling the Glass fire, which has charred 89 square miles in Napa and Sonoma counties with almost no containment. It has destroyed about 250 buildings, including 143 homes.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The mainshock at 5:31 p.m. began about two miles north-northwest of Brawley, at a depth of 7.2 miles.
Some of the seismic energy was felt in San Diego County, the USGS said.
The Brawley zone links the southern San Andreas and the Imperial fault systems. It’s in one of the most seismically active regions of California.
Through 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, the 4.9 mainshock was followed by aftershocks of 4.2 and 4.1, and numerous smaller shocks measuring 3.0 or higher.
The Brawley fault system was the main source of a 5.9 quake on April 26, 1981.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The firefighters were assigned to the Glass fire burning in wine country north of San Francisco Sunday when gusty off-shore winds fanned the fire, prompting them to deploy their fire shelters after flames overwhelmed them.
The firefighters covered themselves on the ground with the emergency shelters that look like space blankets if they are in imminent danger from flames. They were not injured, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
It’s the third time that fire crews have had to deploy their fire shelters this fire season — a last-resort effort to save their lives that was once uncommon. On Sept. 8, 14 firefighters deployed emergency shelters as flames overtook them and destroyed the fire station they were defending in the Los Padres National Forest. Three firefighters were hospitalized and later released. A day later, a crew fighting a deadly blaze in Butte County was overrun by flames when winds shifted and its members escaped with only minor injuries after deploying emergency shelters.
Heavy winds that spread new fires this week in the Napa and Sonoma wine country and in a far northern area of the state were reduced to breezes. But vegetation remained ripe for burning in high temperatures amid very low humidity.
Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in America to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, especially because climate change has made California much drier. A drier California means plants are more flammable.
About 70,000 people were under evacuation orders in the wine region north of San Francisco where the Glass fire has incinerated at least 80 homes along with winery installations and other buildings.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The overpowering earthquake and tsunami that ripped through northern Japan in March 2011 caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, leading to the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
Under Wednesday’s ruling by the Sendai High Court, the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Co., known as Tepco, must compensate 3,550 plaintiffs, the Kyodo news agency reported. The plaintiffs had sought monthly compensation payments of about $475 per person until radiation at their homes returns to pre-crisis levels.
The government has long argued that it could not have prevented the tsunami or the nuclear accident, while Tepco says it has already paid any compensation that was ordered by the government.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The blaze had burned 42,560 acres as of Tuesday — nearly quadrupling in size since Monday morning — and there is still no containment, according to Erick Hernandez, a public information officer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
So far, Hernandez said, crews had confirmed that the fire has destroyed 52 residences in Napa County and 28 in Sonoma County.
Figures on how many commercial structures had been affected were not available Tuesday morning, he said.
The fire burned rapidly Sunday through Napa Valley’s Silverado Trail, raising concerns about the fate of the area’s famed wineries.
Napa and Sonoma counties are home to more than 800 wineries, according to their tourism associations, and many are family owned.
One building that was lost was the distinctive stone structure at the Chateau Boswell Winery in St. Helena, which marked its 40th anniversary last year.
Officials said Monday evening that at least eight wineries were damaged.
The winding road to Chateau Boswell was flanked by smoldering brush and trees Tuesday morning as firefighters worked to quell the flames scorching the region.
Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner said Tuesday that his department had called in all possible personnel to fight the Glass fire.
Though Cal Fire officials could not immediately confirm the acreage breakdown by county, they emphasized that California’s wildfire-fighting infrastructure is “one of the strongest and most diverse in the nation.”
“This is a large fire,” Cal Fire Unit Chief Shana Jones said. “We’re at 42,000 acres covering two counties. That is a lot of territory, and it’s a lot of work.”
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Butte County sheriff’s officials issued an evacuation order for Pulga and Concow and an evacuation warning for the town of Paradise, which was mostly destroyed in the 2018 Camp fire that resulted in 85 deaths and the loss of more than 18,000 structures.
Winds were gusting more than 70 mph Sunday night, creating the same dangerous conditions that sparked the 2018 Paradise firestorm. It was unclear as of Monday whether any more structures had burned.
The North Complex fire ranks among the biggest and most deadly fires the state has seen, killing 15 people. Only four California fires have killed more people.
At more than 305,000 acres, the fire is the fifth-largest recorded in the state. It has also destroyed the sixth-highest number of structures of any fire — 1,784, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
It destroyed the town of Berry Creek, where most of the deaths occurred.
Authorities released the name of the 15th victim Friday.
The body of Linda Longenbach, a 71-year-old Berry Creek resident, was located on Handkirk Lane on Sept. 10, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
Both she and another previously identified victim — 68-year-old Paul Winer of Berry Creek — were found in the roadway.
One of them was inside a vehicle, and the other was approximately 10 feet away from an ATV, authorities said, though they didn’t specify who was where.
Authorities had previously identified the other fire victims as: Larry Holder, 61; Suzan Zurz, 76; Mark Delagardie, 61; Kin Lee, 64; Jacob Albright, 74; Randy Harrell, 67; John Butler, 79; Sandra Butler, 75; Jorge Hernandez-Juarez, 26; Philip Rubel, 68; Khawar Bhatti, 58; Millicent Catarancuic, 77; and Josiah Williams, 16.
In Shasta County, strong winds were also reported Monday, threatening to further fuel a fast-moving wildfire that ignited Sunday afternoon near the rural community of Igo, about nine miles southwest of Redding. The blaze grew from 50 acres to 400 acres in about a half-hour, according to Cal Fire, prompting evacuation orders and sending up a massive plume of smoke.
Meanwhile, in Southern California, containment of the 114,200-acre Bobcat fire dropped from 65 percent to 62 percent.
The fire has been burning in the Angeles National Forest for nearly three weeks, threatening communities in the Antelope Valley and foothills of the San Gabriel Valley. Its estimated date of full containment remained the same — Wednesday — as 1,363 firefighting personnel were assigned to the scene as of Monday.
U.S. Forest Service officials said crews continued to actively patrol the fire area overnight, searching out heat along the perimeter while monitoring containment lines in preparation for winds.
A red flag warning was in effect. Wind gusts between 30 and 45 mph were expected to weaken by Monday night, but low relative humidity in the teens and single digits were expected to combine with higher temperatures to keep the fire danger high all week long.
Flames have destroyed 161 structures and affected another 35 in the Antelope Valley area, with seven sustaining minor damage and five major damage, according to a damage assessment provided by Los Angeles County officials.
Of the buildings destroyed, 82 were residential, one was commercial and 78 were described as “other.”
The Nature Center at the Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area was burned by the fire, Los Angeles County parks officials said. The area is closed until further notice.
The Bobcat fire erupted on Sept. 6 northeast of Mount Wilson and within the Angeles National Forest.
(Rong-Gong Lin II & Luke Money, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The state’s losses were mounting Monday as two new wind-driven wildfires burned out of control, killing three people in Shasta County, the sheriff said. And in wine country, the famous Chateau Boswell winery was gone, a community of tiny homes for formerly homeless people has burned, and an untold number of houses were feared lost.
For residents, still haunted by fires that tore through the area three years ago, destroying thousands of homes and killing dozens of people, the wildfires that exploded Sunday were as familiar as they were terrifying.
“We’ve evacuated and we are watching the news and watching my district burn again,” Susan Gorin, a Sonoma County supervisor, said Monday from a hotel in Novato where she had evacuated to. “I fear that it’s heading into those areas that lost homes and were rebuilt, and I fear they will burn again.”
The two fast-moving blazes, the Zogg fire in Shasta County and the Glass fire in Napa and Sonoma counties, have already burned more than 26,000 acres, prompting new evacuation orders for nearly 70,000 people as the year’s grueling wildfire season wore on.
The new burst of fires comes as the West Coast struggles to recover from one of the worst seasons on record, even with months to go until the rainy season. Wildfires this year in the West have left more than 40 people dead, destroyed more than 7,000 structures, and scorched more than 5 million acres in California, Oregon and Washington. Experts have linked the devastating fire season to climate change, saying it is part of a long-term trend of more frequent and disastrous blazes in the West.
“As of right now there’s zero containment,” Jimmy Zanotelli, a public information officer with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department, said of the fatal Zogg fire, whose cause was unknown. “We’re still seeing some fire growth and some critical fire rates of spread, so it’s been a challenge.”
In a news conference Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said a “substantial” number of structures, including wineries, had been damaged. Speaking of the history of fires in the area, he said there was “a lot of consternation in and around that region that has been hit over and over and over again.”
In wine country, residents spoke of terrifying, nighttime evacuations Sunday as the flames bore down.
In the Oakmont area of Santa Rosa, residents of Los Guilicos Village, a community of tiny homes for formerly homeless people and those suffering from mental illness and substance abuse disorders, were forced to evacuate at 9 p.m.
Among them was Carmen Almejo, 53, who fled with her dog, a Chihuahua named Carmencita. All she brought was a sweatshirt for herself, a sweatshirt for her dog, some dog food and water.
“I was very scared,” she said from an evacuation center. “When we were going in the van, we could see the flames and it was scary. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
And as day broke Monday, residents learned that much of the village had burned to the ground in the fire. Almejo said she spent the morning taking long walks with Carmencita, to calm her nerves.
Across the street from Los Guilicos Village on Sunday night, Oakmont Gardens, a senior assisted living center, was evacuating hundreds of residents, some in wheelchairs and others using walkers. “That was amazing that they got everyone out of there,” said Chris Grabill, who runs Los Guilicos Village. “There were vans and city buses filled with elderly, vulnerable people.”
At the CrossWalk Community Church in Napa, which was designated as an evacuation center, the line stretched out the door Monday afternoon, as evacuees gathered under tents to seek shade from the near triple-digit temperatures.
For many residents, it was not even the first time they had to flee a fire this year. Kristi Horn, who works at Pacific Union College in Angwin, had to evacuate in August after a lightning siege sparked several fast-moving fires. This time, she had to pack up and leave around 5 a.m. Sunday.
“I keep joking I want to move to Florida because you still get coastal access to the beach and you have several days to plan for a hurricane,” Horn said. “For fires, you’re woken up in the middle of the night.”
Jennifer Rhodes, 68, said she had left her home in Deer Park early Sunday morning after a neighbor knocked on her door.
“I never unpacked from the last fire, because they said the next three months was fire season,” said Rhodes, a retiree. She does not yet know if her home is still standing.
A spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, said the cause of the Glass fire in wine country had not been determined. But some residents reported hearing explosions just as the fire ignited, suggesting that the cause may have been propane tanks, said Michael Mann, chief executive of WineCountry Media, a tourism and e-commerce company.
Everyone in his industry, he said, was scrambling Monday to find out how much damage the fires had inflicted. “Most winery owners are trying to figure out if their properties are still there,” he said.
Meteorologists warned of more fire-prone conditions this week, after repeated heat waves and weeks of windy weather this summer. Over the weekend, the National Weather Service placed the greater Bay Area under a “red flag warning” because of dry and windy conditions and low humidity; the service extended the warning into Monday evening.
Lynne Tolmachoff, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said that about 8,500 homes were under evacuation orders, and that about 1,500 firefighters were battling the blazes.
As a precaution, utility company Pacific Gas and Electric said it had shut off power Sunday in portions of the North Valley and northern and central Sierra regions, affecting about 65,000 customers. Power was expected to be restored by the end of the day Monday for the majority of customers.
Gorin, the county supervisor, was among those living in the areas under evacuation orders. But Sunday night, well before the orders were issued, she saw the fire burning and started packing.
“I brought every photograph I could get my hands on,” she said, adding that she also brought with her jewelry and her computer.
“In general, people are exhausted,” said Gorin, who lives in Santa Rosa’s Oakmont neighborhood and lost her home in the 2017 fires. “They are tired of smoke. We’ve had smoke overlaying us for the last three weeks, and the skies are just beginning to clear.”
She said she has been living in a rented house while her home was being rebuilt, and she feared she might lose it again. She also feared for her constituents, and said many probably lost their homes Sunday night. But it will likely be days until officials will be able to reach the area and survey the damage, she said.
Historically, fire seasons in California began around June and July and lasted into October. But the seasons have been growing longer.
“The last several years with the drought and lack of rainfall, we have had a very dry vegetation which is extremely receptive to burning so we have not been having that closure that we normally would have in early fall,” said Cheryl Buliavac, a spokesperson at Cal Fire. “It’s been a year-round fire season.”
In wine country, officials have improved their alert system for residents in danger and have positioned cameras on mountaintops to detect fires earlier.
“The information flow is better, but the sense of dread is not,” said Lynda Hopkins, a Sonoma County supervisor.
On Monday, she said, a familiar sense of anxiety had set in. “It’s just numbing at this point, the number of fires up here. What’s eerie about this is it feels so much like 2017.”
(Tim Arango & Johnny Diaz, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Oceanside firefighter Bryan Howell climbed an extension ladder atop a fire truck to reach the bird, cutting it loose with a knife and carrying it down to safety, said fire Engineer Garrett Safe.
Once on the ground, firefighters cut away the rest of the fishing line but were unable to remove a fishing hook from the bird’s leg, Safe said.
The bird was unable to fly away after the rescue, and it was picked up for treatment by San Diego Humane Society officers. Later, a wildlife rescue team from SeaWorld San Diego picked it up for further care.
(Joe Tash, freelancer)
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The National Weather Service says to expect winds out of the east of 15 to 20 mph, with gusts to 40 mph, through inland valleys and foothills, especially in and around Ramona and Alpine.
San Diego Gas & Electric said in a statement that it sent notifications via phone, text messages and email to about 700 customers at risk of public-safety power shutoffs.
“Customers who were notified should be prepared to activate their personal emergency plan to keep their family, pets and livestock safe,” the statement read. “SDG&E will continue to provide customers with updates.”
The relative humidity also will drop to the 10 percent to 15 percent range inland today then spread to the coast on Tuesday.
“We’re going to have a dry heat instead of mugginess,” said Samantha Connelly, a weather service forecaster.
Today’s daytime high will reach 80 in San Diego and the 90s across inland valleys and foothills. The heat wave will peak on Tuesday and Wednesday when the temperature approaches or hits 100 in some of the valleys. But forecasters say it will stay unusually hot through Thursday.
A heat advisory will be in effect for the county’s inland valleys and foothills from 10 a.m. today until 8 p.m. on Thursday.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to 11,000 customers and another 54,000 were warned of shutoffs Sunday night due to a forecast of high winds, said Angela Lombardi, a company spokeswoman. Some residents in 16 counties may temporarily lose power, with Butte and El Dorado accounting for more than half of the potential shutoffs.
The shutoffs came as a new, swift-moving wildfire broke out in Napa County, which prompted evacuations of homes and a hospital. The fire was burning near several wineries and churned through 1.9 square miles Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
After waking up to fire alerts and messages from worried friends, Amy Bordeau of Calistoga said she grabbed the same bag she recently used when evacuating from another nearby wildfire.
“It’s a bit traumatizing,” she told the newspaper. “I feel like I’m constantly fight or flight.”
Fire-weary California is facing a new siege of hot, dry weather with potentially strong winds that could cause power lines to arc and spark new blazes in parched vegetation that’s ready to burn.
Red flag warnings for extreme fire weather conditions were issued for the northern and central areas of the state from late Saturday to today, the National Weather Service said. Similar warnings were in place for parts of Southern California’s San Bernardino and Riverside counties for today.
So far this year, more than 8,100 California wildfires have scorched 5,780 square miles, destroyed more than 7,000 buildings and killed 26 people. Most of the loss has occurred since a frenzy of dry lightning strikes in mid-August ignited a massive outbreak of fires. The causes of other fires remain under investigation and authorities said one was caused by a pyrotechnic device at a gender reveal event.
PG&E has opened community resource centers to help customers who lose power. Lombardi said the company hopes to be able to inspect equipment once the windy weather subsides today, and from that time, subsequently restore power to customers within 12 daylight hours.
The shutoffs — part of a safety program that aims to prevent disasters — are only called “as a last resort,” Lombardi said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Edison has turned over a section of an overhead conductor from its transmission facility in the area where the Bobcat fire started more than two weeks ago, company spokesman David Song said Wednesday.
The initial report of fire was near Cogswell Dam in the San Gabriel Mountains at 12:21 p.m. on Sept. 6.
In an incident report filed with the state Public Utilities Commission last week, Edison said its nearby equipment experienced an issue five minutes earlier, 12:16 p.m.
A circuit at a nearby substation experienced a “relay operation,” indicating its equipment detected some kind of disturbance or event, Song said.
Cameras captured smoke developing in the area around 12:10 p.m., prior to the activity on Edison’s circuit, he said.
Edison will assist the U.S. Forest Service in its investigation of the fire that has burned more than two dozen homes and other buildings on its way to becoming one of the largest blazes in Los Angeles County history.
“Southern California Edison understands this is a difficult time for the many people who are being impacted by the Bobcat fire,” Song said. “Our thoughts are also with those affected by the wildfires currently burning across the western United States.”
The Forest Service and the Public Utilities Commission didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking more information.
In recent years California utilities have strategically shut off power to some areas in order to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires. Edison did not have any planned shutoffs in the days before the Bobcat fire erupted.
Firefighters are finally starting to tame the blaze, with containment on Wednesday hitting 38 percent — a jump from just 17 percent a day earlier.
(Christopher Weber, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher, eight months after the scourge first reached the world’s richest nation, with its state-of-the-art laboratories, top-flight scientists and stockpiles of medical supplies.
The number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City or Huntsville, Ala.
And it is still climbing. Deaths are running at close to 770 a day on average, and a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the U.S. toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in. A vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until 2021.
“The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering, in some respects stunning,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said on CNN.
The bleak milestone was reported by Johns Hopkins, based on figures supplied by state health authorities. But the real toll is thought to be much higher, in part because many COVID-19 deaths were probably ascribed to other causes, especially early on, before widespread testing.
Trump said it was “a shame” the U.S. reached that number but argued the toll could have been much worse.
“I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have 2.5 million deaths,” Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving for a campaign rally in Pittsburgh. He added that the United States is now “doing well” and “the stock market is up.”
On Twitter, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “It didn’t have to be this bad.“
“It’s a staggering number that’s hard to wrap your head around,” he said. “There’s a devastating human toll to this pandemic — and we can’t forget that.”
For five months, America has led the world by far in sheer numbers of confirmed infections — nearly 6.9 million as of Tuesday — and deaths. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the globe’s population but more than 20 percent of the reported deaths.
Brazil is No. 2 with about 137,000 deaths, followed by India with approximately 89,000 and Mexico with around 74,000. Only five countries — Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Spain and Brazil — rank higher in COVID-19 deaths per capita.
“All the world’s leaders took the same test, and some have succeeded and some have failed,” said Dr. Cedric Dark, an emergency physician at Baylor College of Medicine in hard-hit Houston. “In the case of our country, we failed miserably.”
Black and Hispanic people and American Indians have accounted for a disproportionate share of the deaths, underscoring the economic and health care disparities in the U.S.
Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 31 million people and is closing in fast on 1 million deaths, with nearly 967,000 lives lost, by Johns Hopkins’ count, though the real numbers are believed to be higher because of gaps in testing and reporting.
For the U.S., it wasn’t supposed to go this way.
When the year began, the U.S. had recently garnered recognition for its readiness for a pandemic. Health officials seemed confident as they converged on Seattle in January to deal with the country’s first known case of the coronavirus, in a 35-year-old Washington state resident who had returned from visiting his family in Wuhan, China.
But monitoring at airports was loose. Travel bans came too late. Only later did health officials realize the virus could spread before symptoms show up, rendering screening imperfect. The virus also swept into nursing homes and exploited poor infection controls, claiming more than 78,000 lives.
At the same time, gaps in leadership led to shortages of testing supplies. Internal warnings to ramp up production of masks were ignored, leaving states to compete for protective gear.
Trump downplayed the threat early on, advanced unfounded notions about the behavior of the virus, promoted unproven or dangerous treatments, complained that too much testing was making the U.S. look bad, and disdained masks, turning face coverings into a political issue.
On April 10, the president predicted the U.S. wouldn’t see 100,000 deaths. That milestone was reached May 27.
(Carla K. Johnson, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Forest Service, one of the agencies managing the blaze, said Tuesday the voracious fire has expanded to more than 109,000 acres and is 17 percent contained.
“It’s a very dynamic incident,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said in a virtual community meeting Monday evening. “This is Day 16 of the Bobcat incident. I am humbled for the people who have lost homes or property.”
The Antelope Valley communities of Cima Mesa, Juniper Hills, Pearblossom and Devil’s Punchbowl likely bore the brunt of structure losses, officials said, but they couldn’t immediately confirm how many of the burned structures are homes. An assessment team will move through the area to provide an updated count.
The fire’s containment numbers dipped to 13 percent Monday evening but had climbed back to 17 percent by Tuesday morning thanks to progress along the eastern edge of the blaze off the Highway 39 corridor, according to U.S. Forest Service public information officer Andrew Mitchell.
But fire crews had a setback Tuesday as personnel numbers dropped from 1,700 to 1,500 — something Mitchell attributed to required rest days for beleaguered personnel.
“We’re only allowed to work 14 days straight before we have to take a mandatory two days off,” he said. “You’ll probably see the number grow back in the next couple of days.”
The remaining crews have been divided by the fire’s multidirectional growth, which includes a northward creep into Antelope Valley and a “hard push” southwest toward the famed Mount Wilson Observatory.
“Mount Wilson is definitely critical,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “It’s something that we’re really putting a lot of effort into today.”
The Forest Service said the fire’s encroachment on the mountaintop was because of “unfavorable” wind conditions as well as patches of dry fuels, such as conifer trees.
Overnight aerial video showed flames approaching the communications towers at the top of the mountain, which are reportedly valued at $1 billion and provide frequencies for television and radio channels.
Smoke advisories related to the Bobcat fire and the El Dorado fire in San Bernardino County have been extended, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which noted that the Bobcat fire is “producing substantial amounts of smoke.”
(Hayley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Beta, which made landfall late Monday as a tropical storm just north of Port O’Connor, is the first storm named for a Greek letter to make landfall in the continental United States. Forecasters ran out of traditional storm names last week, forcing the use of the Greek alphabet for only the second time since the 1950s.
By Tuesday afternoon, Beta was 40 miles north of Port O’Connor, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was moving east-northeast at 5 mph and was expected to crawl inland along the coast over Texas through today.
The National Hurricane Center said parts of the Houston area had seen up to 14 inches of rain by Tuesday afternoon. One area in Brazoria County, located south of Houston along the coast, got nearly 18 inches of rain in the last two days.
Street flooding was reported in parts of the Houston area. Fire Chief Samuel Pena said first responders had done nearly 100 water rescues on city roadways since Monday evening.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said there were preliminary reports of some home flooding along a creek south of Houston.
Both Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner urged residents to stay home and off the roads. About 70 barricades had been placed throughout the city in high water areas.
“Your sedan is not a submarine. Your minivan is not magical. So stay off the roads right now,” Hidalgo said. “Your destination is not worth your life. It’s not worth the life of the first responder that’s going to have to come and rescue you if you drive into high water and are stuck there.”
Houston-area officials worried additional rainfall on already saturated ground and waterways could result in more flooding.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Meanwhile, officials were investigating the death of a firefighter on the lines of another Southern California wildfire that erupted earlier this month from a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used by a couple to reveal their baby’s gender.
The death occurred Thursday in San Bernardino National Forest as crews battled the El Dorado Fire about 75 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement.
In northern Los Angeles County, firefighters focused on protecting homes Saturday as increasingly erratic winds pushed the Bobcat fire toward foothill communities in the Antelope Valley after churning all the way across the San Gabriel Mountains. An evacuation order was issued Saturday for all residents in that zone as the fire burned toward Wrightwood, a mountain community of 4,000, said fire spokesman Andrew Mitchell.
The fire grew to 142 square miles [90,900 acres] on Saturday when winds pushed the flames into Juniper Hills.
Some residents fled as blowing embers sparked spot fires, hitting some homes but sparing others. Bridget Lensing feared her family’s house was lost on Friday after seeing on Twitter that a neighbor’s house three doors down went up in flames.
The house stood when she made her way back Saturday afternoon but her neighbors’ houses in the remote community were burned to the ground.
“Everything around us is gone,” she said.
The extent of the destruction wasn’t immediately clear. But, Los Angeles County park officials said the blaze destroyed the nature center at Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area, a geological wonder that attracts some 130,000 visitors per year.
No injuries were reported.
On the south side of the Bobcat fire, firefighters continued to protect Mount Wilson, which overlooks greater Los Angeles and has a historic observatory founded more than a century ago and numerous broadcast antennas serving Southern California.
The fire that started Sept. 6 had already doubled in size over the last week. It is 15 percent contained.
Officials said the fire has been challenging because it is burning in areas that have not burned in decades, and because the firestorms across California have limited resources.
There were about 1,660 firefighters on the lines.
The name of the firefighter killed in the nearby El Dorado Fire was being withheld until family members are notified. The body was escorted down the mountain in a procession of first-responder vehicles. No other information was released about the circumstances of the death.
A statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said it was the 26th death involving wildfires besieging the state.
To the east, a new blaze sparked by a vehicle that caught fire was growing in wilderness outside Palm Springs.
To the north, a fire burning for nearly a month in Sequoia National Forest roared to life again Friday and prompted evacuation orders for the central California mountain communities of Silver City and Mineral King.
Throughout the Northwest, also besieged by wildfires, firefighters welcomed cooler weather and rain, as well as much-improved air quality and visibility that would allow some to survey fire activity with drones.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez & Christopher Weber, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Both the city of Galveston and Galveston County on Saturday issued voluntary evacuation orders ahead of Tropical Storm Beta.
Mayor Pro Tem Craig Brown said in a statement that high tides and up to 10 inches of expected rainfall would leave roads impassable, especially along the city’s west end and low-lying areas.
County Judge Mark Henry said during a Saturday news conference that his concern is also based on rising waters creating a storm surge and that a mandatory evacuation is not expected.
Tropical Storm Beta was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, 305 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, and 245 miles south of Lake Charles, La., the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. The system was forecast to become a hurricane today and triggered a tropical storm warning from Port Aransas, Texas, to Intracoastal City, La.
In Lake Charles, La., where thousands of people remain without power more than three weeks after Hurricane Laura slammed into the coast, there are concerns that Beta could super-soak the region once again. Up to 20 inches of rain is possible in some parts of the area, experts said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Across southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, homeowners and businesses began cleaning up, and officials inspected bridges and highways for safety, a day after Sally rolled through with 105 mph winds, a surge of seawater and 1 to 2 1/2 feet of rain in many places before it began to break up.
Sally’s remnants were expected to move into the Atlantic within 24 hours. A rainmaker to the end, what was left of the storm was forecast to dump as much as 8 inches in parts of the Carolinas and southern Virginia, prompting warnings of flash flooding and moderate river flooding. As much as 8 inches of rain fell in central Georgia.
In hard-hit Pensacola and surrounding Escambia County, where Sally’s floodwaters had coursed through downtown streets and lapped at car door handles on Wednesday before receding, authorities went door-to-door to check on residents and warn them they were not out of danger.
“Please, please, we’re not out of the woods even if we’ve got beautiful skies today,” said Escambia County emergency manager Eric Gilmore.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged Panhandle residents not to let their guard down. “You’re going to see the rivers continue to rise,” DeSantis said after an aerial tour of the Panhandle.
Crews carried out at least 400 rescues in Escambia County, Fla., by such means as high-water vehicles, boats and water scooters, authorities said.
Also on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said a new tropical depression formed in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters said the depression could become a tropical storm as it moves slowly over the western Gulf during the next few days. Meanwhile, Hurricane Teddy strengthened to a powerful Category 4 storm in the Atlantic. The storm currently poses no threat to land.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The death happened in Orange Beach, Ala., according to Mayor Tony Kennon, who also told The Associated Press that one person was missing. Kennon said he couldn’t immediately release details.
Moving at just 3 mph, or about as fast as a person can walk, the storm made landfall at 4:45 a.m. close to Gulf Shores, Ala., about 30 miles from Pensacola, Fla. It accelerated to a light jog as it battered the Pensacola and Mobile, Ala., metropolitan areas encompassing nearly 1 million people.
Sally cast boats onto land or sank them at the dock, flattened palm trees, peeled away roofs, blew down signs and knocked out power to more than 540,000 homes and businesses. A replica of Christopher Columbus’ ship the Nina that had been docked at the Pensacola waterfront was missing, police said.
Sally tore loose a barge-mounted construction crane, which then smashed into the new Three Mile Bridge over Pensacola Bay, causing a section of the year-old span to collapse, authorities said. The storm also ripped away a large section of a fishing pier at Alabama’s Gulf State Park on the very day a ribbon-cutting had been scheduled following a $2.4 million renovation.
By the afternoon, authorities in Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, said at least 377 people had been rescued from flooded areas. More than 40 people trapped by high water were brought to safety within a single hour, including a family of four found in a tree, Sheriff David Morgan said.
Authorities in Pensacola said 200 National Guard members would arrive today to help. Curfews were announced in Escambia County and in some coastal Alabama towns.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Justin Silvera came off the fire lines in Northern California after a grueling 36 straight days battling fires and evacuating residents ahead of the flames. Before that, he and his crew had worked for 20 days, followed by a three-day break.
Silvera, a 43-year-old battalion chief with Cal Fire, California’s state firefighting agency, said he’s lost track of the blazes he’s fought this year. He and his crew have sometimes been on duty for 64 hours at a stretch, their only rest coming in 20-minute catnaps.
“I’ve been at this 23 years, and by far this is the worst I’ve seen,” Silvera said before bunking down at a motel for 24 hours. After working in Santa Cruz County, his next assignment was to head north to attack wildfires near the Oregon border.
His exhaustion reflects the situation on the West Coast fire lines: This year’s blazes have taxed the human, mechanical and financial resources of the nation’s wildfire-fighting forces to an extraordinary degree. And half of the fire season is yet to come. Heat, drought and a strategic decision to attack the flames early combined with the coronavirus to put a historically heavy burden on fire teams.
“There’s never enough resources,” said Silvera, one of nearly 17,000 firefighters battling the California blazes. “Typically with Cal Fire, we’re able to attack — air tankers, choppers, dozers. We’re good at doing that. But these conditions in the field, the drought, the wind, this stuff is just taking off. We can’t contain one before another erupts.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that firefighters were battling some 25 major fires that were ignited in the past month, after an unprecedented lightning siege in mid-August.
The California death toll stands at 25, with at least 4,200 structures destroyed statewide and more than 38,000 people under evacuation.
The prospect of scattered rain in the Pacific Northwest raised hopes for better firefighting conditions in Washington and Oregon on Wednesday, after weeks of oppressive heat, hazardous air and unpredictable fires that have grown with terrifying speed up and down the coast.
Although the storm system was not forecast to be significant, the possibility of rain clouds in coastal regions — instead of smoke plumes and falling ash — was a lifeline for residents after weeks of increasingly grim news.
Inland and to the south, the forecast was less encouraging. Parts of Central Oregon were expecting gusts up to 35 mph in the afternoon that could contribute to a “significant spread” of new and existing fires, the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore., said. Up to 29 fires were active in the state Wednesday, spread over more than 843,500 acres.
And in California, there was not even temporary relief in sight, with the state fire agency saying, “With no significant precipitation in sight, California remains dry and ripe for wildfires.”
Meanwhile, resources are running short.
Washington State Forester George Geissler says there are hundreds of unfulfilled requests for help throughout the West. Agencies are constantly seeking firefighters, aircraft, engines and support personnel.
Fire crews have been summoned from at least nine states and other countries, including Canada and Israel. Hundreds of agreements for agencies to offer mutual assistance have been maxed out at the federal, state and local levels, he said.
“We know that there’s really nothing left in the bucket,” Geissler said. “Our sister agencies to the south in California and Oregon are really struggling.”
Demand for firefighting resources has been high since mid-August, when fire officials bumped the national preparedness level to critical, meaning at least 80 percent of crews were already committed to fighting fires, and there were few personnel and little equipment to spare.
Because of the extreme fire behavior, “you can’t say for sure having more resources would make a difference,” said Carrie Bilbao, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center. Officials at the U.S. government operation in Boise, Idaho, help decide which fires get priority when equipment and firefighters run scarce nationwide.
Government spending on fighting wildfires has more than tripled since the 1990s, to an average of $1.8 billion annually. That’s failed to reduce the problem as climate change, drought and millions of trees killed by pests led to more fires in the Western U.S. over the same period, particularly dangerous “megafires“ that burn 100,000 acres or more.
The growing severity has spurred federal lawmakers to push prevention efforts, including controlled burns, faster approval of logging projects and upgrading homes to make them more fire resistant.
“We are at a critical time: The West is burning. People are dying. The smoke is literally starting to cover our country, and our way of life as we know it is in danger,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said Wednesday during testimony in support of an emergency wildfire bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, that would direct more resources to prevention.
Andy Stahl, a forester who runs Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an advocacy group in Oregon, said it would have been impossible to stop some of the most destructive blazes, a task he compared to “dropping a bucket of water on an atomic bomb.”
Yet Stahl contends the damage could have been less if government agencies were not so keen to put out every blaze.
Extinguishing smaller fires and those that ignite during wetter months allows fuel to build up, setting the stage for bigger fires during times of drought and hot, windy weather, he said.
That’s been exacerbated this year by the pandemic, which led U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen to issue a directive in June to fight all fires aggressively, reversing a decades-long trend of allowing some to burn. The idea was to minimize large concentrations of firefighters by extinguishing blazes quickly.
Fighting the flames from the air was key to the strategy, with 35 air tankers and 200 helicopters used, Forest Service spokesperson Kaari Carpenter said.
Yet by Aug. 30, following the deaths of firefighters, including four aviators, fire officials in Boise warned that long-term fatigue was setting in. They called for a “tactical pause” to reinforce safe practices.
Cal Fire’s roughly 8,000 personnel have been fighting blazes from the Oregon border to the Mexico border, bouncing from fire to fire, said Tim Edwards, president of the union for Cal Fire, the nation’s second-largest firefighting agency.
“We’re battle-hardened, but it seems year after year, it gets tougher, and at some point in time, we won’t be able to cope. We’ll reach a breaking point,” said Edwards, a 25-year veteran.
Aside from the human toll, the conflagrations in Colorado, Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and now California and the Pacific Northwest have cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
California alone has spent $529 million since July 1 on wildfires, said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire.
By comparison, the state spent $691 million the entire fiscal year that ended June 30. The U.S. government will reimburse most state costs for the biggest disasters.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES; ASSOCIATED PRESS, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Forecasters tagged slow-moving Sally as an unusual type, a “walking storm,” because it lumbered at just 2 mph, about as fast as a lazy stroll. The lack of speed bought time for residents in low-lying St. Charles Parish, La.; Mobile County, Ala.; Harrison County, Miss.; and Escambia, Fla., to leave their homes.
But it meant as much as 30 inches of rain could fall along the coasts of those states and up to 5 feet of storm surge could inundate coastal communities. Forecasters said there could be record flooding along rivers in Northwest Florida, parts of Alabama and perhaps Georgia.
“The slow forward speed is likely to result in a historical rainfall event for the north-central Gulf Coast,” the National Hurricane Center posted in an online discussion about the storm Tuesday.
Sally’s wobbly movement also makes it hard to predict where it will strike land. On Monday, meteorologists predicted it would hit Biloxi, Miss., but that changed Tuesday and Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich was relieved.
“We’re real thankful that we were spared the storm surge,” Gilich said. “Four to six feet they’re predicting. That’s a lot better than seven or 11.”
But in Mobile, Ala., County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood watched with dread as predictions pointed their way.
“We’re telling people that there’s going to be a lot of water,” Ludgood said from an emergency management facility where she and other officials planned to ride out the storm. “The ground can only hold so much of it. Don’t wait to leave.”
Mobile is a city with thousands of oak trees that could tumble when their root systems are soaked. It is also adorned with rivers, canals and the enormous Big Creek Lake that is prone to flooding, said Mike Evans, deputy director of the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency.
The county sheriff commissioned a 15-ton military grade vehicle to respond if residents who decide to hunker down are trapped. But Evans hopes it doesn’t come to that. When the hurricane hits, public officials, emergency personnel included, planned to shelter in place.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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In the states where the fires are burning worst — with more than 5 million acres charred so far in Oregon, California and Washington state — authorities were trying to adapt to a disaster with no clear end in sight, under conditions deeply exacerbated [by] climate change.
The Bay Area, under a choking blanket of smoke for four weeks, set another record for consecutive warnings about hazardous air. Alaska Airlines suspended flights out of Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash., citing “thick smoke and haze.”
While more favorable weather has allowed firefighters to make some progress against the devastating blazes in Oregon, the crisis was far from over: The largest fires were still mostly uncontained, the air has been some of the most polluted on the planet for a week, and the state was setting up a mobile morgue as crews continued to sift through the rubble for missing people.
In California, where 25 people have died this year and more than 3.2 million acres — a modern record — have burned, officials had both successes and setbacks: Firefighters there contained two fires, one in Yuba County and the other north of Willits, and were trying to suppress 33 new blazes as stiff winds in the northeast pushed fires into new territory. There was still no significant rain in sight, and lands parched by warm weather remain at risk of igniting.
At the North Complex fire, which has burned more than 270,000 acres northeast of Sacramento, winds whipped the flames across a clearing that had been plowed by bulldozers.
Capt. Michael McIndoe and his crew were trying to stamp out any embers crossing a road. “It’s really challenging to stop it,” said McIndoe, who was sent north by the Los Angeles Fire Department to join the fight.
Crews back in Los Angeles were working Tuesday to beat back the Bobcat fire that approached to within 500 feet of the famed Mount Wilson Observatory, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
The blaze was just 3 percent contained after growing to more than 64 square miles since breaking out Sept. 6.
More than 16,600 firefighters are on the lines in California.
West Coast residents from San Francisco to Seattle and beyond have for days suffered from the smoke, which has sent air-quality readings soaring to hazardous levels, closed some schools and led officials to shut parks and beaches while pleading for people to stay indoors. In Seattle, Harborview Medical Center reported seeing a rise in the number of people seeking help for breathing issues — many of them people with underlying conditions such as asthma or lung disease.
“The air outside right now is at historically polluted levels,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington said.
Zoe Flanagan, who has lived in Portland for 12 years, braved the smog to walk her two dogs. In desperation, she and her husband turned on the heater a day earlier because it has a better filter than their air conditioner.
She said the air made her feel hungover, despite not drinking. She could not get enough water, and she had a headache. With health officials urging people to stay inside, the poor air also took away the simple pleasure of being outdoors during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Those backyard hangouts that we all got so used to as our one saving grace are now totally gone, and we just have to keep practicing letting go of what normal is,“ Flanagan said.
Smoke can irritate the eyes and lungs and worsen some medical conditions. Health experts warned that young children, adults over 65, pregnant women and people with heart disease, asthma or other respiratory conditions were especially vulnerable.
“The lasting effects of breathing the small particulates in the wildfire smoke can be extremely dangerous,” said Sarah Present, the health officer for Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties in Oregon. “It can lead to heart attacks, irregular heart rhythms and even death.”
Smoke from dozens of wildfires is pooling in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural region that has some of the state’s worst air quality even when there are no flames. Some parts of Central California are not likely to see relief until October, said Dan Borsum, the incident meteorologist for a fire in Northern California.
“It’s going to take a substantially strong weather pattern to move all the smoke,” Borsum said
Air so polluted that it was considered unhealthy to breathe was recorded as far away as Montana and up into Canada, though the high-level haze extended much further. Propelled by the jet stream and a high-pressure system over the Great Lakes, the smoke began arriving as a high-altitude haze across much of the continent.
The wildfires have even become an unwelcome expatriate in Europe — with West Coast-originating smoke being reported as far away as the Netherlands and Hamburg, Germany.
The massive fires are also throwing off significant amounts of pollutants. Satellite readings taken over the last week show high-altitude concentrations of carbon monoxide that are more than 10 times above normal, according to NASA.
“The intense heat from the wildfires lofted the carbon monoxide high into the atmosphere the jet stream then blew the carbon monoxide plume eastward across the U.S. and over the Atlantic Ocean,” officials wrote in a statement.
By midday Tuesday over Washington, D.C., the sun and the sky had blurred together into one diffused and omnipresent bright light.
Brian LaSorsa, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in the Baltimore and Washington region, said he first noticed the smoke over the region Monday, in the upper levels of the atmosphere.
“Obviously we don’t see smoke very often from wildfires,” LaSorsa said.
But on the ground along the East Coast, the air quality remained clear. There was a possibility the smoke could descend, possibly later this week if a cold front comes through, LaSorsa said, but he expected it to stay aloft through Tuesday night.
The wildfires along the West Coast that are generating the atmospheric pollution had flared dramatically last week when winds whipped them into infernos that overwhelmed cities and razed hundreds of homes in Washington, Oregon and California. Wildfires have also been sparked in Idaho, where a blaze of nearly 70,000 acres near the Oregon border forced the evacuation Monday of dozens of residents and campers.
In Oregon, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced by evacuations, authorities in some areas were still asking residents Tuesday to stay away from destroyed neighborhoods because of lingering dangers, including falling trees and rock slides along Highway 22 in Marion County.
Oregon has reported eight people dead, a number lowered from 10 after two sets of remains were identified as animals. The Oregon State Police mobilized a mobile morgue in Linn County, between Salem and Eugene, that could handle remains from wildfires across the state. Specialists were being assembled, such as those with dental expertise, to help identify the dead.
“One of the huge purposes of this is to get the identifications made, so we can get notifications made to families as soon as possible,” said Capt. Tim Fox of the Oregon State Police.
The state’s emergency managers said authorities continued to search for 16 people they have identified as missing.
In the city of Talent, where some 40 percent of the city’s land was consumed by wildfire and perhaps 1,500 people have lost their homes, City Manager Sandra Spelliscy said more people were beginning to return to find whether their homes were still there.
For those in the undamaged parts of town, Spelliscy said many of the streets now have power and water service restored. But people whose homes have been reduced to ashes could face months or years of recovery.
“I have a really strong belief in the power of the community of Talent to bring itself back,” Spelliscy said. “I know it’s going to happen, but I also know it’s going to be a long, hard road.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES; NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, ASSOCIATED PRESS, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Wildfires are destroying property, running up huge losses for property insurers and putting a strain on economic activity along the West Coast that could linger for a year or more.
The credit rating agency A.M. Best estimates that insured losses from the blazes in California could top the unprecedented $13 billion recorded in 2017 when the state was hit by three of the five costliest fires in U.S. history.
“We know that the damage is widespread, but we don’t really know how many homes, how many structures have been destroyed,” said Adam Kamins, an economist who tracks natural disasters for Moody’s Analytics. “I imagine the number is going to be an unbearably high one.”
The fires are unlikely to make much of a dent in the overall $20 trillion U.S. economy. The financial fallout will be measured in the low billions of dollars, not in hundreds of billions or trillions. To make a nationwide impact, Kamins said, it would take something like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which disrupted oil supplies.
But the economic pain will be intense in areas decimated by fire, especially poor towns in rural Oregon and California, piling on at a time when many businesses have already succumbed to the pandemic-induced recession. U.S. economic activity collapsed at a record 31.7 percent annual pace from April through June. The virus and the steps meant to contain it have thrown millions of Americans out of work.
Fire wiped out much of the small community of Phoenix, in southern Oregon, including downtown businesses like La Tapatia, a Mexican restaurant opened in 1992.
“Good places like our own La Tapatia, but so many other family run businesses, (were) destroyed by the massive fire,” its owners informed patrons in a Facebook post, adding there was “lots to do” but they hoped to some day reopen.
Five hours away in coastal Lincoln City, Ore., the Autobahn 101 survived, but the couple who own the German-style pub lost their home, their chickens and nearly all of their personal belongings to fire. They sleep in a back room of the roadside business.
The pub had already scaled back hours because of the pandemic, but co-owner Roy Baker was optimistic about its future and still has dreams of opening a small brewery inside a shipping container out back.
“We’re getting back on our feet,” said Baker, who temporarily reopened Sunday after rewiring the pub’s electricity and discarding food that spoiled after days without power. “Everybody’s coming together and helping each other.”
The Bakers were among thousands of Oregonians who evacuated; dozens are missing and feared dead.
In California, nearly 17,000 firefighters are battling 29 major wildfires. Fires have engulfed 3.3 million acres of land in California this year — desolation greater in size than Connecticut.
“This is like living through an apocalypse,” said Sarah Trubnick from San Francisco, where smoke from the fires has blotted out the sun.
Trubnick had to temporarily close her restaurant and wine bar, the Barrel Room, in the city’s financial district two weeks ago because of the pandemic. Even her restaurateur friends who managed to stay open are now struggling with smoke that makes outdoor seating impossible. “It’s like every day is something new,” she said.
Wildfires once did little economic damage because they occurred in remote forests. But Americans increasingly have moved into what was once wilderness, leaving themselves, their homes and their businesses more vulnerable.
In 2014, Max Nielsen-Pincus, chair of the environmental science and management department at Portland State University, and researchers from the University of Oregon and the U.S. Forest Service studied the economic impact of wildfires. They found that the fires actually generated short-term economic gains in small communities as firefighters checked into local hotels and ate at local restaurants. Local laborers cleared roads and helped rebuild.
But such economic bumps are usually short-lived. By spring, affected economies typically lost momentum and fell into a period of slower growth that could last up to 18 months. Tourism could suffer because “visitors may not want to return fearing a blackened landscape,” according to the paper published in the journal Forest Policy and Economics. And economic activity such as logging can be wiped out.
Rebuilding can kickstart a local economy, but a lack of resources to see those plans through can lead to “a period of limbo.”
“Urban areas like the suburbs of Portland — they’ll probably recover pretty quickly,” Nielsen-Pincus said in an interview. “But these rural communities that are impacted by nearby fires — this could be a drag on their economy that lasts months or years.”
He said poor rural communities, like those in Oregon’s hard-hit Santiam Canyon east of Salem, will need federal and state aid.
The number of wildfires declared disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency has grown in recent years. FEMA, for instance, declared 43 California wildfires disasters from 1980 to 1999 — but 300 from 2000 to 2019. Oregon had no such wildfires from 1980 to 1999 but 63 over the past 20 years, according to FEMA data analyzed by the insurance website QuoteWizard. Only a small fraction of wildfires are designated disasters by FEMA.
All five of the costliest fires in U.S. history, measured by insured losses, have occurred in the last three years, all in California, according to the Insurance Information Institute. That includes the November 2018 Camp fire that destroyed Paradise and left more than 80 people dead and up to $10.7 billion in insured losses.
(Paul Wiseman, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“We do anticipate a lot of flooding,” Cecilia Dobbs Walton, Biloxi’s spokeswoman, said Monday. She repeated the city’s message to its population of 46,000: “Heed the warnings. Just prepare. You’ve been through this before. You’ve been through worse. ... Don’t let your guard down.”
The thud of nail guns pierced the air as residents boarded up houses at the last minute or fled the low-lying coast to higher ground.
In another sign of a dangerous and troubling time, Sally is one of at least five tropical systems that swirled across the Atlantic on Monday, the most since 1971, when there were six. In an era of human-caused climate change and warming waters, September has set a record for the most named storms in the Atlantic, said Phil Klotzbach, a tropical weather researcher at Colorado State University.
It’s been a record year for tropical activity in the Atlantic, with 20 named storms forming and obliterating the typical average of 11.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The blazes that began in recent weeks, turning forests, fields and communities into blasted landscapes, have destroyed scores of homes and left at least 27 people dead and dozens more missing.
The death toll in California swelled to 24 as authorities continued to search for a number of people still missing and firefighters toiled to keep multiple blazes from reaching populated communities.
More than 3.2 million acres have burned across the state this year, the largest amount on record. Together, the fires have destroyed at least 4,100 structures and forced more than 60,000 Californians from their homes.
By Monday afternoon, haze had spread across much of the country and could be seen over New York and Washington, D.C.
Heavy smoke kept some firefighting aircraft grounded as fire pushed into new areas, prompting fresh evacuations in Idaho, Oregon and California. In Adams County, Idaho, officials ordered mandatory evacuations for residents threatened by the Woodhead fire, which was 32 percent contained by Monday evening.
Amid a summer of record heat and dry winds, leaders have raced for weeks to contain one spiraling fire after another, straining their emergency services and prompting them to plead for help from other states and the federal government.
President Donald Trump on Monday visited McClellan Park, where a fire, now largely contained, recently burned more than 363,000 acres. In a briefing with state officials the president sought to downplay the effects of climate change and blamed the historic fires on poor forest management.
In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown said the state was getting firefighting support from as far away as Michigan. She expressed gratitude for the national support effort, saying the state can use all the help it can get.
“Without question, our state has been pushed to its limits,” Brown said.
Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said the state’s confirmed death toll was at 10 on Monday, with 22 other people reported missing.
Doug Grafe, the chief of fire protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry, said crews had made progress containing the state’s fires over the past few days. But he said rains anticipated to fall Monday weren’t materializing and winds threatened to exacerbate fire conditions in some areas. Grafe said the rains that may now come Wednesday or Thursday could also include lightning and the prospect of new fires starting.
Most of what has burned in the West has been in remote forests, but in Oregon, entire communities along the Interstate 5, the main north-south interstate highway along the West Coast, have been razed.
“We haven’t had anything ever this close,” said Margot Cooper, who for the past three decades has lived in Scio, Ore., a farming and logging town southeast of the state capital, Salem. “It’s the first time it’s literally in our backyard.”
Last week, a 13-year-old boy was killed in a nearby canyon, apparently as he attempted to drive his grandmother to safety.
In nearby Gates, Ore., refugees from the fires were exhausted after five days of living in dingy motels or cars, eating donated pizzas for dinner and, all the while, not knowing whether their homes had burned down or were standing.
Police cruisers blocked traffic along a highway heading into the mountains east of Salem, where the Beachie Creek fire was still burning out of control. Some families were able to pass through. Other convoys of pickup trucks threaded their way onto side roads and skimmed the edges of farm fields in search of alternate routes. Some were seeking needed medications, others lost pets.
“Everything’s still on fire,” said Mike Alexander, 29, who has been coming and going since the night of Sept. 7, when the wildfire surged up the hillside behind his home.
Some evacuation warnings eased Sunday in areas just south of Portland. But many towns remained unreachable. Law enforcement officials set up a hot line Sunday for people in the incinerated lakeside resort towns of Detroit and neighboring Idanha to have deputies check on their homes.
For days, fire crews in Aumsville, a little town outside Salem that was untouched by the fire, have been heading into the mountains to help other firefighters try to get a handle on the 188,000-acre Beachie Creek fire. Firefighters have been running on adrenaline, sleeping in a donated trailer that was dropped in their parking lot, then heading back up into the fire.
In California, the North Complex fire tore through the tiny mountain community of Lake Madrone last week, reducing the pine-fringed shore, which was speckled with cottages and frequented by bears and otters, to bare black timbers and ash.
The community had spent years clearing fire breaks and removing forest debris to protect it from wildfire. But roaring winds, high temperatures and a firestorm that raced almost 20 miles in a few days smashed its defenses late last week and destroyed about half of the 130 houses.
“We hoped we had done enough,” said Scott Owen, a resident who lived by the lake. “After watching that fire, I don’t think you can do enough. This fire moved like no one had seen before.”
On Monday evening, Sheriff Kory Honea of Butte County announced one additional victim of the fire, which has killed at least 15 people. He said that family members of some of those who died told deputies that the individuals had packed their bags and planned to evacuate, but changed their minds based on false information that the fire was 50 percent contained.
Owen’s whole neighborhood burned to the ground in the blaze. One neighbor barely escaped, he said, and sheltered from the flames in a creek. On Monday the neighbors were still trying to account for everyone, hoping that authorities would not have to search the debris with cadaver dogs.
Though the flames have moved north, the residents of Lake Madrone have not been able to return yet. Owen, who has owned a house on the lake for decades, said he was not sure he would rebuild.
“I just think things have changed and we’re going to have more fires,” he said. “This is a record year — who knows where it goes from here.”
A man in Oregon has been arrested twice in less than 12 hours after he was accused of starting more than a half dozen small fires along a freeway, one of them by using a plastic bottle stuffed with a wick, police said Monday. None of the fires caused injuries or damage to structures.
The suspect, Domingo Lopez Jr., 45, was first spotted Sunday afternoon when a brush fire was lit along Interstate 205, a north-south freeway that runs east of the Portland metropolitan area, the Portland Police Bureau said. Witnesses pointed out Lopez in a nearby tent, where he was arrested about 4:30 p.m. He was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of reckless burning and disorderly conduct, police said.
He was released Sunday on his own recognizance, inmate records show.
A little after 3:30 a.m. Monday, Lopez was arrested a second time while walking on the side of a road, with police saying he had started six more small fires along the freeway.
Separately, deputies were investigating eight small “suspicious” fires that broke out early Monday morning in Linn County, in the west-central region of Oregon, Sheriff Jim Yon said.
And last week, authorities in southern Oregon charged Michael Jarrod Bakkela, 41, with starting part of one of this year’s most destructive fires, saying he lit a fire in Ashland as a larger blaze moved toward the area. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said he denied that he had started the large fire nearby.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Large disaster response organizations like the American Red Cross are still operating some traditional shelters in gyms and churches, where they require masks, clean and disinfect often and try to keep evacuees at least 6 feet apart. The groups say they can reduce the risk of COVID-19 in a shelter but can’t keep people safe if they don’t evacuate from the flames.
“The last thing we want to have happen is people to remain in the path of a wildfire or hurricane because they think it’s safer to do that than risk a shelter,” said Brad Kieserman, vice president of disaster operations and logistics for the American Red Cross.
Kathy Gee, 68, has diabetes and other conditions that make her vulnerable to the virus, but that didn’t keep her from fleeing her farm in Molalla, Ore., for a shelter in Portland.
“If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I’m tough,” she said of COVID-19. “I’ve survived lots of things. I can survive that.”
It can be difficult, however, for people already reeling from a disaster to consistently follow rules on the virus.
At the Oregon State Fairgrounds in the capital of Salem, groups of maskless evacuees gathered in a parking lot and a barn Friday, talking about the unprecedented wildfires that have destroyed an area bigger than Rhode Island. Volunteers wearing disposable masks walked from group to group, taking down their information and asking what they need for the days ahead.
Signs plastered the doors of the exposition center, where cots were set up, with safety guidelines for both wildfires and the pandemic. Inside, nearly everyone wore masks after volunteers manning the door reminded them to do so.
The fires in California, Oregon and Washington state have killed dozens of people and sent thousands to emergency Red Cross shelters and hotels. As many as 50,000 more could need shelters before the blazes are under control, Kieserman said.
Normally, they’d be gathering in school gymnasiums and meeting halls, sleeping on cots and eating at buffet lines provided by the Red Cross, Salvation Army and other faith and community groups. But because COVID-19 is easily spread in close quarters, gathering places are potential hotbeds of transmission. That’s got disaster assistance groups taking a different approach.
The Red Cross screens evacuees, and those who are sick or have symptoms are sent to special isolation shelters and kept away from one another. When possible, displaced residents are sent to hotels instead of group shelters. Instead of buffet lines, box lunches are delivered.
“We’re not using a gym, we’re renting a hotel room at 120 dollars a night. And hotels charge for parking — it’s all those things you never think about during a disaster,” Kieserman said.
In Central California, where thousands of residents had to flee the Creek fire, more than 1,200 evacuees are staying at 30 hotels, said Tony Briggs with the Red Cross in Fresno. In group shelters, staffers are using plastic pipes strung with clear shower curtains to separate evacuees but allow them to see out from their own socially distanced areas.
Mass evacuations of this scale are incredibly difficult, said Karl Kim, executive director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, which trains first responders.
Generally, he said evacuees either leave early and quickly or aren’t as mobile and require some help getting out. The latter group may be people with health challenges, are elderly or have animals and may also have lots of disincentives to want to evacuate.
They might decide to wait it out longer and also are more likely to need shelters, said Kim, who’s also director of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Program at the University of Hawaii. Some of them could be at greater risk of COVID-19 complications.
In Oregon, group shelters are set up at churches, colleges and community buildings, while malls, golf courses and other businesses opened parking for evacuees who can stay in recreational vehicles.
It will likely be weeks before officials know if the evacuations contributed to the virus spreading, and even then, it may be difficult to tell as families scatter to new locations.
(Rebecca Boone & Sara Cline, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Sally may rapidly intensify to a Category 2 or stronger storm before landfall, with “an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm surge” expected, according to the National Hurricane Center. The surge is the storm-driven rise in water above normally dry land at the coast.
Double-digit rainfall totals are also expected.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The flames up and down the West Coast have destroyed neighborhoods, leaving nothing but charred rubble and burned-out cars, forced tens of thousands to flee and cast a shroud of smoke that has given Seattle, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., some of the worst air quality in the world.
Air quality across Oregon was listed as “hazardous” or “very unhealthy” by state environmental officials, and a dense smoke advisory from the National Weather Service remained in effect for much of the state until Sunday night. Similar warnings were in place in Washington state.
In Portland, the hazardous air quality made it potentially life-threatening for people with respiratory problems to venture outside. Even indoors, some residents were left coughing and fighting for breath.
In Michael Warner’s home in the backwoods of Marion County, the smoke was so bad he had to wear a mask inside. Over the weekend, the 50-year-old fled to the Oregon State Fairgrounds to take shelter. “My throat burns,” Warner said as he ambled around the evacuation site with his dog, his eyes swollen and watering.
The smoke filled the air with an acrid metallic smell like pennies and spread to nearby states. While making it difficult to breathe, it helped firefighters by blocking the sun and turning the weather cooler as they tried to get a handle on the blazes, which were slowing in some places.
But warnings of low moisture and strong winds that could fan the flames added urgency to the battle. The so-called red flag warnings stretched from hard-hit southern Oregon to Northern California and extended through tonight.
Lexi Soulios, her husband and son were afraid they would have to evacuate for a second time because of the weather. They left their small southern Oregon town of Talent last week when they saw a “big, huge flow of dark smoke coming up,” then went past roadblocks Friday to pick through the charred ruins of their home.
While they are staying farther south in Ashland, known for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she said by text message that the forecast may mean they could be on the move again.
“So this isn’t over yet but we just had the car checked so we feel prepared,” Lexi Soulios wrote.
Authorities last week reported as many as 50 people could be missing after a wildfire in the Ashland area. But the Jackson County sheriff’s office said late Saturday that four people had died in the blaze and that the number of missing was down to one.
At least 10 people have been killed in the past week throughout Oregon. Officials have said more people are missing from other fires, and the number of fatalities is likely to rise, though they have not said how high the toll could go as they search. In California, 24 people have died, and one in Washington state. Thousands of homes and other buildings have burned.
Barbara Rose Bettison, 25, left her farm among the trees and fields of Eagle Creek, outside Portland, when a sheriff’s deputy knocked on her door Tuesday. They drove away on a road that became an ominous dividing line, with blue skies on one side and the other filled with black and brown smoke.
She took shelter at an Elks Lodge near Portland, where evacuees wrapped themselves in blankets and set up tents out back.
“It’s terrifying. We’ve never had any form of natural disaster,” she said.
Bettison, a UPS driver, was able to get out with her chickens, rabbits and cats. She hasn’t been back, but neighbors said it is so smoky they can’t see their hands in front of their faces.
“I’m hoping there has not been too much damage because it would break my heart,” she said.
Farther south in the town of Talent, Dave Monroe came to his burned home, partially hoping he’d find his three cats.
“We thought we’d get out of this summer with no fires,” he said. “There is something going on, that’s for sure, man. Every summer we’re burning up.”
Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in the U.S. to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
The Democratic governors of all three states say the fires are a consequence of climate change, taking aim at President Donald Trump ahead of his visit to California today for a fire briefing.
“It is maddening right now that when we have this cosmic challenge to our communities, with the entire West Coast of the United States on fire, to have a president to deny that these are not just wildfires, these are climate fires,“ Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.“
At a rally in Nevada, Trump blamed inadequate forest management, which White House adviser Peter Navarro echoed on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying that for many years in California, “particularly because of budget cutbacks, there was no inclination to manage our forests.”
Firefighter Steve McAdoo has run from one blaze to another in Oregon for six days, seeing buildings burn and trees light up like candles.
“We lost track of time because you can’t see the sun and you’ve been up for so many days,” he said. “Forty-eight to 72 hours nonstop, you feel like you’re in a dream.”
As he and his team battled the blazes, McAdoo worried about his wife and daughter at home just miles away. They evacuated safely, but at times he could communicate with them only in one-word text messages: “busy.”
McAdoo and other firefighters got their first real break Sunday to take showers, shave and check their equipment. And though it’s a faint shadow of its usual self, he can finally see the sun.
“It’s nice today to at least see the dot in the sky,” he said.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s fire marshal, who resigned after being placed on leave amid a personnel investigation, says he was trying to help a colleague and “didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jim Walker told TV news station KOIN in Portland that state police leaders put him on leave after he tried to help a co-worker whose family was missing in a fire zone, saying his superiors decided he had overstepped his authority.
(Lindsay Whitehorse & Sara Cline, ASSOCIATED PRESS; THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“We are preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and the numbers of structures that have been lost,” Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said as firefighters struggled to contain blazes that have spread across millions of acres of the Pacific Northwest.
Fires in California, Oregon and Washington have torn through idyllic mountain towns, reduced neighborhoods to ash and spewed so much smoke that pilots were unable to pursue aerial attacks that can be critical in preventing such mass wildfires from encroaching on communities. Portland, shrouded in smoke, on Friday had the worst air quality of the world’s major cities, according to IQAir.
Combined, the states have seen nearly 5 million acres consumed by fire — a land mass approaching the size of New Jersey — in a record-setting year that scientists think portends the types of disasters that will become more common on a warming planet.
The collective scale of the infernos that have scarred California over the last month is staggering: at least 20 fatalities and more than 3.1 million acres burned — the most recorded in a single year.
The loss has been most profound from the North Complex fire near Oroville in Butte County, which is now blamed for 10 deaths, placing it among the deadliest wildfires in state history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
Among those killed was 16-year-old Josiah Williams, of Berry Creek, who apparently died while trying to flee the flames in a vehicle.
An additional 16 people have been reported missing in the area of the fire, which has burned more than 252,000 acres and was 23 percent contained as of Friday.
Steve Kaufmann, a spokesman for the fire’s response team, said Thursday that 2,000 structures have been destroyed or damaged, though that number may increase after crews further assess the area.
A second death was confirmed Thursday near the community of Happy Camp in the burn area of the Slater fire, which has chewed through more than 136,000 acres in Siskiyou and Del Norte counties and across the border into Oregon. That blaze remains 0 percent contained.
“In total, there have been 20 fatalities on this series of fires that have been burning since August 15,” said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant, calling the toll “a very, very sad and tragic loss for all Californians.”
Officials also saw further growth in the monstrous August Complex fire, already the largest in state history. That blaze has now scorched more than 491,000 acres in a remote area in and around Tehama County.
Abutting it to the north is the Elkhorn fire, burning in the Mendocino, Shasta-Trinity and Six Rivers national forests. It has charred 255,309 acres.
The flames also left a humanitarian disaster in their wake in Oregon, including another death, east of Eugene, that was confirmed Friday. Hundreds, if not thousands, of homes have been lost and as many as 500,000 people are in evacuation alert zones, poised to flee with a change in the winds.
Tens of thousands of people have sought refuge in shelters, with friends and in parking lots up and down Interstate 5 — with emergency responders struggling to create safe shelter for all of them in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the outskirts of Portland, a site set up to shelter evacuees had to be evacuated itself as the fire line continued expanding toward suburban towns south of the city.
State fire officials said winds had pressed a 36-mile-wide wildfire front toward those outlying Portland suburbs Thursday, with fire jumping over the community of Estacada and threatening others around the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
But Friday brought measures of relief with winds calming or shifting, weather cooling and potential rain forecast for the days to come. That appeared to ease the threat that fires could move through the Portland suburbs or into the city.
“We were very fortunate that the winds did not sustain another day like we had experienced” in the previous four days, said Doug Grafe, the chief of fire protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry.
As residents flee fire-ravaged communities, officials have struggled to manage a series of migrations reminiscent of a war zone, with distraught families showing up with little in hand beyond an overwhelming fear that their homes have been lost for good. Emergency responders have only begun to get a sense of how many victims they have and the grueling effort to rebuild that will lie ahead.
“The long-term recovery is going to last years,” said Phelps, the emergency management director.
Parking lots throughout Oregon have been transformed into improvised campgrounds. A dozen campers and motor homes posted up outside a supermarket in Milwaukie, down the hill from the fires ravaging much of Clackamas County. Adriana Amaro said 25 members of her family had decided to leave before they were ordered out, concerned about how a frantic flight in the smoke would affect the children. They have been sleeping on air mattresses inside the back of a relative’s cargo truck and going to the bathroom at a gas station on the corner.
Hotel and motel rooms have become so scarce that officials who had been running a shelter at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem said they had to allow people to sleep on spaced-out cots indoors — a step they had been avoiding because of coronavirus fears.
“At this point it’s all we can do,” said Bethany Jones, a volunteer.
The scope of this year’s fire season has been both historic and horrifying. Six of the California’s 20 largest wildfires have started in the past month or so, according to Cal Fire.
Within the last week, front-line firefighters have had to contend with a record-breaking heat wave and howling winds — a noxious combination that fueled explosive fire growth.
Many officials and experts believe such extreme weather conditions are the result of climate change.
Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that poor forest management over decades had contributed to the severity of California’s wildfires in recent years. But he said that serious droughts and record-breaking heat waves were undeniable evidence that many of the most dire predictions about climate change had already arrived.
“If you do not believe in science, I hope you believe in observed evidence,” Newsom said Friday as he surveyed damage in the Oroville area.
“You walk around this community, you walk around this park around Lake Oroville, you see the reality — a reality that has set in in this state in very indelible ways. And that is, we’re in the midst of a climate emergency. We’re in the midst of a climate crisis. We are experiencing weather conditions the likes of which we’ve never experienced in our lifetime. We’re experiencing what so many people predicted decades and decades ago, but all of that, now, is reality.”
The repercussions of that reality, Newsom said, are that “the hots are getting a lot hotter, the dries are getting a lot drier, and the wets are getting a lot wetter.” In California, he added, “we have to own that reality, and we have to own a response to that reality.”
“This is a climate damn emergency,” he said. “This is real, and it’s happening.”
Republican state Sen. Jim Nielsen and Assemblyman James Gallagher countered that the cause of recent devastating wildfires and electricity blackouts in the state “is decades of bad policy enacted by Democrats, not climate change.”
“The excuse of climate change cannot be used to deflect from the fundamental failure to address the fuels build-up in our forests that are the cause of these devastating fires,” they said in a statement. “These same misguided policy decisions have led to rolling blackouts and an energy grid that is falling apart.”
In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee says the recent fires devastating the West shouldn’t be called wildfires, but “climate fires.”
At a news conference Friday, the Democrat noted that the roughly 980 square miles burned in Washington in just the last five days amounts to the state’s second-worst fire season on record, after 2015.
“This is not an act of God,” Inslee said. “This has happened because we have changed the climate of the state of Washington in dramatic ways.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES; LOS ANGELES TIMES; NEW YORK TIMES; ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Eerie orange and red skies across California, Oregon and Washington had mainly turned gray thanks to stronger winds coming in from the Pacific Ocean that helped to disperse thick smoke that acted as a filter scattering blue light and only allowed yellow, orange and red light to reach the ground.
“The wind has been blowing the smoke up more offshore so the sun is not being blocked as much as it was yesterday,” said Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Bay Area office.
But as the wind scattered the smoke and a layer of air blocking it from reaching the ground started dissipating Thursday, smoke particles began mixing with ground-level air, worsening air quality in much of California and parts of Oregon where wildfires are raging.
Satellite photos Thursday showed a towering band of smoke hovering along the Pacific coast.
In Los Angeles, at least six COVID-19 testing sites closed due to smoky air brought on by two massive wildfires burning in Angeles National Forest and the San Bernardino Mountains.
A respite from the bad air and a chance to see blue skies could come by the middle of next week when the forecast shows stronger winds and light rain, Anderson said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“I don’t know that we have any fires where we can say we have got enough resources to do what we need to do,” Andrew Phelps, the director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said.
Firefighters in California continue to battle the blazes of a remarkable wildfire season, including the August Complex fire burning in the Mendocino National Forest that is now the largest fire in the state’s recorded history.
Fires also continued to rage in southern Oregon, where hundreds of homes have been razed, as well as east of Salem, where two bodies have been found, and along the state’s coast. More than 900,000 acres have burned, nearly double a typical season. Hundreds of thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate, including from parts of the Portland suburbs, where fires were still on the move.
In Washington, hundreds of homes and other structures were at risk of wildfires that continued to burn, even as a deadly stretch of dry winds from the east began to ease. Hilary Franz, the state’s commissioner of public lands, said the state was searching for help from elsewhere in the country.
“California, Oregon, Washington, we are all in the same soup of cataclysmic fire,” said Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee.
The dead so far include 10 people who died in a fast-moving fire in Butte County; a 1-year-old boy who was killed in the Cold Springs fire in northern Washington; two people who were discovered in a vehicle east of Salem, Ore.; and two people who died in the Almeda fire in southern Oregon.
Authorities fear more bodies may be found in Butte County as crews manage to make their way into devastated areas. A team of anthropologists from Chico State University were helping in the search, sheriff's Capt. Derek Bell said. At least 16 people are reported missing in the area.
In Oregon, three law enforcement agencies, including the Ashland Police Department and the State Police, said they had opened an arson investigation for the Almeda fire, which destroyed roughly 600 homes in the towns of Talent and Phoenix and was still raging out of control Thursday.
To the south and east of Portland, the fire threat continued to creep into the city’s suburbs as smoke blanketed the region. In the city of Molalla, about 30 miles south of Portland, cars were packing the highways out of town in the hours after cellphone alerts blared with evacuation orders.
People were hauling boats, campers, antique cars and horse trailers. The air was choked with a yellow haze that formed thick clouds over farm fields.
Firefighters, some with black smudges across their faces, streamed into the fire station in downtown Molalla, then hopped into their cars and themselves began to evacuate. “We’re falling back,” one said as he headed out of town.
Elsewhere in the state, crews were still fighting fires and sorting through the devastation from flames that had already passed. In Phoenix, Oregon, aerial images showed whole neighborhoods razed. In areas east of Salem, the state capital, officials warned that more bodies could be discovered as they sifted through the devastation.
Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said it could be days or weeks before officials had a full understanding of the impacts from the fires.
In addition to the request for fire engines, Phelps said the state would also be seeking help from other states for search-and-rescue crews, emergency operations support personnel and crews equipped to detect human remains. Brown said her office put in a request to the Defense Department for a battalion of active-duty military trained in firefighting.
So many state aid requests have gone to the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group, which helps direct wildfire resources, that the group has been left to decide which ones get priority. Dan Smith, a member of the group who is also fire director for the National Association of State Foresters, said that as of Thursday morning there were over 300 requests for support that could not be fulfilled.
Smith said crews around the country had about 26,000 personnel working on large fires, along with others who were working on smaller fires or positioned to respond quickly to new fires.
“We’re pretty much at full commitment nationally,” Smith said.
He said fire crews have been through tremendous strain. Last month, when thousands of dry lightning strikes sparked some of the first wildfires in Northern California, firefighters from Oregon and Washington rushed to help. But as fires began to spread in their own states, they have pulled back and left California to turn to other states, and even other countries.
“We are over what we have ever experienced in any other season and it’s only the beginning of September,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for California’s Office of Emergency Services.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has put out personal requests for aid across the country. He has spoken with the Canadian prime minister about more help, and Israel recently sent 10 firefighters to California. As temperatures have dropped in Utah and Colorado, those states have sent firefighters to California, essentially replacing the ones from Oregon and Washington. Fire engines from Idaho, New Mexico and Texas are in California, with more on the way.
President Donald Trump spoke with Newsom on Thursday “to express his condolences for the loss of life and reiterate the administration's full support to help those on the front lines of the fires,” according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.
The state has more than 14,000 firefighters deployed to more than two dozen wildfires, with some of them moving from one fire to another. Santa Barbara County, for instance, had several fire crews deployed to Northern California, then to Los Angeles County, and then back north again.
“They were gone for three weeks, to fire after fire after fire,” said Mike Eliason, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. “They’ve pretty much made a loop.”
With the scale of the recent wildfire seasons, he said, “it’s becoming sad that every year we’re having this conversation. We say this is the biggest year, and then the next year say this is the biggest year. It’s becoming numbing how frequently we have to say this.”
(Jack Healy, Mike Baker & Tim Arango, NEW YORK TIMES; ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As thick smoke choked the air Wednesday and cast an eerie orange hue across much of the region, thousands of people in communities near Oroville were ordered to evacuate. The fire even threatened the town of Paradise that was devastated just two years ago by the deadliest blaze in state history, causing a panic that led to a traffic jam as residents tried to escape.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the fire had conservatively burned about 400 square miles [256,000 acres] in 24 hours.
“The unbelievable rates of spread now being observed on these fires — it is historically unprecedented,” Swain tweeted.
The North Complex fire was one of more than two dozen in the state, including three of five largest ever as wildfires burned across parts of the West amid gusty, dry conditions. Forecasters said some weather relief was in sight that could help firefighters overwhelmed by the blazes.
In Washington, more acres burned in a single day than firefighters usually see all year. Fires also forced people to flee homes in Oregon and Idaho. A blast of polar air helped slow wildfires in Colorado and Montana.
Since the middle of August, fires in California have killed eight people, destroyed more than 3,600 structures, burned old growth redwoods, charred chaparral and forced evacuations in communities near the coast, in wine country and along the Sierra Nevada.
The U.S. Forest Service, which had taken the unprecedented measure of closing eight national forests in Southern California earlier in the week, ordered all 18 of its forests in the state closed Wednesday for public safety.
The fire raging outside Oroville, 125 miles northeast of San Francisco, was burning in the Plumas National Forest after a series of wildfires sparked Aug. 17 by lightning had merged.
The fire jumped the middle fork of the Feather River on Tuesday and, driven by 45-mph winds, leapt into a canopy of pines and burned all the way to Lake Oroville — about 25 miles — said Jake Cagle, one of the fire chiefs involved.
The fire had been 62 square miles [40,000 acres] and 50 percent contained before it grew more than sixfold.
Firefighters were focused on saving lives and homes instead of trying to halt the fire's advance, Cagle said.
The fire tore into several hamlets along the river and near Lake Oroville, leveling countless homes and other buildings, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
A massive cloud of smoke covered much of California, darkening morning skies and later casting a sunset-like glow over the northern part of the state.
In Paradise, where 85 people lost their lives and nearly 19,000 buildings were destroyed, the sky turned to cherry red and ash carried on strong winds rained down in a scene reminiscent from the fateful morning of Nov. 8, 2018, former Mayor Steve “Woody” Culleton said.
“It was extremely frightening and ugly,” Culleton said. “Everybody has PTSD and whatnot, so it triggered everybody and caused terror and panic.”
A power shutoff to prevent electric lines from sparking wildfires — the cause of the Paradise fire — prevented people from getting up-to-date information by Internet, TV or their home phones, Culleton said. Many of the residents decided to leave and created a traffic jam leading out of town.
(Terence Chea & Brian Melley, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Fourteen firefighters deployed emergency shelters as flames overtook them and destroyed the Nacimiento Station in the Los Padres National Forest on the state’s central coast, the U.S. Forest Service said. They suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, and three were flown to a hospital in Fresno, where one was in critical condition.
The injuries came as wind-driven flames of more than two dozen major fires chewed through bone-dry California and forced new evacuations after a scorching Labor Day weekend that saw a dramatic airlift of more than 200 people.
Pilots wearing night-vision goggles to find a place to land before dawn pulled another 164 people from the Sierra National Forest and were working to rescue 17 others Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
“It’s where training meets the moment, but it always takes the courage, the conviction and the grit of real people doing real work,” said Newsom, who called the fires historic.
California has already set a record with nearly 2.3 million acres burned this year, and the worst part of the wildfire season is just beginning.
The previous acreage record was set just two years ago and included the deadliest wildfire in state history, which was started by power lines and swept through the community of Paradise, killing 85 people.
That 2018 blaze forced the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, to seek bankruptcy protection and guard against new disasters by cutting power preemptively when fire conditions are exceptionally dangerous.
The utility shut off power to 172,000 customers over the weekend and more outages were expected in Northern California as high and dry winds were expected today.
More than 14,000 firefighters were battling fires around the state. Two of the three largest blazes in state history are burning in the San Francisco Bay Area, though they are largely contained after burning three weeks.
In Southern California, fires burned in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, and the forecast called for the arrival of the region’s notorious Santa Ana winds. The U.S. Forest Service on Monday decided to close all eight national forests in the southern half of the state and shutter campgrounds statewide.
In the Sierra National Forest east of Fresno, dozens of campers and hikers were stranded at the Vermilion Valley Resort after the only road in — a narrow route snaking along a steep cliff — was closed Sunday because of the Creek Fire.
Well before dawn Tuesday, the sound of helicopter blades chopping through the air awoke Katelyn Mueller, bringing relief after two anxious nights camping in the smoke.
“It was probably the one time you’re excited to hear a helicopter,” Mueller said. “You could almost feel a sigh of relief seeing it come in.”
She and others had to abandon their vehicles and were flown to Fresno, where a friend picked her and three friends up for the drive back to San Diego.
The fire had roared through the forest exceptionally quickly, advancing 15 miles in a single day over the holiday weekend. It has burned 212 square miles since starting Friday from an unknown origin. Forty-five homes and 20 other structures were confirmed destroyed so far.
Cressman’s General Store, a gas station and popular stop for more than a century near Shaver Lake, was a total loss. Flames threatened the foothill community of Auberry between the lake and Fresno.
The use of military helicopters to rescue a large number of civilians for a second day — after 214 people were lifted to safety after flames trapped them in a wooded camping area near Mammoth Pool Reservoir on Saturday — is rare, if not unprecedented.
Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College who has written extensively about wildfires, said he’s only seen rescues of this size during floods, when people need to be plucked from narrow canyons.
“This is emblematic of how fast that fire was moving, plus the physical geography of that environment with one road in and one road out. It’s scary enough to drive there when nothing is burning,” Miller said. “Unless you wanted an absolute human disaster, you had to move fast.”
Steve Lohr of the U.S. Forest Service defended the decision not to close the national forests sooner.
“We can second-guess ourselves, but I’ll say that we didn’t take the situation lightly,” Lohr said. “When you have a fire run 15 miles in one day, in one afternoon, there’s no model that can predict that. And so we can look at those things and learn from them, but the fires are behaving in such a way that we’ve not seen.”
Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in America to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, especially because climate change has made California much drier. A drier California means plants are more flammable.
“The frequency of extreme wild fire weather has doubled in California over the past four decades, with the main driver being the effect of rising temperature on dry fuels, meaning that the fuel loads are now frequently at record or near-record levels when ignition occurs and when strong winds blow,” Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said in an email.
Arson is suspected as the cause of the blaze that injured the firefighters above the scenic Big Sur coastal region. The fire had been burning for weeks, but doubled in size overnight.
Police arrested a Fresno man near the fire’s starting point Aug. 19 on charges that included arson of forestland and illegal marijuana cultivation. He’s being held on $2 million bail.
California was not alone: Hurricane-force winds and high temperatures kicked up wildfires across parts of the Pacific Northwest over the holiday weekend, burning hundreds of thousands of acres and mostly destroying the small town of Malden in eastern Washington.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday more than 330,000 acres burned in Washington in a 24-hour period — more than burns in most entire fire seasons.
“It’s an unprecedented and heartbreaking event,” Inslee said at a news conference, blaming heat, high winds and low humidity for the explosive growth of fires. “The list of fires is long.”
Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said thousands of people were impacted by the fires, but there appeared to be no deaths or injuries.
“As of this morning, we have 9 large fires,” Franz tweeted. “We had 58 new wildfire starts in the last 24 hours.”
Franz said the high winds grounded many firefighting airplanes and helicopters on Monday, making it impossible to knock down fires when they first ignited.
In Oregon, thousands of people were without power as crews battled large fires in Clackamas County Tuesday. Some people were told to evacuate. More than 40,000 people south of Portland were without power.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown approved an emergency conflagration declaration that freed up state resources for several wildfires that exceed the capabilities of local crews. At a news conference, she said initial reports show some blazes may have been caused by downed power lines.
“This is proving to be an unprecedented and significant fire event for our state, and frankly for the entire West Coast,” Brown said.
The Lions Head fire in north-central Oregon and the Santiam Canyon fire east of Salem had burned 200,000 acres so far, Brown said.
Fire officials said their priority is evacuating people and protecting lives. As winds are expected to shift and slow Thursday, they hope to take a more “offensive approach” and assess damage.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez & Brian Melley, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire, which had rampaged through rugged backcountry terrain since Saturday, slowed Tuesday. Cal Fire officials said the fire grew by only 220 acres Tuesday — from 17,345 at the start of the day to 17,565 by nightfall.
The fire was 11 percent contained, up from 3 percent containment at the start of the day.
“We took advantage of the weather,” said Cal Fire Capt. Thomas Shoots. “The temperatures came down, relative humidity came up. That was a huge break for us. We doubled down to try to get that containment line down.”
But high winds forecast for today threaten to erase that progress. At midday Tuesday, the county’s top fire officials gave a stark warning as the fight against the wildfire entered its fourth day.
“I want to be very clear in my message,” said Cal Fire San Diego Chief Tony Mecham at a news conference at Viejas Casino and Resort. “We have a sleeping giant in the backcountry.”
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag fire weather warning for most of San Diego County through 8 p.m. today.
Santa Ana winds blowing up to 50 mph were expected to hit around 8 p.m. — pushing the fire from east to the west — and Mecham and other officials warned residents to be prepared.
A total of 687 firefighters have been assigned to the Valley fire, Shoots said. Twenty residences are known to have been destroyed, as well as three commercial buildings, he said. Seventeen other structures were also damaged. There are an estimated 2,480 structures that remain threatened by the fire.
“While we have focused tremendous effort on the west side of the fire, tonight the winds are going to blow and this fire has the potential to burn,” Mecham said.
On Tuesday firefighting crews set back fires to try to deprive the advancing fire of fuel. Navy helicopters are assisting helicopters and fixed-wing planes already making water and fire retardant drops.
The double-whammy of fire and high winds reverberated far from the fire lines. SDG&E warned residents of the backcountry they could lose power if the utility decides to shut off circuits to lessen the chance of downed power lines sparking more blazes. Two school districts, already facing the challenge of educating students during the coronavirus pandemic, said they would close, one of them for the rest of the week.
Officials with the Jamul-Dulzura Union School District announced Tuesday that all schools in the district will remain closed throughout the week because of the fire and possible power outages. District officials had initially closed school only for Tuesday. The district has been using distance learning formats this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Late Tuesday the San Diego County Office of Education announced there will be no live online instruction for students in the Mountain Empire Unified School District on Wednesday. Because of concerns over air quality the Mountain Empire Food Services department will not be handing out meals.
Since the fire began Saturday afternoon, firefighters have been fighting the fire in steep terrain under blistering hot conditions, but that changed slightly. First light Tuesday revealed an eerie scene: Above the charred backcountry landscape, heavy mist and overcast blanketed the sky, mingling with the smoke still rising from the fire.
The Valley fire was one of more than two dozen burning across the fire-ravaged state. At an afternoon news conference Gov. Gavin Newsom said there have been 7,606 fires in the state so far this year, burning some 2.3 million acres.
Compare that to 2019, when 4,927 fires burned a total of 118,000 acres, he said.
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob reminded people that devastating wildfires had hit the region before, and said she hoped we wouldn’t see anything as bad as fires in 1970, 2003 and 2007.
“But it’s clear that the potential is out there for a very dangerous situation,” she said.
She urged people who may be in the path of the fire to begin making evacuation plans before the threat hits, and said residents should download the SDEmergency app on their phone and sign up for reverse 911 notifications at https://www.readysandiego.org/.
“You should have your prep kit and everything ready to leave,” Jacob said. “The Santa Ana winds move a fire very, very fast as we have seen here in San Diego and they are expected to hit the hardest in the middle of the night.”
Cleveland National Forest Supervisor Scott Tengenberg said 25 major fires in California were stretching resources thin, with almost 14,000 firefighters engaged just in California. The fire threat has closed all national forests from Cleveland to Stanislaus, north of Yosemite National Park, he said.
Mecham noted that eight people have lost their lives in wildfires in other parts of California.
“It is not worth your life, it is not worth the serious injuries that can come. When the Sheriff’s Department asks you to leave, leave,” Mecham said.
Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said people could take large animals to Iron Oak Canyon Ranch, 12310 Campo Road in Spring Valley for shelter. Small animals can be taken to the county animal shelter at 5821 Sweetwater Road in Bonita.
On Tuesday afternoon the temporary evacuation point at Joan MacQueen Middle School in Alpine closed. A new evacuation point was set up at El Capitan High School at 10410 Ashwood Street in Lakeside. The evacuation point at Steele Canyon High School at 12440 Campo Road in Jamul remained open.
Since the fire began Saturday, around 1,420 residents have been ordered to evacuate their homes in fire areas.
Sheriff Bill Gore said deputies and California Highway Patrol officers won’t let residents back into evacuation areas after they’ve left — but those same officers will work to protect people’s properties in their absence.
San Diego Gas & Electric officials warned that some backcountry residents may have their power turned off because of elevated fire weather conditions and forecasted winds. The shutoffs are made to reduce the wildfire risk.
“Moderate strength Santa Ana winds are expected to arrive today, peak Wednesday in strength, and become weak to moderate through Thursday,” the utility said in a statement.
To prepare, SDG&E activated an emergency operations center and has staged equipment in case repairs are needed.
SDG&E said it sent notifications of public safety power shutoffs to 16,700 customers on Monday via phone, text messages and email. It warned customers to be prepared to be without power through Thursday.
The fire was first reported Saturday afternoon off Spirit Trail and Japatul Road in the Japatul Valley area southeast of Alpine and quickly spread.
The fire grew by nearly 70 percent Monday. Fire officials haven’t reported an increase in burned acreage since Monday night.
About 3 p.m. Monday, Cal Fire announced evacuation orders for the Corte Madera area, south of Pine Valley. Earlier, authorities had issued an evacuation order for Corral Canyon and Bobcat Meadows area, northwest of Lake Morena, and near Barrett Lake, a reservoir east of Lyons Valley Road.
Evacuation warnings have been issued for Lake Morena, Dulzura, Dog Patch, Potrero, Campo, Honey Springs, Barrett Junction, Deerhorn Valley, Corte Madera, Pine Valley and the area from Lyons/Japatul Road to Interstate 8.
(Karen Kucher, Gary Wrath & Greg Moran, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The third day of the fire — it started out at just over 10,250 acres Monday morning — provided a break in the weather, with the scorching from the weekend’s excessive heat dropping a few degrees, thanks to a bit of an onshore flow. Still, the mercury reached 94 in Alpine, several degrees higher than normal.
The forecast this week is unforgiving for a wildfire battle. Santa Ana conditions will hit the region today, kicking up winds after sunset and sweeping in with overnight gusts higher than 40 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Inland areas will see humidity plunge into the teens and single digits.
Nearly 3,400 customers spent Monday in the sweltering heat, without power because of the fire’s impact on San Diego Gas & Electric equipment and power lines in the area, the utility said.
The fire grew nearly 70 percent Monday, and crews had the fire 3 percent contained as of the evening. And while firefighters got a welcome assist from six military helicopters added to the response, the flames were relentless. There were additional evacuations Monday, along with the announcement of school closures and a threat to a reservoir.
About 3 p.m., Cal Fire announced evacuation orders in effect for the Corte Madera area, south of Pine Valley. Hours earlier, authorities had issued an evacuation order for the Corral Canyon and Bobcat Meadows area, northwest of Lake Morena.
Evacuation orders were issued a day earlier for people who live near Barrett Lake, a reservoir east of Lyons Valley Road. Officials said evacuation warnings had been issued for Lake Marina, Dulzura, Dog Patch, Potrero, Campo, Honey Springs, Barrett Junction, Deerhorn Valley, Corte Madera, Pine Valley and the area from Lyons/Japatul Road to Interstate 8.
The evacuation centers are at Steele Canyon High School, at 12440 Campo Road in Jamul, and Joan MacQueen Middle School, at 2001 Tavern Road in Alpine.
Andrea Alfonsi Fuller, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the McQueen High evacuation shelter had a steady stream of people early Monday, but it was difficult to get a true count because some registered and others simply stopped in to check out the services.
Jamul-Dulzura Union School District officials announced school would be closed today. The district was already handling instruction through distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic. More information can be found on the district’s Twitter account, @JamulDulzuraUSD.
Students in Mountain Empire, which is also doing distance learning, will shift to what is known asynchronous classes today, which simply means the teachers will not be teaching class live.
Flames also brought an immediate threat to Loveland Reservoir and the surrounding watershed, according to an update issued around noon by the U.S. Forest Service. According to Cal Fire, the site is a storage spot for water.
The fire, roughly 30 miles east of downtown San Diego, started Saturday afternoon and quickly exploded, fueled by old growth and brittle vegetation. Crews attacking it also grappled with triple-digit temperatures. At more than 10,000 acres, the fire is roughly 100 times the size of SDCCU Stadium and its surrounding parking lot in Mission Valley.
Authorities had hoped that cooler, lighter winds Monday would help slow the spread of the fire, but noted it still had lots of fuel to chew through as it moved through the Lawson Valley and Carveacre areas.
Santa Ana winds are expected to hit today and continue into Wednesday. Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Kendal Bortisser said that’s a big concern, and officials are preparing for the weather — and the winds — to shift.
The fire has destroyed 11 homes and 25 outbuildings in Japatul Valley southeast of Alpine. Bortisser said damage assessment teams are sweeping through the burn area to get a better grasp on specifically what those structures were.
Resident Eileen Menzies said twisted, melted metal is all that is left of her mobile home at the end of Lawson Valley Road near Jamul.
Menzies, 78, evacuated Saturday after she saw the fire had come over the hill near the property where she’s lived for the past 32 years.
“It is what it is,” she said. “I think reality hasn’t set in until I get back and start cleaning the property up.”
The fire also caused the Sunrise Powerlink — an electrical transmission line — to trip, and as of Monday it remained out of service. SDG&E spokeswoman Helen Gao said the fire and smoke have prevented crews from inspecting the lines. Getting Sunrise Powerlink back into service as safely and quickly as possible “is a very high priority” for the utility, Gao said.
Sunrise Powerlink is not the reason for the power outages, according to the utility. The outages are happening in the distribution system, and crews will get in and work on the equipment as soon as Cal Fire gives the OK.
In the meantime, 3,400 customers remain in the dark and heat.
“We’ve had no A/C since Friday, and everybody is crammed in our house sweating,” Jamul Highlands resident Lori Gladfelter said. “We slept out on the balcony trying to stay cool.”
Gladfelter and her husband own a home at the end of Lawson Valley Road and lease it to tenants. Those tenants fled the fire late Saturday and are staying with the Gladfelters.
She and her adult son Jacob got a peek at their Lawson Valley property Sunday afternoon. The fire spared the house. And that, they believe, is because they had created defensible space around the structure.
“We have 40 acres, and all 40 acres burned completely,” Jacob Gladfelter said. “It literally burned around our house.”
Lori Gladfelter said one of their neighbors was trying to escape the flames, but was trapped when he found his gate already burning.
“I guess he was looking at the fire and ran into a ditch,” she said. “He left his car and it burned. He ended up walking out until somebody picked him up.”
The burn area remained smoky and hazy Monday morning, with blackened hillsides stretching along rural roads including Montiel Truck Trail Road, where resident Mike Walton lives.
He was home Saturday when the fire raced through. “It looked promising until sunset,” he said. Then came “a wall of fire.”
“Almost as far as I could see,” Walton said. “When it got to the point where I could hear it roaring and we did not have a strike team here yet, I said, ‘I’m out.’ ”
Walton’s home was spared. The retired probation officer credits the defensible space around it.
“That’s what worked,” he said. “That’s the ticket right there.”
Cal Fire officials noted Monday that much of California is under a “red flag warning” — indicating high fire danger — due to gusty winds and low humidity. San Diego is under a “fire weather watch” for weather changes expected today into Wednesday.
Santa Ana winds and heat will arrive around sunset today, and they will bring dry, warm air later in the evening, said meteorologist Samantha Connelly with the San Diego office of the National Weather Service.
Gusts are expected to kick up overnight. A small reprieve is expected with onshore flow Wednesday in the day, but conditions will shift back to winds out of the east by the evening, she said.
The extreme heat, winds and dry conditions led the U.S Forest Service to temporarily close national forests in Southern California, including Cleveland National Forest, where the Valley fire is burning. The agency also added prohibitions to sites across the state, including closing campgrounds and barring the use of any sort of ignition source, such as a campfire or gas stove.
Much of California is a tinderbox, with two dozen large wildfires and lightning complexes burning across the state, and some 14,100 firefighters are on the front lines.
According to Cal Fire, wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres this year so far, an massive increase from the same date last year, when just shy of 30,000 acres had burned.
One bit of good news for the Valley fire crews Monday was a big boost brought to the fight: six military helicopters.
Cal Fire activated a standing agreement with the Navy 3rd Fleet and the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force to use military aircraft on the fire, Bortisser said.
On Monday, the firefighting crews included 424 firefighters, 56 engines, six bulldozers, eight water tankers, and the six helicopters.
(Teri Figueroa, Kirk Kenney & Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Closing those recreation areas — including the Angeles, San Bernardino, Los Padres, Cleveland, Stanislaus, Sierra, Sequoia and Inyo national forests — will help reduce the potential for human-caused fires, officials said.
“Existing fires are displaying extreme fire behavior, new fire starts are likely, weather conditions are worsening, and we simply do not have enough resources to fully fight and contain every fire,” said Randy Moore, regional forester for the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region.
The unprecedented closure of eight national forests, including all in Southern California, shuts all trails, campgrounds, roads and other developed sites in the forests.
Moore said the decision to close the national forests would be re-evaluated daily.
After a typically dry summer, California is parched heading into fall and what normally is the most dangerous time for wildfires. Two of the three largest fires in state history are burning in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 14,000 firefighters are battling those fires and dozens of others around California.
A three-day heat wave brought triple-digit temperatures to much of the state during Labor Day weekend. But right behind it was a weather system with dry winds that could fan fires. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, was preparing to cut power to 158,000 customers in 21 counties in the northern half of the state to reduce the possibility that its lines and other equipment could spark new fires.
Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said it’s “unnerving” to have reached a record for acreage burned when September and October usually are the worst for fires because vegetation has dried out and high winds are more common. The previous high was 1.96 million acres burned in 2018. Cal Fire began tracking the numbers in 1987.
While the two mammoth Bay Area fires were largely contained after burning for three weeks, firefighters struggled to corral several other major blazes ahead of the expected winds. Evacuation orders were expanded to more mountain communities Monday as the largest blaze, the Creek fire, churned through the Sierra National Forest in Central California.
It was one of many recent major fires that has displayed terrifyingly swift movement. The fire moved 15 miles in a single day and burned 56 square miles [36,000 acres).
Debra Rios wasn’t home when the order came to evacuate her hometown of Auberry, just northeast of Fresno. Sheriff’s deputies went to her ranch property to pick up her 92-year-old mother, Shirley MacLean. They reunited at an evacuation center.
“I hope like heck the fire doesn’t reach my little ranch,” Rios said. “It’s not looking good right now. It’s an awfully big fire.”
Mountain roads saw a steady stream of cars and trucks leaving the community of about 2,300 on Monday afternoon.
Firefighters working in steep terrain saved the tiny town of Shaver Lake from flames that roared down hillsides toward a marina. About 30 houses were destroyed in the remote hamlet of Big Creek, resident Toby Wait said.
“About half the private homes in town burned down,” he said. “Words cannot even begin to describe the devastation of this community.”
A school, church, library, historic general store and a major hydroelectric plant were spared in the community of about 200 residents, Wait told the Fresno Bee.
Sheriff’s deputies went door to door to make sure residents were complying with orders to leave. Officials hoped to keep the fire from pushing west toward Yosemite National Park.
The Creek fire had charred more than 114 square miles [73,000 acres] of timber after breaking out Friday. The nearly 1,000 firefighters on the scene had yet to get any containment. The cause had not been determined.
On Saturday, National Guard rescuers in two military helicopters airlifted 214 people to safety after flames trapped them in a wooded camping area near Mammoth Pool Reservoir. Two people were seriously injured and were among 12 hospitalized.
On Monday night, a military helicopter landed near Lake Edison to rescue people trapped by the Creek fire, the Fresno Fire Department said on Twitter.
Chief Warrant Officer Joseph Rosamond, the pilot of a Chinook helicopter, said visibility was poor and winds increasingly strong during the three flights he made into the fire zone. His crew relied on night-vision goggles to search for a landing spot near a boat launch where flames came within 50 feet of the aircraft.
The injured, along with women and children, took priority on the first airlift, which filled both helicopters to capacity, he said.
“We started getting information about how many people were out there, how many people to expect, and that number kept growing. So we knew that it was a dire situation,” Rosamond said.
In Southern California, crews scrambled to douse several wildfires that roared to life in searing temperatures, including one that closed mountain roads in Angeles National Forest and forced the evacuation of the historic Mount Wilson Observatory.
Cal Fire said a blaze in San Bernardino County called the El Dorado fire started Saturday morning and was caused by a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used by a couple to reveal their baby’s gender.
California has seen 900 wildfires since Aug. 15, many of them started by an intense series of thousands of lightning strikes in mid-August. There have been eight fire deaths and more than 3,300 structures destroyed.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez & Christopher Weber, ASSOCIATED PRESS; LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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A fast-moving brush fire had choked off the only road out of a popular recreation area in the Sierra National Forest. Hundreds of campers were trapped.
The Creek fire, which ignited Friday evening about six miles to the west, had jumped the San Joaquin River and made a run toward the Mammoth Pool reservoir, where people were enjoying the Labor Day weekend.
“As fire crews and law enforcement were trying to get everybody out, the fire spotted and then basically grew,” said Alex Olow of the U.S. Fire Service. “Exiting out the road wasn’t safe, so people were asked to shelter in place.”
Authorities quickly determined the only way to evacuate them was with a massive airlift done at night as the fire burned unchecked.
That marked the start of a massive multi-agency rescue that some officials described as unprecedented in size and scope.
“Our focus was getting the helicopters in and getting as many people out as quickly as possible to save lives,” said Col. Jesse Miller, deputy commander for joint task force domestic support with the California National Guard.
The Guard worked to assemble its teams and line up resources. But by the time it was in a position to send in aircraft, the fire had essentially reached the Mammoth Pool area, said Col. Dave Hall, commander of the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, which flew the mission.
“The smoke column’s naturally high, very difficult,” Hall recalled. “And we needed some of that essentially to burn down a little bit in order for us to effect a safe rescue.”
At 6:30 p.m., when conditions improved slightly, the Guard launched a CH-47 Chinook and a UH-60 Blackhawk from about 40 miles away. The helicopters staged in Fresno to receive guidance about where they could approach to pick people up.
A remotely piloted MQ-9 aircraft operated by the Guard’s 163rd Wing based at March Air Reserve Base worked above the site, helping to scout conditions. Personnel identified a small clearing alongside a boat launch road that could be used as an emergency landing zone.
About 8:20 p.m., the helicopters landed at Mammoth Pool.
The seven crew members were greeted by more than 200 campers, many of them clustered on a dock near the boat launch, Hall said. Some had suffered injuries including scrapes, serious burns and possible broken bones.
But they were ecstatic.
“I spoke with the crew members afterward and they said it was one of the greatest missions they’ve ever done just because of the feeling of relief the individuals who were rescued had,” Hall said. “They were literally giving the crew chiefs hugs as they were boarding the helicopter.”
Some of those at Mammoth Pool described a terrifying scene of driving through flames and finding shelter wherever they could.
Jeremy Remington told ABC30 that he and his family were boating when they went to fill their chest with ice. In less than 30 minutes, he said, the fire was roaring toward them.
“The fire completely engulfed everything, all around us,” he said, adding they poured water on their shirts and used them to cover their faces as protection against the smoke and heat.
Two people had suffered life-threatening injuries. They were put in the helicopters first. Then came the 19 “walking wounded,” who needed hospital care but were not considered critical. Crews also prioritized children and those with underlying health conditions, officials said.
“Their focus was on rescuing them, getting them from the point of danger to point of safety and then getting them into the hands of the emergency medical professionals that were on the ground,” Miller said.
Crews dropped off the passengers at Fresno Yosemite International Airport, where a makeshift triage site was set up. There, paramedics assessed injuries and arranged for people to be taken to hospitals, while other emergency workers made sure those who were displaced were matched with shelters.
The helicopters then returned to Mammoth Pool to pick up another load.
By then, between the darkness and thick smoke, conditions had deteriorated again. Not knowing if they’d be able to make it back a third time, the crews loaded as many people into the helicopters as they could — more than 100 passengers in the Chinook and 21 in the Black Hawk, Hall said.
When the mission was completed about 3 a.m., 214 people and 11 pets had been rescued, Hall said. At least 21 people were taken to hospitals.
There was also an unexpected silver lining in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Huntington Lake Fire Chief Christopher Donnelly said it was a blessing in disguise that the fire — which he had anticipated for years due to brush overgrowth — happened during the outbreak. Though hundreds of residents were evacuated, more than 10,000 people usually visit the Huntington Lake area during Labor Day weekend.
“Thank God for COVID,” Donnelly said. “All of our campgrounds are closed, Scout camps are closed.”
(Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Typhoon Haishen sat off the coast of the western island of Kyushu gathering power and creating chaos in the region, where it knocked down power lines and disrupted flights and trains.
Local officials ordered 1.8 million people to evacuate seven prefectures across the region and recommended that 5.6 million others across 10 prefectures seek shelter before the storm, which was expected to pass by Japan without making landfall and head toward South Korea.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest-level warning for the storm, cautioning that it would bring record-high tides and that residents should be prepared for “large-scale flooding.”
“High tides combined with large waves could top coastal sea walls and inundate a wide area,” it said in a statement on its website on Sunday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned residents to listen to local authorities and “take immediate action to protect your life,” adding that the country’s Self-Defense Forces were prepared to offer aid in the event of widespread damage.
By Sunday evening, fears for the worst seemed to be waning as it appeared the storm would only brush the region. Nevertheless, it was powerful enough to create major disruptions in the area.
Japan Railways said it would cancel some bullet train service in the region through this evening.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The blaze, dubbed the Valley fire, was the nightmare scenario many had feared: a roaring wildfire chewing through vast stretches of the back country amid searing record-high temperatures, forcing homeowners to flee — all during a time of coronavirus-induced mask wearing and social distancing.
Boiling clouds of smoke pouring from the fire rose into the air and filtered over the county with an acrid stench, making for unhealthy air conditions. Power lines from SDG&E were threatened by the blaze and some outages were reported on Sunday, another infernal day of triple-digit temperatures across the county.
And it is only the first week of September. That is weeks before what is historically seen as the peak fire season, the month of October.
After more than a day of firefighting, much remains to be done: As of Sunday afternoon, firefighters reported the fire was 1 percent contained. Officials said on Sunday night that 374 personnel were battling the fire.
Cal Fire officials said Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. that the blaze was still moving at a dangerous to critical rate of spread and was moving east. However, if the Santa Ana winds roll through, that could shift flames to the west.
Structures are being threatened in the following communities: Carveacre, Lawson Valley, Wood Valley, Lyons Valley and Deer Horn Valley.
Residents in the community of Carveacre were evacuated, and two emergency shelters were set up: one at Steele Canyon High School in Jamul and the other at Joan MacQueen Middle School in Alpine. The second shelter was closed for several hours on Sunday, but reopened in the afternoon.
Late Sunday afternoon, officials expanded the areas under an evacuation warning. Those now include areas north of Interstate 8 near the Viejas Reservation and Descanso, communities as far east as Pine Valley and Campo, and all the way south to the U.S.-Mexico border.
An evacuation warning is meant to alert residents they are in an area that could be subject to evacuation in the future, depending on how the fire behaves, and suggests they plan and prepare by packing and securing their homes in case an evacuation is needed.
Also late Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation for San Diego County and four other counties in the state where wildfires have burned thousands of acres, destroyed homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents.
The proclamation mobilizes the California National Guard to support disaster response and relief efforts and frees up emergency assistance for local governments.
The cause of the Valley fire remains under investigation, although several residents said the blaze may have been ignited by a tractor fire on Saturday afternoon on Carveacre Lane.
As another scorching day broke, several hundred firefighters were on the ground at 7 a.m. They were accompanied by air tankers and firefighting helicopters in the sky battling the blaze.
Cal Fire couldn’t say what kind of structures were destroyed by the blaze, but at least two were homes on Montiel Truck Trail in Jamul, according to footage aired by 10News.
The fire was threatening additional structures in Carveacre and Lawson Valley, and four additional streets were closed Sunday morning: Gaskill Peak Road, Lost Trail, Hondo Lane and Emmanuel Way. Lyons Valley Road between Japatul Road and Honey Springs Road was evacuated later that afternoon.
The fire is burning where the elevations in the scenic backcountry communities rise up to the Laguna Mountains. The tough terrain, which climbs from about 1,800 feet in Alpine to more than 2,600 feet on Japatul Valley Road near the heart of the fire, was one of several challenges facing firefighters.
“Certainly the temperature is going to be a challenge,” said Cal Fire spokesman Kendal Bortisser. “The steep terrain, all of the inaccessible areas, old growth that’s been there for a long time that’s tinder dry and ready to burn — all of those are going to be factors.”
Conditions fire crews have faced have been brutal. On Saturday, temperatures at the scene reached 115 degrees. Sunday, they dipped slightly, to around 109 degrees, but Jake Rodriguez, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service and Cleveland National Forest, said that winds up to 20 miles per hour from the east and northeast were expected to kick up in the afternoon.
“That can be significant. It’s not quite a Santa Ana, but that means it starts pushing the fire instead of the fire following the topography of the land,” Rodriguez said. “Whichever way the wind is blowing the fire will go, and it can start spotting, which means embers are carried up to a half-mile in front of the fires and starting new spot fires.”
Far from the front lines, problems fueled by the fire affected everyday living for residents across the county.
SDG&E said its Sunrise Powerlink, a 117-mile transmission line that connects renewable energy resources from Imperial Valley to San Diego, was out of service.
Helicopters on Sunday morning were washing the lines to remove soot and other residue that settled on the equipment during the blaze. Pilots in choppers were also inspecting the line to see if it had been damaged.
SDG&E officials said as soon as Cal Fire advises the utility that it’s safe to go into the area, utility crews will move in and determine what is required to get the line back into service.
The San Diego County Air Pollution Control District advised residents to assume that air quality levels are unhealthy for all individuals but particularly for sensitive groups in areas with heavy smoke. The agency advised people to “limit physical/outdoor activity” if they are in areas where they can smell smoke and to stay indoors when possible.
By early evening, the Red Cross had assisted 52 families that came to Joan MacQueen Middle School, setting many up at hotels.
Among them was Thomas, who didn’t want to be identified by his last name, and his wife. The couple left their home in a community known as the Carveacre Ranch Estates, which includes about 100 homes, around noon on Sunday.
They, like others at the evacuation center, hadn’t slept much. Thomas said he and his wife worked to put out hot spots until about 1 a.m. Sunday. They slept for about an hour until an evacuation alert woke them up about 3:45 a.m. They chose to stay a while until the winds shifted. The couple left with their three cats, two goats and two turtles.
“I was quite sure we wouldn’t have a house to go back to,” he said.
But there was hope Sunday evening. He could see on his phone that his home surveillance cameras were still on. “That tells me my house is still standing,” he said.
Bill Fincher, who lives in Lawson Valley, said most of his family, including three dogs and a lizard, evacuated their home and headed to the Steele Canyon shelter as the sun set Saturday. His wife, Rachelle, stayed at their ranch with their 17 cats and 13 chickens.
“She said, ‘Until I see flames, I’m not leaving,’ ” Fincher said. “I talked to her today. She said the house looks good.”
Fincher’s son, Brandon Fincher, goes to school in Prescott, Ariz., and decided to visit his family over the weekend with a friend. The two saw smoke from the blaze as they were pulling into town and watched from the house as the plume of smoke grew.
“Then we heard an explosion like a propane tank in the distance,” the younger Fincher said. “Once the sun went down and we could see flames in the distance, we thought, ‘Oh, we should go.’ ”
As they were leaving, the power went out.
Many backcountry residents scrambled to move themselves and their animals and livestock to safety as the firestorm encroached on their properties. The Children’s Nature Retreat, a 20-acre farm animal and nature preserve in Alpine, was also forced to evacuate.
Agnes Barrelet of the Children’s Nature Retreat and dozens of volunteers evacuated 120 animals from the sanctuary on Japatul Spur on Sunday after winds shifted from west to north and the fire started heading their way. Barrelet said they started preparing the animals — including rabbits, guinea pigs, horses, llamas, goats, alpacas, sheep, pigs, ducks and birds — for transport early in the morning.
The animals are at several different ranches and boarding areas throughout the county. She said the group did not take the tortoises and other animals, including cows, camels, zebras, watusis and zebus because a move would have been too traumatic for them.
She said “the fire went past us and we should be OK” and that she was hopeful to get back to the retreat soon to check on the remaining animals.
Because some residents had to evacuate quickly, many animals were left behind in the fire zone.
Nina Thompson with the San Diego Humane Society said that since Saturday afternoon a team of 20 emergency response workers from the society and the county Department of Animal Services have been conducting animal rescues, deploying from a staging area at 2959 Jamacha Road in Rancho San Diego.
She said animal owners can call the Humane Society for an emergency evacuation at (619) 299-7012, ext. 1, or the San Diego County Department of Animal Services at (619) 236-2341.
Tom Hurley did his best to save his many animals, but he just couldn’t get to all of them in time.
“I think I’ve got seven chickens left out of 100,” Hurley said. “My emu jumped over a 6-foot-tall fence. My trailer is still there. But everything else is just kind of burnt. I’m numb honestly. I’m numb as hell. I don’t have any feelings right now except for my animals.”
For many backcountry residents, preparing to hastily flee a fire has become an essential part of living.
“Most people who live in the backcountry are prepared for this. They have their vehicles ready, a place to go and a plan,” said Tim Townsley as he waited at the Steele Canyon evacuation center with his dog, Foxy. He has lived on a 10-acre property on West Boundary Truck trial for several years.
“The fire is a big looming thing on everybody’s mind out here, always. It’s the talk. Are you ready for the fire? Are you ready for the fire? Did you clear? Did you clear?”
(Greg Moran, Lyndsay Winkley, Karen Pearlman & Pam Kragen; Rob Nikolewski, David Hernandez, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The National Weather Service said the heat wave reached its peak on Sunday. But today — Labor Day — will still be unusually warm, and some inland areas will again reach 100.
The record-breaking highlights from Sunday include the 115 reading in Escondido. That is the highest temperature ever recorded in that city on any day of the year. The previous all-time high was 113, set in 1894 and matched in 1909.
Vista reached 107, the highest temperature the city has ever recorded in September. It broke the previous record of 102, set in 2004.
Ramona hit 112, tying the all-time record for September.
San Diego International Airport, which usually benefits from a sea breeze, hit 100, breaking the record for Sept. 6. The previous record of 97 was set in 2011.
Forecasters say that temperatures will be 5 to 10 degrees lower across much of the county today, but some areas will still hit 100. And the National Weather Service says it is preparing to issue a red-flag fire weather warning for Tuesday and Wednesday due to the expected arrival of Santa Ana winds.
Here are the county’s record highs for Sept. 6 reported by the National Weather Service on Sunday:
| city | temperature | comment |
| Borrego | 117° | old record for the date: 115° in 1989 |
| Escondido | 115° | old record: 104° in 1955 — a record for any date |
| Ramona | 112° | old record: 102° in 1983 — tied all-time record for September |
| Campo | 110° | old record: 104° in 1955 all-time record for September |
| Vista | 107° | old record: 102° in 2004 — tied all-time September record |
| Chula Vista | 102° | old record: 97° in 2011 |
| San Diego | 100° | old record for the date: 97° in 2011 |
| Palomar Mountain | 98° | old record: 94° in 1955 |
| Oceanside | 85° | old record: 83° in 2004 |
“We could have all-time high temperature records in a lot of areas east of Interstate 5, including Escondido and Vista,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster.
“Winds out of the east are going to blow all the way to the coast, shutting down the sea breeze. Balboa Park could get to 105, and the airport could hit 100.”
Tardy says the temperatures will rival the record highs set in July 2018 and September 2010.
A red-flag wildfire warning will be in effect for the eastern half of the county from 10 a.m. today until 6 p.m. on Sunday. Winds are expected to gust 30 mph to 40 mph in areas like Ramona, where the high could reach 114.
The heat began to build on Friday, reaching 106 in Alpine, 102 in Ramona, 101 in Valley Center, 99 in Escondido and 81 at San Diego International Airport. The region’s fire departments hustled to prepare for potential wildfires. Other people searched for stores and shops that had air conditioning.
The California Independent System Operator, which operates the state’s power grid, has asked consumers to voluntarily reduce electricity consumption from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. today through Monday.
Cal-ISO is trying to avoid having to order San Diego Gas & Electric to impose the kind of rolling blackouts that occurred locally when temperatures soared in mid-August.
Forecasters say temperatures began to climb above normal on Friday and will peak today and Sunday, when off-shore winds begin to flow through inland valleys and foothills.
Local fire departments are eying the forecasts as they ready themselves for high fire danger. Stations are fully staffed, with days off canceled. And, as it happens, firefighters are getting a handle on fires in Northern California so local crews sent to help there are starting to return.
Fire departments have an unconventional request for the public: don’t go outside and work to create defensible space around homes this weekend.
Usually, the fire departments plead with people to clear brush from around their homes. But right now, there’s a real risk that a lawnmower or even an ax could create a spark that ignites a fire.
“This is the time of year that we don’t want you out there doing that, running your weed whackers, chain saws,” Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said Friday. “The conditions are ripe that if a fire starts, it has the potential of being a very dangerous wildfire.”
San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Jose Ysea echoed the request.
“As much as we tell people to maintain that defensible space, this isn’t the weekend to do it,” Ysea said.
As the temperatures soared on Friday, a group of a dozen teenage boys took to a grass field at Santee’s Town Center Community Park to kick around a soccer ball.
Carlos Ruiz, 16, and Manny Zamudio, 17, both of Lakeside, sat under a big tree at the park, putting on their cleats to take part in a pickup game, undaunted by the heat.
Pickup games are common for the El Capitan High students, who regularly meet up with soccer players from other high schools in the area to practice their skills. But there may not be a repeat performance today, when temperatures are expected to soar into the 100s in East County.
“I think I’ll stay home (Saturday),” Carlos said, laughing. “It’s going to be pretty hot out.”
In El Cajon near City Hall, Main Street Donuts & Deli reopened after several weeks of closure because of COVID-19, its air-conditioned confines inviting people to cool off inside with a sandwich and soft drink or a bag of doughnut holes.
At The Yogurt Mill in El Cajon, the line was out the door and into the parking lot. Store manager Andrea Klock said people weren’t letting the heat stop them from visiting the popular venue, which is open from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. daily.
“We had a line about 10 minutes before we even opened up, which is on the normal side for us actually,” she said. “I am anticipating very heavy days, Saturday and Sunday. Sunday it’s supposed to be 106!”
Nick Risser of La Mesa, who just returned from a vacation in Yosemite and Mammoth, waited patiently outside in line to buy a gigantic portion of strawberry frozen yogurt.
“It’s either here or the beach,” Risser said, before diving into his sweet treat.
(Gary Robbins, Teri Figueroa&Karen Pearlman, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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A frantic phone call from her friend woke her up two hours later: The ranch where they both boarded their horses was ablaze. DeAngelo raced to rescue terrified animals that night last week, furious she got no official warning by phone, text or siren.
“They alert us about all kinds of crap, but this was life threatening,” she said, adding that she got an alert in April about a bear sighting 15 miles away. “If fire’s going to be a way of life for California, we at least have to have an alert system.”
California has made strides in updating its evacuation alert systems since failing to notify thousands of people ahead of wine country fires three years ago that killed 44, many of them still inside their homes. But worrying gaps remain in the systems operated by each of the 58 counties, putting lives at risk in a state where wildfires are bigger, deadlier and more destructive than ever before.
Residents who barely escaped the latest fast-moving fire say they need a seamless system that crosses county lines and gives clear, useful information about what is happening. They want evacuation maps to accompany written descriptions posted on social media to make it easier to see what areas are in danger, and they want all counties, regardless of size and resources, to give accurate and timely alerts. Some people did not get warnings; others say they went out too late.
“I know this fire was an anomaly, and I’m not trying to point fingers, but it really showed some holes,” said Sarah Johnson, who lives at the Emerald Hills Horse Ranch where DeAngelo boards her horses. It’s in Yolo County but borders Solano County.
Roughly 15,000 firefighters are battling blazes throughout California, the largest ones burning for more than a week in multiple counties around the San Francisco Bay Area. The one in wine country north of San Francisco has killed at least five people and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings, including homes. Officials said Saturday it was 42 percent contained.
It would grow to become the second-largest fire in California history after it raced out of Napa County and through the outskirts of the rural town of Winters early on Aug. 19. Personnel and resources were tight initially, given the sheer number of fires.
Solano County sheriff’s Capt. Rustin Banks said his deputies warned people to flee by going door to door and using sirens, reverse 911 calls and alerts sent by email, text or phone calls.
He noted that the flames moved quickly and unexpectedly from Napa County to Solano County.
“When the dust settles on this, we’re going to do an after-action report,” he said. “And notifications will be part of that. As always, if there’s a better way we could do something, we will adopt it.”
State Sen. Bill Dodd, a Napa Democrat, said the recent complaints are “really disappointing” because residents in other areas of his district said they received plenty of notice to leave.
However, Marianne Washabaugh, 63, and her husband are signed up for alerts in Napa, Solano and Yolo counties but said they didn’t receive any notice until a sheriff’s deputy sped up to the house with sirens wailing.
Washabaugh, in pajamas and bare feet, and her granddaughter, great-grandson and husband got in a car and left. Their house burned down.
No sirens or phone calls roused Rhonda Petrillo, 64, either, but somehow she woke up and saw an orange glow through her bedroom window. She loaded her dogs in three cars with her husband and son.
Petrillo’s husband told her to “go, go, go, get going now” as flames galloped and skipped over the ground, she said. She punched the car through a wall of flames and drove blindly in thick smoke, counting the seconds until she could make a turn onto the main road, where she met bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Her family is safe and her house is damaged but standing.
‘“I really believe it was God that said, ‘Open your eyes,’” Petrillo said.
(Janie Har, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Solana Beach approved an agreement last week with Encinitas and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the pre-construction engineering and design of the Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project authorized by Congress in 2016.
“The good news is it’s moving forward,” Solana Beach City Manager Greg Wade said Thursday. “We approved the design agreement, and that’s a lot.”
The three-year planning, engineering and design phase of the program is expected to cost about $3 million. Most of the expense will be covered by federal and state grants already in hand. The two cities each have agreed to pay $75,000 as their share of the planning expense.
Sand dredged from nearby offshore sites could begin arriving on the shores of Solana Beach and Encinitas as early as 2024, Wade said.
Construction of the entire 50-year project was estimated at $167 million in 2015 costs, according to the Corps of Engineers. Completion depends on continued funding from the federal, state and local governments over the life of the effort.
Sand replenishment is considered the “soft solution” for shoring up San Diego County’s eroding beaches and bluffs. The other options include sea walls and revetments, often called “armoring” the coast. Environmentalists and the California Coastal Commission, which oversees all coastal development in the state, oppose armoring because studies show the structures can contribute to erosion.
Retreat is another option often discussed and requires removing structures in the path of erosion. While widely supported by environmentalists as the best solution, most coastal property owners would rather fight erosion than retreat from it.
“Beach nourishment,” another term for sand replenishment, delays the inevitable crumbling of coastal bluffs by building a blanket of sand that stops ocean waves before they hit the base of the cliffs. The practice, though expensive and temporary, is widely used along the California coast.
Congressional committees first authorized a sand project feasibility study for Encinitas in 1993 and for the adjoining city of Solana Beach in 1999. The two efforts were combined in 2000 and led to the work now planned.
“The project is intended to improve public safety, reduce coastal storm damage to property and infrastructure, and reduce coastal erosion and shoreline narrowing,” said Brooks Hubbard in the Los Angeles office of the Corps of Engineers.
Climate change and sea-level rise have hastened the pace of coastal erosion and emphasized the need to protect the 75-foot-tall, cliff-like bluffs. Occasional collapses endanger people on the beach and the homes above.
A bluff collapse last summer in Encinitas killed three people in a family sitting together on the beach and brought new attention to the problem. Congress allocated an additional $400,000 in February for the Corps of Engineers project.
The Solana Beach City Council unanimously declared “a climate emergency” at its meeting Wednesday, and called for accelerated action to address many aspects of the ecological crisis.
“Sea-level rise will exacerbate coastal flooding of low-level areas and beaches, already sand-starved due to river-damming and cliff stabilization,” the city’s resolution states.
Sand replenishment is part of the city’s strategy for adapting to sea-level rise, Wade said.
“It is vitality important to protect our bluffs and the homes along the bluffs,” he said. Also, the beaches are an important recreational resource for residents, visitors and tourists, and wider beaches are better.
Solana Beach will initially get about 700,000 cubic yards of sand to widen by 150 feet a 7,200-foot-long stretch of shoreline north and south of Fletcher Cove. Afterward that segment would get an additional 290,000 cubic yards of sand about every 10 years for the 50 years of the program.
Encinitas will initially get 340,000 cubic yards of sand to add 50 feet of beach along a 7,800-foot stretch of the coast between Beacons Beach to Boneyards. The Encinitas segment would get an additional 220,000 cubic yards of sediment about every five years over the life of the program.
(Phil Diehl, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Thirteen provinces, mostly in the country's north, were affected by floods and houses were washed away, according to the Ministry for Disaster Management.
In Parwan, just north of the capital Kabul, 116 people were killed and more than 120 injured, with 15 people still missing, national and local officials said.
"Rescue teams are still in the area and searching for the missing bodies," said Wahida Shahkar, a spokeswoman for Parwan's governor.
Flash flooding hit Parwan early on Wednesday, washing away homes and buildings.
Local police spokesman Salim Noori said the community in the worst-affected areas were mostly farmers and informal workers who were already struggling financially. The spokesman also said police were appealing for donations of blood for the many injured.
The Ministry of Defense said Afghan security forces were assisting in recovery efforts and distributing aid.
(ALJAZEERA, REUTERS NEWS AGENCY)
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In the past two days, evacuation orders were lifted for at least 50,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area and wine country, officials with the state fire agency, Cal Fire, said.
In heavily damaged areas, crews were working to restore electricity and water so more people could return to their homes.
Around the state, hundreds of wildfires — coming months earlier in the season than expected — have killed at least seven people, burned more than 2,000 square miles and pushed firefighter resources to the breaking point. Two are among the largest wildfires in recent state history.
Wildfires are so bad in the western United States that about 200 active-duty U.S. Army soldiers are being mobilized to help fight them, said officials with the National Interagency Fire Center. This is the first active-duty mobilization for wildfire support since 2018.
Evacuation orders for more than 20,000 people were lifted Thursday in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, where a massive blaze caused by lightning was 26 percent surrounded Friday, fire officials announced.
The fire has burned at least 554 homes. But the tally could rise, and about 52,000 people remained evacuated. Santa Cruz County sheriff's Chief Deputy Chris Clark could not say when they would be allowed back home.
In the eastern Bay Area, a fire that has burned in seven counties was 35 percent surrounded Friday.
Parts of Solano County and Lake County, north of San Francisco, began allowing people back home on Thursday. Solano opened additional areas Friday morning.
Evacuation orders in the wine counties of Napa and Sonoma were lifted Wednesday for about 35,000 people. The fire complex there, which is 35 percent contained, has killed five and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A day after the Category 4 storm hit, more bodies emerged in the aftermath in Louisiana and neighboring Texas. The deaths included five people killed by fallen trees and one person who drowned in a boat. Eight people died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to unsafe operation of generators, including three inside a Texas pool hall, where authorities say the owner had let seven Vietnamese shrimp boat laborers and homeless men take shelter. The other four were in critical condition.
The lack of essential resources was grim for the many evacuated residents eager to return.
Chad Peterson planned to board up a window and head to Florida. “There’s no power. There’s no water. There’s no utilities,” he said.
Thousands of people who heeded dire warnings and fled the Gulf Coast returned to homes without roofs, roads littered with debris and the likelihood of a harsh recovery that could take months.
The White House said President Donald Trump would visit the region today and survey the damage.
Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter cautioned that there was no timetable for restoring electricity and that water-treatment plants “took a beating,” resulting in barely a trickle of water coming out of most faucets. “If you come back to Lake Charles to stay, make sure you understand the above reality and are prepared to live in it for many days, probably weeks,” Hunter wrote on Facebook.
Caravans of utility trucks were met Friday by thunderstorms in the sizzling heat, complicating recovery efforts.
Meanwhile, the hurricane’s remnants threatened to bring flooding and tornadoes to Tennessee as the storm, now a tropical depression, drifted north. Forecasters warned that the system could strengthen into a tropical storm again upon returning to the Atlantic Ocean this weekend.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A full assessment of the damage wrought by the Category 4 system was likely to take days, and the threat of additional damage loomed as new tornado warnings were issued after dark in Arkansas and Mississippi.
But despite a trail of demolished buildings, entire neighborhoods left in ruins and almost 900,000 homes and businesses without power, a sense of relief prevailed that Laura was not the annihilating menace forecasters had feared.
“It is clear that we did not sustain and suffer the absolute, catastrophic damage that we thought was likely,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage.”
He called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, meaning it surpassed even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005.
The hurricane’s top wind speed of 150 mph put it among the strongest systems on record in the U.S. Not until 11 hours after landfall did Laura finally lose hurricane status as it plowed north and thrashed Arkansas, and even by Thursday evening, it remained a tropical storm with winds of 40 mph.
The storm came ashore in low-lying Louisiana and clobbered Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. On Broad Street, many buildings had partially collapsed, and those that didn’t were missing chunks. Windows were blown out, awnings ripped away and trees split in half in eerily misshapen ways. At the local airport, planes were overturned, some on top of each other.
In front of the courthouse was a Confederate statue that local officials had voted to keep in place just days earlier. After Laura, it was toppled.
Not long after daybreak gave the first glimpse of the destruction, a massive plume of smoke visible for miles began rising from a chemical plant. Police said the leak was at a facility run by Biolab, which manufactures chemicals used in household cleaners. Nearby residents were told to close their doors and windows and turn off air conditioners.
President Donald Trump planned to visit the Gulf Coast this weekend to tour the damage.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Cooler weather and higher humidity, along with an influx of equipment and firefighters, continued to help hard-pressed crews fighting some of the largest fires in recent state history, burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.
“We’ve had a lot of good success,” said Mark Brunton, a state fire official, early Thursday.
The fires have claimed seven lives and destroyed 1,800 buildings, according to Cal Fire. In the Santa Cruz area, officials asked anyone with information on the whereabouts of Shane Smith, 21, and Micah Szoke, 37, to call the sheriff’s department. Both men live in evacuation zones and were reported missing.
Solano County began allowing people back home on Thursday. In the heart of wine country, evacuation orders in Napa and Sonoma counties were lifted Wednesday for about 35,000 people.
Firefighters and utility workers were clearing areas for returning residents after crews increased containment lines of the massive cluster of fires north of San Francisco to about 33 percent. The fire in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties was 35 percent contained.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm grew nearly 87 percent in power in just 24 hours to a size the National Hurricane Center called “extremely dangerous.” Drawing energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, the system was on track to arrive late Wednesday or early today as the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. so far this year.
“It looks like it’s in full beast mode, which is not what you want to see if you’re in its way,” University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said.
Winds were expected to reach 150 mph before landfall, and forecasters said up to 15 inches of rain could fall in some places.
One major Louisiana highway already had standing water as Laura’s outer bands moved ashore with tropical storm-force winds. Thousands of sandbags lined roadways in tiny Lafitte, and winds picked up as shoppers rushed into a grocery store in low-lying Delcambre. Trent Savoie, 31, said he was staying put.
“With four kids and 100 farm animals, it’s just hard to move out,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards fretted that the dire predictions were not resonating despite authorities putting more than 500,000 coastal residents under mandatory evacuation orders.
Edwards activated the state’s entire National Guard.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Highlighting the unusually early fire season in the state accustomed to blazes, Gov. Gavin Newsom said more than 2,000 square miles [or 1,280,000 acres] have already burned this year.
In the heart of wine country, evacuation orders in Napa and Sonoma counties were lifted for about 35,000 people who had been told to leave after lightning ignited dozens of blazes last week. Officials were also working to open up evacuated areas to the south, where more fires burned.
Firefighters and utility workers were clearing areas for returning residents after crews increased containment of the massive cluster of fires north of San Francisco to about a third. More people could be allowed to return home in the next two days in Sonoma and Solano counties, said Sean Kavanaugh, a chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Getting people back home is a priority but “we have to (be) very diligent and we have to make sure that the (containment) lines are any good, that we can get people home safely,” he said.
The fires slowed at lower altitudes as a morning marine layer drawn by intense heat on land brought cooler temperatures and higher humidity. The cooler air, however, didn’t reach higher forest and rural areas full of heavy timber and brush.
Amid the good news were sobering developments.
A fire in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties south of San Francisco was 19 percent contained, but officials increased the number of buildings destroyed to more than 530. Santa Cruz County officials reported that a woman who hadn’t been heard from since Monday was found dead at home, apparently due to natural causes. They also were looking for an evacuee missing since he told a friend he wanted to sneak back into a fire area.
Billy See, incident commander on the fire burning in San Mateo and Santa Cruz, urged displaced residents to be patient.
“When the smoke starts to clear, all the residents get very restless about trying to get back in and wanting to know when the evacuation orders and warnings will be lifted,” See said.
Authorities were working on a plan for people to return after they make sure conditions are safe and water service and electrical power are available, he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 385,000 residents were told to flee the Texas cities of Beaumont, Galveston and Port Arthur, and another 200,000 were ordered to leave low-lying Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana, where forecasters said as much as 13 feet of storm surge topped by waves could submerge whole communities.
The National Hurricane Center projected that Laura would draw energy from warm Gulf waters and become a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall late today or early Thursday, with winds of around 115 mph. The strengthening may slow or stop just before landfall, forecasters said.
“The waters are warm enough everywhere there to support a major hurricane, Category 3 or even higher. The waters are very warm where the storm is now and will be for the entire path up until the Gulf Coast,” National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Ed Rappaport said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“Heat waves are one of the extreme weather events that are most directly influenced by global warming,” Gershunov said. “Their activity has been increasing all over the globe.
“Specifically, in California, they’re not only becoming more intense and longer-lasting, but they’re also changing their flavor, becoming more humid.”
The recent heat wave sent mercury soaring to triple-digit temperatures in dozens of San Diego communities. Besides the heat were high relative humidity levels of 70 percent to 80 percent, said Samantha Connolly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Relative humidity represents the ratio of the current humidity to the highest possible amount of water the air can hold. The higher it is, the wetter the atmosphere. In the summer, it’s usually 20 percent to 30 percent in San Diego, Connolly said. Damp air doesn’t allow much evaporation, so it feels hotter than it is, making it harder for people to cool off.
“That’s what we were seeing across most valley areas,” Connolly said. “We’re seeing temperatures in the 90s, but it feels like 100.”
The wetter air retains heat, so temperatures climb during the day and persist at night, allowing little relief. Nighttime lows, usually in the 60s during the summer in San Diego, didn’t drop much below 70 degrees Fahrenheit over the past week, Connolly said.
“The humid heat is more oppressing during the day, and it doesn’t cool off at night, so you don’t get the respite from the heat at night,” Gershunov said. “It starts off warmer the next day, and after one or two or three of these cycles of oppressive heat during the day, and hot, muggy nights, especially people with health vulnerabilities, begin to get sick, and some people die.”
The high humidity in the recent weather pattern comes from air flow from a portion of the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California that’s warming faster than global oceans on average, he said.
“A lot of the time in these big summertime heat waves, the air is brought in from the south, from that part of the ocean that’s warming a lot,” he said.
Climate change is expected to amplify heat waves in the future, as land and water temperatures increase, he said. Scientists are measuring those effects already, he said; over the last 22 years, San Diego broke heat records 89 times, but surpassed cold records only once.
“The warming associated with climate change is projected to accelerate in the future,” he said. “In terms of heat waves, it’s like having heat waves on steroids. So the background climate warming makes heat waves hotter, and in California more humid as well.”
It’s not only uncomfortable but also dangerous, he said. The normal human response to heat is sweat, which allows evaporative cooling through the skin. With humid air, sweat doesn’t evaporate, and people can overheat.
That’s particularly hazardous to older or ill people, he said. And the COVID-19 pandemic makes it even harder to handle, since space at cooling centers may be limited by social distancing, and people facing economic hardship may not be able to afford to turn on air conditioning at home. It requires a new approach to reducing heat risk, he said, perhaps including reducing electricity rates during heat waves to make life-saving cooling more affordable.
“We probably need to rethink our mitigation and intervention strategies,” he said. “There’s got to be some plan to mitigate the impact of these humid heat waves.”
(Deborah Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Still a tropical storm for now, Laura churned just south of Cuba after killing at least 11 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where it knocked out power and caused flooding in the two nations that share the island of Hispaniola. The deaths reportedly included a 10-year-old girl whose home was hit by a tree and a mother and young son who were crushed by a collapsing wall.
Laura was not expected to weaken over land before moving into warm, deep Gulf waters that forecasters said could bring rapid intensification.
“We’re only going to dodge the bullet so many times. And the current forecast for Laura has it focused intently on Louisiana,” Gov. John Bel Edwards told a news briefing.
Shrimp trawlers and fishing boats were tied up in a Louisiana harbor ahead of the storms. Red flags warned swimmers away from the pounding surf. Both in-person classes and virtual school sessions were canceled in some districts.
In Port Arthur, Texas, Mayor Thurman Bartie warned that unless the forecast changes and pushes Laura’s landfall farther east, he will ask the city’s more than 54,000 residents to evacuate starting at 6 a.m. today.
“If you decide to stay, you’re staying on your own,” Bartie said.
Officials in Houston asked residents to prepare supplies in case they lose power for a few days or need to evacuate homes along the coast.
“We are battle-tested. We are ready to deal with this situation as well,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Monday.
State emergencies were declared in Louisiana and Mississippi, and shelters were being opened with cots set farther apart, among other measures designed to curb coronavirus infections.
Edwards encouraged evacuees to stay with relatives or in hotels. But officials said they made virus-related preparations at state shelters in case they are needed.
As Marco was on its deathbed, the National Hurricane Center issued its first storm watches for Laura.
Forecasters posted a hurricane watch from Port Bolivar, Texas, to Morgan City, La., a tropical storm watch from Port Bolivar to San Luis Pass, Texas, and from Morgan City to the mouth of the Mississippi, where a collapsing Marco hovered.
Much of the region was also put under a storm surge watch. Forecasters warned of storm surge as high as 11 feet in western Louisiana. Add to that 4 to 10 inches of rain expected when Laura arrives starting late Wednesday.
By late afternoon, Marco clung to 40 mph winds away from its pulled-apart center, which was 15 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi. Forecasters predicted it would no longer be a tropical storm by the end of the night.
Laura was struggling to organize around its center as part of the system scraped over Cuba, preventing the wind from strengthening beyond 60 mph, but scientists at the National Hurricane Center predicted that would not last.
Once Laura moves into the toasty waters of the Gulf of Mexico that serve as fuel for storms, forecasters predict it will rapidly strengthen to hurricane status ahead of an expected Wednesday landfall. The question is just how much.
“I would still give it a pretty decent chance of a Category 3 or 4, not necessarily at landfall, at least during its lifetime in the Gulf,” University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said. Many, but not all, storms in that area weaken just before landfall because of a late influx of dry air, he said.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for much of Cameron Parish on the Texas border, where officials said seawater pushed inland by the storm could submerge communities including Cameron, population about 410.
“We want everybody to get out safely,” said Ashley Buller, the assistant director for emergency preparedness.
(Rebecca Santana&Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week will be critical as more than 14,000 firefighters battle 17 major fire complexes, largely in Northern California where wildfires have encircled the city of San Francisco on three sides, singeing coastal redwoods that have never been burned. The wildfires, all caused by lightning, have been burning for a week.
“We are dealing with different climate conditions that are precipitating in fires the likes we haven’t seen in modern recorded history,” he said Monday.
A warning about dry lightning and winds that could have sparked more fires was lifted for the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday morning, a huge relief to fire commanders who said the weather was aiding their efforts as firefighters pour in from out of state. Temperatures are expected to be high again this week.
At an evening news conference, officials said progress has been made against a huge fire in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties with the help of rain Sunday evening and calmer weather Monday.
“With the clear air, we were able to fly a lot more aircraft,” said Mark Brunton, operations chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
Helicopters dropped 200,000 gallons of water on the blaze, he said, calling it “the best day yet.“
Fire lines on the fire’s southern border appeared to be holding, he said.
But officials warned the danger was far from over and called the fires complex and large. They admonished residents to stay out of evacuated areas and warned looters they’ll be arrested.
“It is highly dangerous in there still,” Jonathan Cox, a Cal Fire deputy fire chief, said of the blaze north of Santa Cruz. “We have bridges that have failed, old wooden bridges that have failed that may not appear failed” to drivers.
Not knowing whether her home is still standing is the hardest part, says Barbara Brandt, a Boulder Creek resident who fled the Santa Cruz-area fire Tuesday night.
“The last few days have been a roller coaster,” she said. “You get conflicting reports. You don’t know what your life is going to be like. We don’t know when we can go back, but we know it’s not going to be for a long time.”
When Brandt evacuated with her 94-year-old father, they figured the order was just a precaution. It was smoky, but not the massive complex of fires it is now. Her cats weren’t inside so she left without them, thinking they’d be back soon.
She went back Wednesday to put her cats in the house and feed her chickens. On Thursday, she returned yet again — this time to grab the cats.
North of San Francisco in wine country, Tim Ireland, 48, and Sherri Johnston, 47, were heading back to their destroyed Healdsburg home in Sonoma County to look for one of their dogs. The dog refused to get into the car when they fled.
“We only got out with a car full of clothes, firearms, safe, all our electronic devices, one dog, and two cats,” he said.
California has had more than 13,000 lightning strikes since Aug. 15, sparking more than 600 wildfires statewide that have burned over 1,875 square miles, [1,200,000 acres] said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director with Cal Fire.
The burn area is bigger than Rhode Island and not quite the size of Delaware.
More than 1,200 buildings have been destroyed. The number is bound to increase as residents are allowed back into neighborhoods and inspectors get a better look.
A fifth body was found over the weekend from that wildfire, bringing the death count from the blazes to seven. Also, Santa Cruz authorities announced Sunday that the body of a 70-year-old man was found in a remote area called Last Chance. Police had to use a helicopter to reach the area of roughly 40 homes at the end of a windy, steep dirt road north of Santa Cruz.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings across large swaths of Northern and Central California through this afternoon.
With firefighters responding to more than two dozen major fires, the storms could ignite more blazes and cause existing ones to spread more rapidly, pushing crews into a triage situation.
Fortunately, firefighters were able to use a respite in the wind over Saturday night and through much of the day Sunday to build containment lines.
But the magnitude of what has already burned is sobering: about 1.3 million acres this month alone, with four more months of potential fire season to go. Only 2018 saw more land scorched in California — over an entire year.
Now it’s clear that what Californians had feared most during this long, troubled summer has become reality: a terrible fire season in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m essentially at a loss for words to describe the scope of the lightning-sparked fire outbreak that has rapidly evolved in Northern California — even in the context of the extraordinary fires of recent years,” wrote Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, in a blog post. “It’s truly astonishing.”
On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the White House had approved California’s request for a presidential major disaster declaration to bolster the state’s emergency response to the wildfires.
Across California, “over 14,000 firefighters are on the front lines of more than two dozen major fires and lightning complexes,” or groups of fires, Jeremy Rahn, Cal Fire public information officer, said at a Sunday media briefing.
The blazes include the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which at more than 340,000 acres is the second-largest fire in California history. The SCU Lightning Complex fire, at more than 339,000 acres, is the next largest.
Combined, they dwarf the Thomas fire, which at 281,893 acres shattered the records just three years ago.
“To have both of those going on at the same time ... gives us the magnitude of what has happened here in this state,” Sean Kavanaugh, incident commander on the LNU fire, said Sunday.
The LNU fire complex in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solana, Yolo and Colusa counties has resulted in five deaths and destroyed 845 homes and other buildings. It was 17 percent contained on Sunday. The fire was threatening the communities from the coastal redwoods around Guerneville to the dry grass ravines around Vacaville on the edge of the Central Valley, more than 50 miles east.
Residents were again told to listen for a high-low siren from sheriff’s deputies as an order to evacuate.
“With the weather predicted, the red-flag warning issued, I can’t stress [enough] the importance of being prepared to leave,” Cal Fire Unit Chief Shana Jones said.
The SCU Lightning Complex fire began as a collection of about 20 blazes in areas of Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties and by Sunday had merged into two conflagrations.
The fires, which were 5 percent contained Sunday, were burning primarily through grass and brush in steep, remote areas that hadn’t burned in years.
“There’s a lot of dead fuel up there,” said Barbara Rebiskie, public information officer on the SCU fire. “And the erratic winds, the 7 percent humidities and the lightning — it’s not a good combination.”
With 20,265 homes and commercial buildings threatened, a new evacuation order was issued at 3 a.m. Sunday for parts of Alameda County. In the hours that followed, a public information center was flooded with so many phone calls that it crashed. By late Sunday morning, operators were still receiving about 1,000 calls an hour, Rebiskie said.
She urged people to keep calling back if they got a busy signal, and to visit the incident’s webpage to see a full list of evacuations.
While firefighting resources have been pouring into the region, officials say it’s simply not enough.
In some places, officials said, they were being turned down for state help and left to beg equipment and manpower from volunteers and local agencies.
“Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes,” said Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, whose district includes the wine country areas under siege. “Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have.”
With the number of fires overwhelming the available crews, state officials are being forced to prioritize which incidents will get resources and focus on saving lives and structures at the expense of trying to contain the fires. That means some of the blazes could burn for weeks.
“At the statewide level, we do get into this mode where we start wondering where the biggest loss is going to be, what’s the highest priority, and that is where the resources are going to go,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire specialist with the UC Cooperative Extension.
What had forecasters most concerned Sunday afternoon was an area of moisture with the potential to generate thunderstorms that was just off Central California and moving toward the Monterey area, said Carolina Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.
The front was expected to continue to move north, affecting a stretch of the state from Monterey to the Bay Area, she said.
“The fear that we have as these thunderstorms develop is that it can create strong downdrafts and result in further fire spread,” Walbrun said. “We also have the potential of generating additional fires with dry lightning from these thunderstorms. There’s very little moisture associated with it.”
The first round of thunderstorms was expected to hit hardest Sunday night into Monday, with a second event forecast Monday night into Tuesday, she said.
The system was expected to cause winds to shift to more of a southwesterly direction, moving the flame fronts with it.
More than 2,000 homes and commercial buildings have been destroyed by fires in California since late July. They include nearly 1,000 since Aug. 15, which marked the start of what officials were calling a “lightning siege” of about 12,000 strikes that started an estimated 585 fires in California.
In San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, the CZU Lightning Complex fire was threatening multiple communities and had forced 77,000 people from their homes. The blaze began as a collection of about 22 fires that largely merged into one, challenging firefighters as they tried to keep the flames away from the towns dotting the rural, mountainous area.
The fire had consumed 71,000 acres and was 8 percent contained on Sunday.
Firefighters were taking advantage of fairly calm winds to attack the fire on the ground as much as possible as they scrambled to make progress ahead of the expected storm, said Daniel Potter, a Cal Fire public information officer.
Crews were working to establish containment lines and fire breaks around the city of Santa Cruz and the campus of UC Santa Cruz in a bid to keep the blaze from damaging the community.
“It’s pretty much impossible to stop when a good wind is pushing the fire front faster than we can move,” Potter said.
(Rong-gong Lin II, Alex Wigglesworth&Joe Mozingo, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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A storm dubbed Marco grew into a hurricane Sunday as it churned up the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana. Another potential hurricane, Tropical Storm Laura, lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and was tracking toward the same region of the U.S. coast, carrying the risk of growing into a far more powerful storm.
Experts said computer models show Laura could make landfall with winds exceeding 110 mph, and rain bands from both storms could bring a combined total of 2 feet of rain to parts of Louisiana and several feet of potentially deadly storm surge.
“There has never been anything we’ve seen like this before, where you can have possibly two hurricanes hitting within miles of each over a 48-hour period,” said Benjamin Schott, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service’s Slidell, La., office.
The combination of the rain and storm surge in a day or two means “you’re looking at a potential for a major flood event that lasts for some time,” said weather service tropical program coordinator Joel Cline. “And that’s not even talking about the wind.”
Where precisely Marco was headed — and when the storm might arrive — remained elusive Sunday.
The hurricane was initially expected to make landfall today, but the National Hurricane Center said that “a major shift” in a majority of their computer models now show the storm stalling off the Louisiana coast for a few days before landing west of New Orleans — and likely weakening before hitting the state. However, skeptical meteorologists at the center were waiting to see if the trends continue before making a dramatic revision in their forecast.
Marco is a small storm that may be pushed westward along the Louisiana coast, delaying landfall but worsening storm surge, Cline said.
The prospect of piggybacked hurricanes was reviving all-too-fresh memories of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm has been blamed for as many as 1,800 deaths and levee breaches in New Orleans led to catastrophic flooding.
“What we know is there’s going to be storm surge from Marco, we know that that water is not going to recede hardly at all before Laura hits, and so we’ve not seen this before and that’s why people need to be paying particular attention,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warned at a Sunday briefing.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 12,000 firefighters aided by helicopters and air tankers are battling wildfires throughout California. Three groups of fires, called complexes, burning north, east and south of San Francisco have together scorched more than 780 square miles [499,200 acres], destroyed more than 500 structures and killed six people.
More than 140,000 people are under evacuation orders.
The number of personnel assigned to the sprawling LNU Complex — a cluster of blazes burning in the heart of wine country north of San Francisco — doubled to more than 1,000 firefighters Friday, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said.
“I’m happy to say there are resources all around the fire today. We have engines on all four sides of it working hand-in-hand with the bulldozers to start containing this fire, putting it to bed,” Nicholls aid.
Fire crews with help from “copious amounts of fixed-wing aircraft” were working Friday to stop a large blaze from reaching communities in the West Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, he said.
The blazes, coming during a heat wave that has seen temperatures top 100 degrees, are taxing the state’s firefighting capacity but assistance from throughout the country was beginning to arrive, with 10 states sending fire crews, engines and aircraft to help, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
“We have more people, but it’s not enough,” Newsom said.
About 96 percent of the fire engines with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, are already committed to wildfires, with little in the way of local assistance. Oregon, Arizona and Washington have all sent firefighters and equipment to help, and there’s a pending request with Australia for that country’s fire crews, Newsom said.
But not all requests for out-of-state resources are being granted. Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, which coordinates interstate firefighting deployments, said they’ve been inundated with requests from across the West and have redirected some of California’s requests back home.
“It’s difficult with what’s happening across Northern California right now,” said Sean Kavanaugh, Cal Fire’s incident commander on the LNU Complex fire, which is burning in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.
While the fires could not be predicted, the strain on firefighting resources was.
Cal Fire’s union leadership began sounding the alarm about a depletion of resources in the spring, when the COVID outbreak triggered early releases from prisons and with that, a loss of hundreds of inmate firefighters who annually help set up defensive lines around wildfires. Inmate firefighters make up about 43 percent of Cal Fire’s firefighting force.
Since the outbreak began, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has released more than 800 inmate firefighters, with about 600 of those releases coming since July.
The state is down to 1,659 inmate firefighters from the 2,255 available in April.
Overall, 1,300 inmates are deployed across the state assisting with some of the most grueling work in firefighting: marching into rugged terrain with hand tools to cut away brush and scrape the earth free of anything that could burn.
The state hired some 800 seasonal workers “just in time” to offset the loss in inmates at the cost of about $72 million, Newsom said.
“We have more people, but it’s just not enough. We have more air support, and it’s still not enough,” the governor said.
Newsom thanked President Donald Trump’s administration for its help a day after pushing back on Trump’s criticism of the state’s wildfire prevention work, saying that he has a “strong personal relationship with the president.”
“While he may make statements publicly, the working relationship privately has been a very effective one,” Newsom said.
There are 560 fires burning in the state, many small and remote but there are about two dozen major fires, mainly in Northern California. Many blazes were sparked by thousands of lightning strikes earlier in the week.
Tens of thousands of homes were threatened by flames that drove through dense and bone-dry trees and brush. Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours, fire officials said.
With firefighting resources tight, homes in remote, hard-to-get-to places burned unattended. Cal Fire Chief Mark Brunton pleaded with residents to quit battling fires on their own, saying that just causes more problems for the professionals.
“When people that do stay behind try to take matters in their own hands with trying to suppress fires, it creates a bigger issue,” Brunton said. “We had, last night, three separate rescues that pulled our vital — very few resources — away to have to rescue those individuals, because they put themselves in peril. They’re not trained firefighters.”
He added: “In the long run it’s created a bigger problem for first responders — because of that it took our firefighters away from the firefight to rescue them.”
Firefighters must choose which buildings to save.
“We can’t save everything,” Brunton said. “We have to pick and choose our targets of opportunity the best we can.” Properties that have a cleared layer of defensible space — no flammable vegetation in a zone around property — give firefighters the best opportunity to save a home, he said.
The intense smoke caused by the fire burning thorough the mountainous Santa Cruz County communities of Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond has limited the use of firefighting aircraft. The smoke is so bad that the visibility would be akin to flying through fog or dense clouds, and it would be unsafe to have aircraft fly, Brunton said.
The evacuation zone for the fire stretches in the mountains from San Gregorio State Beach, south of Half Moon Bay, to the edge of the city limits of Santa Cruz. The orders reached the University of California, Santa Cruz campus late Thursday.
Brant Robertson, a UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist, lives 100 yards from the evacuation zone on the university’s campus.
He said that he had not received a warning but that he and his family — his wife, 11-year-old triplets and dog — were all packed and ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice.
Standing on his porch, Robertson said the air was thick with dust and ash, as well as larger particles — burnt leaves and fibers suspended in the wind.
“We have all the windows shut,” he said. “But you can still taste the smoke. It’s unavoidable.”
He and his wife have been constantly following Twitter and keeping an eye on NASA’s satellite imagery.
“I’ve lived all over the place,” Robertson said. “I’ve been through tornadoes and earthquakes. But this is different. You just react to those events. This is unusual in that we don’t know when the alarm is going to go off. But there’s a lot of tension. It’s continuously stressful to hurry up and wait.”
An anxious Rachel Stratman, 35, and her husband, Quentin Lareau, 40, waited for word Friday about their home in the Forest Springs community of Boulder Creek, in Santa Cruz County, after evacuating earlier this week. She knew one house burned but received conflicting information about the rest of the neighborhood.
“It’s so hard to wait and not know,” she said. “I’m still torn if I want people to be going back to the area and videotaping. I know they cause the firefighters distraction, but that’s the only way we know.”
The couple were in a San Jose hotel with medication she needs after undergoing a transplant surgery last month. She collected her mother’s ashes and some clothes while her husband closed windows and readied the home before they evacuated Tuesday.
“I kept looking at things and kept thinking I should grab this or that, but I just told myself I needed to leave,” she said.
The ferocity of the fires was astonishing so early in the fire season, which historically has seen the largest and deadliest blazes when dry gusts blow in the fall.
But the death toll already had reached at least six since the majority of blazes started less than a week ago. Five deaths involved fires burning in wine country north of San Francisco. The other death was a helicopter pilot who crashed while dropping water on a blaze in Fresno County.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES, LOS ANGELES TIMES, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Democratic governor’s attack of Trump, while not surprising during a presidential election, marked a departure from his hesitancy over the last months to attack the president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Newsom has consistently said that the lives at stake in the crisis are more important than engaging in partisan politics.
But Newsom rekindled his criticism of Trump — which has focused on the president’s environmental and immigration policies — on national television Thursday evening.
“Just today, the president of the United States threatened the state of California, 40 million Americans who happen to live here in the state of California, to defund our efforts on wildfire suppression because he said we hadn’t raked enough leaves. I can’t make that up,” Newsom said in a three-minute video.
During an event in Scranton, Pa., on Thursday, Trump repeated a charge he has often made — that California could better control wildfires if the state cleaned up fallen leaves and other natural debris on forest floors.
“I see again, the forest fires are starting,” Trump said. “They’re starting again in California. And I said, you’ve got to clean your (forest) floors. You’ve got to clean your floors. There are many, many years of leaves and broken trees. And they are so flammable.”
In response, Newsom has noted that the federal government owns nearly 58 percent of California’s 33 million acres of forestlands, while the state owns 3 percent. The remainder are owned by private landholders, local governments and others.
Newsom’s appearance at the convention, a plum political opportunity on the night that former Vice President Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination for president, appeared in jeopardy earlier in the day. On Sunday, Newsom pre-recorded a video that was supposed to air during the convention, but it was pulled because of the continuing wildfire crisis in California, said Dan Newman, the governor’s political adviser.
“The segment that was originally planned didn’t make sense given the growth and severity of the state’s devastating wildfires,” Newman said.
Instead, the governor appeared in a cellphone video from Watsonville, which has been threatened by a massive outbreak of wildfires around the Santa Cruz Mountains, at the beginning of Thursday night’s convention broadcast.
“I confess, this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight; I’m about a mile or so away from one of over 370 wildfires that we’re battling here in the state of California,” Newsom said, with a wall of tall trees in the background.
Newsom went on to attack Trump for attempting to peel back environmental protections for clean water and air, as well as pesticide regulation and vehicle emissions, noting that California has filed more than 90 lawsuits against the Trump administration to block those and other actions.
The governor went on to praise Biden and his pick for a running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, as environmental champions. Newsom and Harris have been longtime political allies, starting when Newsom served as San Francisco’s mayor and Harris was the city’s district attorney more than a decade ago.
“It’s our decision, not our conditions, that will determine our fate and future, so let us resolve that after this historic night, this incredible, incredible week, this remarkable convention, that we do everything in our power to get Joe Biden and Kamala Harris into the White House,” Newsom said.
(Phil Willow, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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State officials and lawyers for Flint residents announced the settlement, which Attorney General Dana Nessel said likely would be the largest in Michigan history, with tens of thousands of potential claimants. It’s designed primarily to benefit children, who were most vulnerable to the debilitating effects of lead that fouled drinking water after Flint switched its source to save money in 2014 while under supervision of a state financial manager.
City workers followed state environmental officials’ advice not to use anti-corrosive additives. Without those treatments, water from the Flint River scraped lead from aging pipes and fixtures, contaminating tap water.
The disaster made Flint a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement, with residents of the city of nearly 100,000 lining up for bottled water and parents fearful their children had suffered permanent harm. A criminal investigation that has resulted in only misdemeanor no-contest pleas so far was resumed last year.
“What happened in Flint should have never happened, and financial compensation with this settlement is just one of the many ways we can continue to show our support for the city of Flint and its families,” Whitmer, a Democrat, said.
Several judges must approve the agreement, which is intended to resolve all claims against the state. Residents can decline to take part and file separate lawsuits, but attorneys involved in the negotiations said they would urge their clients to participate.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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After two years when summer ice melt had been minimal, last summer shattered all records with 586 billion tons of ice melting, according to satellite measurements reported in a study Thursday. That’s more than 140 trillion gallons of water.
That’s far more than the yearly average loss of 259 billion tons since 2003 and easily surpasses the old record of 511 billion tons in 2012, said a study in Communications Earth & Environment. The study showed that in the 20th century, there were many years when Greenland gained ice.
“Not only is the Greenland ice sheet melting, but it’s melting at a faster and faster pace,” said study lead author Ingo Sasgen, a geoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
Last year’s Greenland melt added 0.06 inches to global sea level rise. That sounds like a tiny amount but “in our world it’s huge, that’s astounding,” said study co-author Alex Gardner, a NASA ice scientist. Add in more water from melting in other ice sheets and glaciers, along with an ocean that expands as it warms — and that translates into slowly rising sea levels, coastal flooding and other problems, he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The death of a resident in Solano County, in the northeastern San Francisco Bay Area, was reported Thursday by Sheriff Thomas Ferrara, although he didn’t have any additional details.
A Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker assisting with advance clearing was found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area between San Francisco and Sacramento. A pilot on a water-dropping mission in central California also died Wednesday when his helicopter crashed.
Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the wildfires, calling them clear evidence of climate change, in a last-minute video recorded for the Democratic National Convention from a forest near Watsonville after he visited an evacuation center.
“If you are in denial about climate change, come to California,” he said.
“I confess this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight,” he said into what appeared to be a cellphone camera. Newsom had recorded an earlier, more lighthearted video, to be delivered in the convention’s prime-time hours but decided it didn’t bring the right tone amid his state’s disasters, said Dan Newman, one of his political advisers.
More than two dozen major fires were scorching California and taxing the state’s firefighting capacity, sparked by an unprecedented lightning siege that dropped nearly 11,000 strikes over several days.
The fires have already destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more, said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. In all, 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured.
At least two people were missing.
Smoke and ash billowing from the fires has fouled the air throughout the scenic central coast and San Francisco.
Most of the activity is in Northern California, where fires have chewed through about 500 square miles [320,000 acres] of brushland, rural areas, canyon country and dense forest surrounding San Francisco.
More than 10,000 firefighters are on the front lines, but fire officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours. The state has requested 375 engines and crew from other states.
“That’s going to allow our firefighters that have have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest,” Berlant said.
More firefighters were sent to battle a complex of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties but “it’s still not enough,” said the incident commander, Cal Fire Assistant Chief Billy See.
“We’re still drastically short for a fire of this size.” he said at an evening news conference.
Fire officials said the flames were being driven by bone-dry timber and brush and erratic winds. They pleaded with residents to be ready to evacuate when ordered because they place firefighters in danger when crews have to protect those staying behind.
“Today we saw a growth of approximately 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber,” See said. “That’s a dangerous rate of spread for our firefighters and for all those residents out there.”
Cal Fire spokesman Dan Olson said there are concerns that some people are trying to organize through social media to create volunteer brigades and fight the fire themselves.
“The dangers out there to their own lives outweigh anything they can accomplish,” he said. “They’re putting their lives in jeopardy.”
In Marin County, just north of San Francisco, where a smaller fire is burning near the Pacific Ocean, county fire chief Jason Weber said he is waiting for assistance from Montana to arrive this weekend.
He said in his 25 years in fire service, “we’ve never seen this level of draw-down” from cooperating agencies, as there is heavy competition in the western United States for equipment and people.
In the coastal mountain regions south of San Francisco, where 48,000 people were under orders to evacuate, a fire complex had burned 75 square miles [48,000 acres]. Officials warned it has the potential to grow significantly in the next day.
At least 50 buildings, including homes, had burned and nearly 21,000 structures were threatened, fire officials said.
Given depleted resources, one of the best tools firefighters have for public safety is to get people out of harm’s way. But some people refused when officers went door-to-door Wednesday night, Cal Fire Chief Mark Brunton said.
Kevin Stover, 42, was struggling with indecision early Thursday when a mandatory evacuation order was issued for the rugged and small town of Felton outside the beach city of Santa Cruz.
“I don’t want to leave,” said Stover, a camera operator and rigger now driving for Door Dash and Lyft because of the pandemic. His car, loaded with important papers, his father’s urn and some arrowheads that meant a lot to him, had a flat tire.
“I’m trying to figure out if I should cut these original oil paintings out of the frame to salvage them,” he said.
The unusually large size and number of simultaneous fires, other fires throughout the West and the loss of inmate firefighting crews because inmates were released from prisons to prevent the spread of coronavirus, have created the perfect storm for firefighting.
“Our agency is taxed to the limit,” said Incident Commander Mike Smith at the fire near Santa Cruz. Officials there are awaiting help from other states, but they are having to look further afield than usual, meaning it will take days for crews to arrive, he said. The U.S. Forest Service can’t help because they are busy fighting fires on federal lands.
In Monterey County along the coast, about 9,000 people have been evacuated for a fire that’s now 52 square miles [33,280 acres].
Two fires in Sonoma County prompted evacuation orders for 8,000 residents near the Russian River Wednesday. Residents of Healdsburg, with a population of about 12,000, were warned to be ready to flee. Fires in that region destroyed more than 100 buildings, including some homes, and threatened 25,000 people across five counties.
Tim Edwards, president of the union representing 7,000 Cal Fire firefighters, said lawmakers need to allocate more money at a time when firefighters are working 40 to 50 days at a time without real relief.
California State Parks announced full or partial closures of more than two dozen parks, including Big Basin Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the park headquarters and other facilities were damaged. The park featuring towering stands of ancient coast redwoods dates to 1902 and is the state’s oldest.
The air quality around the Bay Area remained dangerously unhealthy in some places Thursday. In Concord, northeast of Oakland, the air quality index surpassed 200, meaning the air was “very unhealthy.” The index can reach 500, but anything above 100 is considered unhealthy, particularly for people who have breathing complications.
People should avoid going outside at all, especially to exercise, while the air quality is in the unhealthy range, said Dr. Afif El-Hasan, a lung health specialist in Orange County. He said the smoke could also make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus if they were infected.
“Anything that weakens the lungs, like really bad air, which causes the lungs to lose some of their ability to fight infection, is going to be an issue,” El-Hasan said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES; ASSOCIATED PRESS; NEW YORK TIMES)
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More than a week later, upward of 30,000 customers remain without power, down from 590,000, as residents continue the lengthy recovery process.
The storm’s ferocity caught many Iowans off-guard, but the Hawkeye state is surprisingly vulnerable to these violent tempests. While the storm’s intensity was on the high end of derechos, this wasn’t some freak event. In fact, destructive derechos are as common in Iowa as hurricane strikes are in Florida.
The derecho damaged or destroyed 10 million acres of crops while countless structures in communities such as Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown, Ankeny and Iowa City lay in shambles. The historical record indicates these violent, fast-moving storm complexes will continue to torment the state most years into the future.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump traveled to Iowa to survey the damage, and met with Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. She described the storm as “basically a 40-mile-wide tornado that went through.”
Alex Gibbs, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities said that his office, which serves central and eastern Iowa and western Illinois, inspected and rated the storm’s intensity using damage indicators traditionally reserved for tornado surveys. His office found evidence of 110 to 140 mph winds.
In Atkins, Iowa, about 10 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, a wind gust of 126 mph was measured. That’s near where the WMT Cedar Rapids transmitter tower was toppled.
A nearby tower’s antenna was snapped 340 feet above the ground. The tower had originally been rated to withstand 125 mph winds.
Rich Kinney, the warning coordination meteorologist for the Quad Cities office, said damage observed at a particular apartment complex — where the winds caused complete removal of the roof, most exterior walls, and some interior walls — led them “to come up with the 140 mph estimate for the max wind gusts.”
Very few derechos produce catastrophic wind gusts to 140 mph but, by definition, they have significant wind gusts over 75 mph — rivaling the force of some hurricanes, which must have maximum sustained winds of at least 74 mph.
Gibbs said that, on average, his forecast areas see one derecho per year.
The scope of the devastation had many comparing the damage to that of an “inland hurricane,” with wind gusts similar to those of a major, Category 3 or 4 storm.
While last Monday’s gusts of up to 140 mph were extreme, they are not unprecedented in a part of the country that some have labeled “Derecho Alley.”
A comparably strong derecho struck Iowa during the early morning hours of July 11, 2011. Vinton and Garrison, about 20 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, saw wind gusts of up to 130 mph. That’s the same area that bore the brunt of last Monday’s storms. Marshall County, Iowa gusted above 80 mph in 2011. Last week’s storms buffeted them with 100 mph wind gusts.
Weaker derecho events are even more common. Based on the distribution of observed wind gusts over time, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center has found that, in central Iowa, winds greater than 74 mph are likely to occur within 25 miles of any given point an average of once or more per year. Some weather stations in Iowa recorded 10 or more instances of 60 mph thunderstorm winds in just six years’ time.
Considering these statistics, it becomes easy to see how the wind threat in Iowa from derechos may be just as great as in Florida to hurricanes.
Since 1850, the Sunshine State has been hit by 112 hurricanes, 38 of which were major (Category 3 or greater) storms with winds exceeding 111 mph. That’s an average of two hurricanes every three years, or one major hurricane every four or five years.
It’s important to remember that the severe winds from derechos and hurricanes are localized in nature, so any given place in Florida or Iowa will see them far less frequently than once per year.
“[A]t least one piece of Iowa will end up in a derecho every year. But that is a different piece of info than the frequency at a point/city,” wrote Bill Gallus, an atmospheric scientist at Iowa State University in an email. “It is probably more like once every 10 years or more at any particular spot.”
He said winds of the magnitude of the most recent derecho, however, are unusual. “Winds above 85 mph which were common in this event, [are] very rare. Probably a first in most people’s lifetimes, and in the lifetimes of many cities and towns.” Gallus wrote.
(Matthew Cappucci, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Many residents say they’ve never seen such wildfire conditions, a product of high temperatures, strong winds and thousands of lightning strikes from unusual thunderstorms that started Sunday. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Bay Area was home to several of the 23 major fires statewide, a subset of the 367 blazes across California, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Those storms were not ordinary,” said Steve Cobb, a Dearborn Park resident and one of the thousands forced to flee their homes. “They were tropical. ... constant flashes of light, crashing thunder and rain.”
On Wednesday, the most threatened area was Solano County, along the Interstate 80 corridor. After a fire roared close to Vacaville, a city of 100,000 northeast of San Francisco, it was beaten back but then blew up and jumped the freeway in the afternoon. Traffic was temporarily blocked in both directions, as authorities worked to evacuate an area south of the interstate.
At dusk, the fire remained completely uncontained and had burned more than 100,000 acres, according to a CalFire spokesman. Vacaville Fire Chief Kris Concepcion warned residents online of a “long night ahead” with unstable and unpredictable weather conditions.
Another branch of that same fire, dubbed the LNU Lightning Complex, menaced Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties, forcing the evacuation of a hospital in the wine country town of St. Helena and remaining largely out of control as night fell.
Farther south, another grouping of 20 fires threatened the Silicon Valley area, while the rural areas north of Santa Cruz also saw a blaze that drove people down hilly mountain slopes toward the ocean, with fire close behind.
Such conflagrations would challenge emergency responders even in normal times, but these come as a deadly virus complicates the job of running evacuation centers and camps for firefighters.
Early Wednesday, Shawnee Whaley escaped her North Vacaville trailer park with her mom, Sharon Whitaker, 79. A phone call from a friend woke her minutes before they realized they had to go. When Whaley saw that the power was out, she said she flung open her front door “and saw the glow of the fire.”
They made it to an evacuation center only to be turned away because it was full. They finally found shelter at the local cultural center, where they set up two cots away from others. Asked if they were concerned about the virus, they said — not so much.
“Getting burnt in a fire is way worse than getting COVID-19 at this point,” said Whaley, wrapped in a Red Cross blanket.
With so many blazes burning at the same time, state officials acknowledged Wednesday they needed help, and had asked for equipment and assistance from other states.
“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said at his news conference. Jeremy Rahn, a Cal Fire public information officer, said the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as additional hand crews from out-of-state agencies, and hired “nearly all available private firefighting ‘call-when-needed’ aircraft in the western United States.”
“Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite,” he said during a media briefing Wednesday. Officials say nearly 7,000 personnel from state, local and federal agencies are assigned to the California fires.
Sunday’s lightning bolts were the Bay Area’s most widespread and violent in recent memory, and they struck on one of the hottest nights in years, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
They were the result of three separate weather phenomena: a high-pressure system that swirled hot desert air from Arizona and Nevada across the state; moisture floating in from Tropical Storm Elida off the coast of Mexico; and a thunderstorm in Sonora, Mexico, that sent wave of uplifting pressure through the atmosphere, combining with the heat and moisture to create lightning strikes.
The most threatened city Wednesday was Vacaville, in the path of part of the LNU Lightning Complex fire. That complex is made of at least three major zones in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Yolo and Lake counties and has burned more than 46,000 acres.
As of Wednesday morning, 50 structures had been destroyed, 50 more had been damaged and 1,900 were threatened, fire officials said.
In the Santa Cruz mountains, nearly two dozen fires — known as the CZU August Lightning Fire Complex — have prompted the evacuation of at least 25,000 people, with at least 20 structures destroyed.
On Wednesday, a small but steady trickle of San Mateo County coast residents streamed into the evacuation center at the high school in Pescadero, a town south of Half Moon Bay.
Rita Mancera, the executive director of Puente, a local community organization, helped evacuees locate hotel rooms and provide logistics for pets and livestock. She said roughly 70 families had visited the center since Tuesday evening, when evacuations were ordered.
Lance Storm, 39, said the storms and fires were unlike anything he’d ever witnessed, concurring with Cobb, the Deerborn Park resident.
Storm lives on a communal farm in the Pescadero hills, and when the fire approached, he and six others decided to get out early — fearing a repeat of the people trapped in Paradise in 2018.
“I put everything I could into the bus,” he said, standing by his vehicle, and holding a kitten named Energy.
By late Wednesday, the fires were threatening Pescadero and communities to the south in Santa Cruz County.
In many areas, a layer of ash covered the ground, kicked up by winds and adding to the pollution that clouded much of the Bay Area.
The American Lung Association warned Northern Californians that the combination of excessive heat, wildfire smoke and COVID-19 poses risks to those most vulnerable to respiratory problems.
“The combination of uncontained wildfires and extreme heat has created conditions that put even healthy individuals at risk,” said Afif El-Hasan, an association spokesman. “The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only makes these potential effects more serious.”
Intense smoke and heat trigger coughing and wheezing, worsen lung function and lead to bronchitis or even death, he said.
“The best thing you can do is to avoid outdoor air,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The fires have sent American Red Cross staff and county workers from across the Northern California region scrambling to prepare for a potential wave of evacuees, said Denise Everhart, the Red Cross’ Pacific Division disaster executive.
The Red Cross has set up between 10 and 15 temporary evacuation points where residents’ needs are assessed before they’re sent to a hotel or motel, Everhart said. She said the organization has put precautions in place to protect from the coronavirus, and people should not hesitate going to shelters.
“If you’re told to go, go. We’re all working together to keep people safe ... the fire is the risk.”
In Vacaville, 78-year-old Lloyd Broughton evacuated with his family after a fire truck came up his road at 3 a.m. He, his wife Anne, 73, and daughter Kristine, 35, gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars.
All three suffer from breathing problems and, with a heavy layer of ash falling, they were already coughing and having trouble, Kristine said.
“No one is ready for it,“ Lloyd Broughton said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Electricity customers across California were in danger Tuesday night of being subjected to power outages. The officials who operate the grid hoped energy conservation would get residents through the night.
But the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which manages the power grid for about 80 percent of the state’s electric customers, will face fresh challenges today.
The National Weather Service initially said the heat wave, which began on Friday, would peak on Tuesday. Forecasters now say it’s possible that today will be just as hot, and relief isn’t expected until the weekend.
The heat wave may ultimately last seven or eight days, putting it in a class with an 11-day heat wave in 2006 that led to power outages and 131 deaths.
Heat waves aren’t unusual. But they rarely last beyond a few days in August. The current heat wave is not only making it broiling during the day, but also hotter than usual at night. Forecasters say that the overnight temperature in San Diego won’t drop below 70 degrees until next Monday.
“This is being caused by a high-pressure system that’s much broader and deeper than what we usually get in August,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster. “It’s spread across six states, from Colorado to Oregon and down through California.
“High pressure is usually migratory. But this system is parked over us, bringing us persistent sunny skies and heat.”
The high pressure also squashed the marine layer and pushed it out to sea, exposing coastal waters to more sun, allowing the surf to quickly warm. One indication of that: Harmless leopard sharks, which love the warm shallows, have been seen at Del Mar in recent days.
Tuesday’s extraordinary heat generally moved from east to west, influenced by the weak monsoonal moisture out of Mexico.
Temperatures quickly popped above 100 degrees along Interstate 8, and in the western valleys, where Ramona hit 109 while Escondido reached 105. The temperature also hit 100 further west, at Miramar, and 99 at Montgomery Field.
There was very little wind, which helped reduce the risk of wildfires. But the intense heat made it difficult for some people to go outside for extended periods.
The conditions represent a huge challenge for CAISO, which has ordered a statewide Flex Alert, calling on customers to cut back on their energy usage, especially from 3 to 10 p.m. That alert remains in effect through tonight.
The evening hours are especially crucial because generation from solar energy production across the state ramps down as the sun goes down. Going into last weekend, CAISO officials thought they would be able to purchase power from neighboring states to cover any shortfalls, but the heat wave has extended to places such as Arizona and Washington, squelching the ability to make up for the extra demand.
CAISO resorted to ordering utilities across the state to implement rotating power outages. Thousands of San Diego Gas & Electric customers lost electricity Friday and Saturday evenings, with outages typically lasting one to two hours.
In addition to the constraints on imports from other states, the unexpected shutdown of two power plants in the state and a drop in energy production from wind farms factored into last weekend’s outages, said Steve Berberich, CEO of CAISO.
“If the wind hadn’t run out on us, we would have been OK,” he said.
On a conference call with reporters, CAISO officials said about 1,500 to 2,000 megawatts of power imports had been added to the state’s grid compared to Monday. The grid has a typical total load of about 38,000 megawatts system-wide on a summer day. The load for Tuesday, by comparison, was forecast for 47,395 megawatts.
The all-time record for one day in California is 50,270 megawatts, set on July 24, 2006.
With the Flex Alert scheduled to expire at 10 p.m. tonight, officials said load levels appear to be coming down slightly.
“However, the load does start to go back up as a result of the temperatures going back up starting as early as Thursday and on through Friday and into next week,” said John Phipps, CAISO’s director of real-time operations.
The last time California experienced statewide outages was nearly 20 years ago, when rolling blackouts caused by marketplace failures plunged customers into the dark. A blackout in March 2001 affected as many as 1.5 million customers.
(Gary Robbins&Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The epicenter of the quake was located about 112 miles southeast of San Diego, on the San Miguel fault system.
“This is the most seismically active area of peninsular Baja California,” said Tom Rockwell, a seismologist at San Diego State University.
“There was a 6.8 quake near this area in 1956.
The USGS says Monday’s quake was felt in such places as Chula Vista, Alpine, Del Mar, Carlsbad, El Cajon, San Diego, Oceanside and Fallbrook.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The decision sets the stage for what is expected to be a fierce legal battle over the fate of the refuge’s vast, remote coastal plain, which is believed to sit atop billions of barrels of oil but is also home to polar bears and migrating herds of caribou.
The Interior Department said on Monday that it had completed its required reviews and would begin preparations to auction off drilling leases. “I do believe there could be a lease sale by the end of the year,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said.
Environmentalists said the Interior Department failed to adequately consider the effects that oil and gas development could have on climate change and wildlife. They and other opponents, including some Alaska Native groups, are expected to file lawsuits to try to block lease sales.
Though any oil production within the refuge would still be at least a decade in the future and would require more permits, companies that bought leases could begin the process of exploring for oil and gas.
President Donald Trump has cast an increase in Arctic drilling as integral to his push to secure America’s “energy dominance.” Republicans have prized the refuge as a lucrative source of oil and gas ever since the Reagan administration first recommended drilling in 1987, but efforts to open it up had been stymied by Democratic lawmakers until 2017, when the GOP used its control of both houses of Congress to pass a bill authorizing lease sales.
It remains unclear how much interest there will be from energy companies at a time when many countries are trying to wean themselves from fossil fuels and oil prices are crashing amid the coronavirus pandemic. Exploring and drilling in harsh Arctic conditions remains difficult and costly.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The heat wave that has been straining the state’s power grid since Friday will peak today when temperatures are expected to soar to 105 in parts of San Diego County’s inland valleys.
Customers in many areas of the county received emails Monday saying that they should be prepared for temporary blackouts.
The utility is responding to a request from the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid.
The county experienced scattered rolling outages on Friday and Saturday, and could face them again as temperatures remain unseasonably high.
The National Weather Service says it will keep its excessive heat warning in place through late Thursday night and that greater San Diego will experience hot weather into next week.
The heat has prompted millions of people to crank up their air conditioners, and the California Independent System Operator is scrambling to find sources of power to meet the spike in demand.
In an effort to balance supply and demand, the system operator on Friday and Saturday ordered utilities across the Golden State to implement rotating power outages. SDG&E shut off power to about 58,700 customers Friday night for about an hour and 20 minutes.
With weather forecasters predicting no immediate letup in high temperatures, SDG&E officials say there’s a decent chance the outages will return.
A list of the service areas that could be impacted by an outage is posted on the utility’s website, sdgenews.com. People can find out whether they are affected by checking their circuit and block numbers on their bills or by logging into their account at sdge.com or on the SDG&E app.
Communities in high fire-threat districts, which sometimes have power shut off during times when the chance of a wildfire increases, will not have their lines de-energized should rotating outages return, SDG&E officials said. Critical facilities such as hospitals, police and fire stations will also be exempt.
CAISO officials on Sunday issued a statewide flex alert, a voluntary electricity conservation effort, asking Californians to pay particular attention to reducing their usage from 3 to 10 p.m. each day through Wednesday to help grid operators manage the system.
The 3 to 10 p.m. period is crucial because it coincides with the reduction of solar power onto the state’s grid. When the sun goes down, solar production is virtually eliminated and when demand increases during that period, it leaves the grid vulnerable. In addition, cloudy conditions in recent days have reduced solar output, exacerbating conditions.
Today’s daytime high will reach 85 in San Diego, about nine degrees above average. Temperatures will get into the 90s a short distance from the coast and hit the upper 90s and low 100s east of Interstate 15.
The highest temperatures west of the mountains are expected to occur in and around places including Ramona, Valley Center and Alpine, forecasters say. Desert temperatures could rise to 118 degrees.
(Rob Nikolewski & Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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More than 4,500 buildings remained threatened by the wildfire, which was burning toward thick, dry brush in the Angeles National Forest. Firefighters already battling the blaze in steep, rugged terrain in scorching heat faced more hurdles when hundreds of lightning strikes and winds up to 15 mph pushed the flames uphill.
“We set up a containment line at the top of the hills so the fire doesn’t spill over to the other side and cause it to spread, but it was obviously difficult given the erratic wind and some other conditions,” said fire spokesman Jake Miller.
The Lake fire was just 12 percent contained as of Sunday morning and has burned nearly 28 square miles [17,920 acres] of brush and trees. Fire officials said 33 buildings had been destroyed, including at least a dozen homes.
Temperatures reached the mid 90s to 100s, Miller said, a slight drop from Saturday when the mercury hit 111 degrees on Saturday at the firefighters’ base camp.
Thunderstorm and excessive heat were also a concern for firefighters battling a blaze that blackened almost 4 square miles [2560 acres] in the foothills above the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa. The fire, believed to be started Thursday by a homeless man, is only 3 percent contained.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Amid prolonged drought and climate change in a region that’s only getting thirstier, when that reckoning will arrive — and how much time remains to prepare for it — is still a guess.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released projections Friday that suggest Lake Powell and Lake Mead will dip 16 feet and 5 feet, respectively, in January from levels recorded a year earlier. Despite the dip, Lake Mead would stay above the threshold that triggers severe water cuts to cities and farms, giving officials throughout the Southwest more time to prepare for the future when the flow will slow.
“It’s at least a couple of decades until we’re saying, ‘We don’t have one more drop for the next person that comes here,’” said Ted Cooke, general manager of Central Arizona Project, the canal system that delivers river water. “But people certainly ought to be aware that water — the importation of a scarce commodity into a desert environment — is expensive and, with climate change, going to get even more expensive.”
The Colorado River supplies Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Mexico. Its water pours out of faucets in growing cities like Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix and nourishes enough farmland to yield 15 percent of total U.S. crop output and 13 percent of livestock production.
Last year, with increasingly less water flowing to Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the two largest man-made reservoirs in the United States — Arizona, California and Nevada agreed to a drought contingency plan that built in voluntary cuts to prevent the reservoirs from dropping to dangerous levels. The other states historically haven’t used their full allocation of water and focus on keeping Lake Powell full enough to generate hydropower.
Nevada and Arizona will make those voluntary cuts under the new projections, which they also made last year for the first time. But because neither state is using its full share of water, the impact has been minimal and hasn’t trickled down to homes.
Lake Mead’s expected level of 1,089 feet is almost identical to last year’s projections because conservation efforts and a snowy winter prevented an expected drop, said Michael Bernardo, Bureau of Reclamation river operations manager. The wet weather didn’t last, prompting engineers to forecast the lakes will keep receding.
When projections drop below 1,075 feet, Nevada and Arizona will face deeper cuts mandated by agreements between the seven states and Mexico.
“The future of the river is going to be drier than the past ...,” said Colby Pellegrino, Southern Nevada Water Authority’s deputy general manager of resources. “Every sector is going to have to learn how to do more with less.”
Since 1990, the population has more than tripled in the Las Vegas area, which gets nearly 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River. But by treating and recycling almost all water used indoors — for flushing toilets and running dishwashers, for example — and replacing nearly 305,000 square miles of grass with desert-friendly landscaping, the area has consumed far less than it’s allocated.
Elsewhere, officials are scrambling to find alternative water supplies to sustain growing cities and farms. Agricultural areas can’t replicate Las Vegas’ turf removal program. And Nevada’s ability to restore treated wastewater to Lake Mead, which is about 30 miles east of Las Vegas, can’t be done in places with less storage capacity, like Southern California, where wastewater runs into the Pacific Ocean.
In Arizona, where nearly 40 percent of water comes from the Colorado River, officials need to aggressively pursue alternative sources, ranging from underground aquifers to ocean water desalination, to keep serving customers long term, said Cooke of the Central Arizona Project.
For now, he said, people can take comfort in progress made to secure the river’s future with last year’s drought contingency plan. But once Lake Mead dips low enough, Arizona will endure the most painful cuts of any state based on an agreed-upon priority list — first rural farmers, then eventually cities.
Tribes within the Colorado River basin also have at least 785,000 acre-feet of water each year that they have claimed but haven’t legally settled, or enough to fill about 3.2 billion average-sized bathtubs, according to a federal study. Arizona pays two tribes for their unused water, relying heavily on it to fulfill the state’s obligations in the drought contingency plan.
John Fleck, director of University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program, said that unlike conservation, costs hinder most proposals to bring in new water.
“What you’re seeing is these expensive projects are dying because of this conservation trend,” he said. “They’re just super expensive, and we’re seeing communities successfully conserving without too much trouble.”
Cooke acknowledged the costs of alternative supply projects but said conservation-minded academics like Fleck have a different perspective because they aren’t accountable to customers and constituents.
“We’re working on both of those things — both to reduce consumption and to increase supply — and we don’t have to make a choice between one or the other,” Cooke said.
(Sam Metz, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The land hurricane, known as a derecho, caught farmers in fields, bicyclists on trails and travelers on highways — unaware that a series of thunderstorms that had formed the night before in South Dakota had picked up strength as it moved across Nebraska.
At least three people in Iowa and one in Indiana were killed, including a bicyclist on a trail and a woman sitting on her front porch — both struck by trees.
Forecasters had predicted thunderstorms and in some communities tornado sirens sounded 20 to 30 minutes before the winds began. But for many people, there was no sense that the day would be different from any other muggy Monday in August.
Farmer Dave Struthers was driving to his parents’ farm a few miles away when waves of blinding rain and a wall of wind nearly pushed his pickup off the road.
“I sure didn’t hear anything about it,” he said. “It blew strong for 10 or more minutes. Just solid. It just kept going.”
Eric Fish, 33, was napping at his Cedar Rapids home when the wind began to blow. He said he didn’t hear any sirens and didn’t have time to get to the basement. He took cover in a closet. “I felt like I was going to die alone,” he said.
Fish hopes forecasters and local officials can find a better way to warn people about such major storms.
Scientists say it’s difficult to give advance warning about a derecho because, unlike a more distant hurricane forming over the ocean, its formation is not readily apparent.
Even had forecasters provided warnings, it’s not clear it would have made a difference. Thunderstorms and tornadoes are common in the Midwest, and many residents are desensitized to severe weather warnings.
“Severe thunderstorms can be just as dangerous to a person as a derecho can be to a series of communities, but we don’t think about severe thunderstorms in that regard,” said Patrick Marsh, chief of science support at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
The National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working on tools that would assist forecasters in making predictions that consider a range of possibilities. In the future, a forecast for the next day might say that a thunderstorm is a likely scenario, with a chance for a derecho given the right conditions, Marsh said.
Scientists now believe Monday’s derecho traveled 1,000 miles from South Dakota to northwest Ohio. It appears the storm began picking up strength in Nebraska, gaining power as it moved across Iowa before weakening as it approached Ohio.
Marsh was working the forecast shift at at the Storm Prediction Center last Sunday and said that all the weather prediction models suggested the storms would move east with no immediate sign they would be as intense as a derecho.
“Obviously the fact that it happened, it should have been in the realm of possibility and we need to continue to work to evolve our tools to be able to identify the entire range of possibilities,” Marsh said.
(David Pitt, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A huge forest fire that prompted evacuations north of Los Angeles flared up Friday afternoon, sending up an enormous cloud of smoke as it headed toward the California aqueduct in the Antelope Valley. However, fire crews quickly managed to stop its movement there.
The so-called Lake fire was just 12 percent contained, and after threatening more than 5,400 homes, it had charred more than 18 square miles [11,520 acres] of brush and trees.
Cooler overnight temperatures helped firefighters increase containment. But the temperature hit 100 degrees Friday in the area, and the forecast called for continuing hot, dry weather with dangerous fire conditions because of possible gusty winds.
“The heat, the weather, that’s what made this fire go,” Nathan Judy of the U.S. Forest Service told KABC-TV.
Record-breaking heat is possible through the weekend, with triple-digit temperatures and unhealthy air predicted for many parts of the state.
Preliminary damage assessments found that at least five buildings burned in the Lake Hughes area north of Los Angeles, but authorities said they believed more had been damaged or destroyed.
There was no containment of a blaze that blackened foothills above the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa. It churned through 2.3 square miles [1472 acres] of brush on Thursday and was moving away from homes. Evacuation orders issued to residents were lifted early Friday.
On Friday, helicopters and crews on the ground worked to prevent the fire from reaching nearby homes, and shortly before 4:30 p.m., the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported the blaze was growing but “burning away from foothill cities and into the forest.”
Another blaze came dangerously close to a neighborhood in Corona before crews controlled it. And a Northern California fire in the community of Sloughhouse, near Sacramento, burned about 500 acres before firefighters stopped its forward spread.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The rolling outages began at 6:40 p.m. and ended shortly after 8 p.m., SDG&E said. The blackouts affected about 58,700 of the utility’s customers throughout the region.
It was the first time since 2001 that the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state power grid, had asked SDG&E to impose rolling outages.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The fire exploded in size within hours after it broke out in dense forest on Wednesday afternoon, sending up a towering plume visible for hundreds of miles around.
Flames raced across ridges and steep slopes, including in some areas that had not burned since 1968, fire officials said. By Thursday morning, the blaze had consumed nearly 16.5 square miles [10,560 acres] of timber and brush. There was no containment.
Light winds and scattered thundershowers early in the day helped firefighters tame the flames somewhat. But as the cloud cover cleared and temperatures spiked Thursday afternoon, officials prepared for a repeat of the ferocious fire activity seen a day earlier.
“This will be a major fire for several days,” said Chief Robert Garcia with the U.S. Forest Service.
About 100 rural homes were evacuated in the Lake Hughes area of the Angeles National Forest, some 60 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Preliminary damage assessments found that at least three structures, including at least one home, burned, but authorities warned the toll would likely be higher.
Evacuation centers were designated for residents and animals, but because of COVID-19 concerns, people were told to stay in their cars in the parking lots.
The cause of the blaze, dubbed the Lake fire, is under investigation.
Several new fires erupted Thursday. The largest was near the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa. It burned nearly 4 square miles of brush but was moving away from homes. However, some evacuations were ordered.
The heat wave was expected to last through the weekend, bringing triple-digit temperatures and extreme fire danger to large parts of California.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The temperatures will be in the 115- to 120-degree range in local deserts.
An excessive heat warning will be in effect from noon Friday until 9 p.m. on Monday, and forecasters say it is possible that the heat wave will extend into the middle of next week. The warning area will extend from roughly Interstate 15 east to the valleys and foothills below 5,000 feet, and into the eastern deserts.
The weather service says the heat wave poses a potentially dangerous threat because it will produce sustained heat during the day and unusually warm conditions at night. The system poses a particular threat to people with weak respiratory systems.
The heat wave will drive people to the coast, where sea surface temperatures have been cooler than normal due to coastal upwelling. The water was in the 68- to 69-degree range on Wednesday afternoon along the San Diego County coastline. It is usually in the low- to mid-70s this time of year.
San Diego International Airport also has been cooler than normal since the beginning of the month due to the effects of low-pressure systems.
Tropical Storm Elida, which is still swirling west of the Baja California peninsula, will send warm moisture into Southern California. But forecasters say the system will not produce unusually humid conditions in San Diego County during the heat wave. And it is unlikely that the seasonal monsoon will dig in until sometime next week, at the earliest.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The rare storm known as a derecho hit Monday, devastating parts of the power grid, flattening valuable corn fields and killing at least two people. It produced winds of up to 112 mph near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and toppled trees, snapped poles, downed power lines and tore off roofs from eastern Nebraska to Indiana.
“It feels like we got kicked in the teeth pretty good,” said Dale Todd, a member of Cedar Rapids’ city council. “Recovery will be methodical, and slow. But right now, everybody is working to ensure the critical services are restored.”
Todd said the city’s response has been complicated by the challenge of communicating with people who have no power, which means they have limited access to Internet, TV and phone service.
Across the city of 133,000 people, residents emptied their refrigerators and freezers as their food spoiled, waited at gas stations for an hour or longer to fill up their cars and gas cans, and worked to clear fallen trees.
Cedar Rapids spokesman Greg Buelow said several patients reported to hospitals with chainsaw injuries acquired while removing tree debris.
In addition, firefighters responded to two fires Wednesday morning that were started by power generators that were too close to homes, he said.
Crews throughout the region have been working around the clock to restore electricity, but they’ve been hindered by downed trees blocking roads or on top of power lines.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm known as a derecho tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois, blowing over trees, flipping vehicles and causing widespread damage to property and crops. The storm left downed trees and power lines that blocked roadways in Chicago and its suburbs. After leaving Chicago, the most potent part of the storm system moved over north-central Indiana.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said early estimates indicate 10 million acres have been damaged in the nation’s top corn-producing state and many grain bins were destroyed. That would be nearly a third of the roughly 31 million acres of land farmed in the state. The most significant damage is to the corn crop, which is in the advanced stages of development nearly a month away from the beginning of harvest.
“This morning I had a farmer reach out to me to say this was the worst wind damage to crops and farm buildings that he has ever seen across the state in such a wide area,” Reynolds said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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They are concerned about the possibility that the swarm could trigger a larger event, a phenomenon that has occurred in that region in the past.
Scientists said Monday afternoon that there’s a less than 1 percent chance that the swarm will produce a 6.0 or larger quake within the next month. But the location of the swarm is worrisome due to its closeness to the San Andreas.
The swarm began with a 3.2 quake at 6:33 a.m. on a previously unidentified fault roughly 7.5 miles south-southwest of the San Andreas.
Through 4 p.m. Monday it was followed by 13 other quakes measuring 3.0 or higher, including a 4.6 temblor at 8:56 a.m. that was felt in parts of San Diego County, including San Diego, Encinitas and Escondido. Two of the quakes measured 4.0.
This is the fourth swarm in that overall region since 2001, scientists said.
“We have had many swarms in that area over the years and there has been no triggering of a fault, but we’re watching this closely,” said Neil Driscoll, a geophysicist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
“We can’t say whether it is or isn’t going to trigger a larger earthquake.”
Scientists note that they have seen quakes trigger bigger temblors in that same region. Driscoll pointed to a chain reaction that occurred in November 1987 when a 6.2 quake on the Elmore Ranch fault near the Salton Sea triggered a 6.6 temblor just over 11 hours later on the Superstition Hills fault.
Both quakes were widely felt in San Diego County.
Tom Rockwell, a seismologist at San Diego State University, said Monday that “it is possible that the swarm will trigger a larger quake.” But he added that there’s no way of knowing when such an event might occur, or how large it would be.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Greece’s meteorological service said parts of Evia saw rainfall that reached nearly 12 inches, some 80 percent of the annual rainfall for the area, which is only about 15 inches, usually with negligible rain during the summer.
Police say the couple, 86 and 85 years old, were found unconscious in their flooded home Sunday morning in the seaside village of Politika, 62 miles north of the capital, Athens. The baby was found in a ground floor apartment in the same village. The mayor reportedly said the baby’s family were tourists.
Deputy Minister for Civil Protection Nikos Hardalias confirmed the deaths Sunday afternoon and added that two people are missing. The names of the dead and missing were not released.
Later, one of the missing, an elderly woman, was found floating at sea off the coast, sitting on top of a bureau. She had climbed on it just as the floodwaters burst into her house.
Firefighters later came upon the bodies of a 38-year-old woman and her 42-year-old husband outside their home in the inland village of Amfithea.
A river burst through its banks and flooded part of Politika, forcing many residents to climb to the rooftops of their homes. Another river in the village of Bourtzi also burst its banks. Authorities estimated that 3,000 residences had been partially or totally damaged by floodwaters and police said many local roads are impassible.
Heavy rain started falling at about midnight Saturday and firefighters responded to over 50 fires caused by lightning.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service in Greenville said the 5.1-magnitude temblor struck at 8:07 a.m., following a much smaller quake several hours earlier.
There were no reports of serious injuries, but some minor structural damage was reported in Sparta, as well as cracks in roads. Images on social media also showed items knocked off of grocery store shelves.
The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website that there are chances for one or more aftershocks in the next week, forecasting a 45 percent chance for earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater. The chances of another quake as strong as the one on Sunday or greater was about 1 percent, the geological survey said.
Alleghany County, which includes Sparta, declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon.
It was the largest earthquake to hit the state since 1916, when a magnitude 5.5 quake occurred near Skyland, the weather service said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Tuesday’s storm dealt the region a surprisingly sharp blow, killing at least one person, downing trees, halting commuter trains and initially knocking out power to more than 2.5 million customers. A customer can be a single home or a skyscraper, sometimes even an entire apartment complex.
“We understand the frustration,” Con Edison President Tim Cawley said Saturday afternoon as 71,000 of the utility’s customers in New York City and its northern suburbs remained without power, down from 300,000 Tuesday.
“We are doing everything we can to restore power as quickly as we can,” he said. Con Edison said about 2,900 workers were grappling with the aftermath of the storm, with another 320 workers due to arrive Sunday. New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Deanne Criswell said at a separate news conference that the city was moving as quickly as possible to clear downed trees.
Still, some of the region’s elected officials have blasted the utilities’ preparedness and response, with New York and Connecticut launching investigations.
The outages themselves were posing dangers: Four people were hospitalized late Friday with carbon monoxide poisoning from a home on Long Island, where a generator was running in the basement, police said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Air India Express Boeing 737 was a special repatriation flight carrying more than 180 passengers from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Kozhikode, a city along India’s southwestern coast in Kerala state. Many aboard were Indians who had been stranded in the Persian Gulf during the coronavirus pandemic and had been waiting for months to return home.
Indian media showed injured passengers lying on their backs in the hallways of a hospital, transported there by emergency workers in a drenching rain.
Air India Express said in a bulletin posted on its Twitter account that 17 people were killed, including the two pilots. The captain of the flight was described by Indian news media as a decorated former military officer who had served as a test pilot for the Indian Air Force.
All week in Kerala the monsoon rains have been pouring down. At least 15 people were killed by a massive landslide in the state earlier Friday, when a hillside of rock and sludge crashed into a workers’ hostel on a tea plantation.
The weather had been so bad that the India Meteorological Department had declared a red alert in three of Kerala’s districts, including the area where the crash happened.
“There is no doubt that extreme weather conditions contributed to this,” Shashi Tharoor, a prominent member of Parliament from Kerala, said in a televised interview. “During our monsoons, things can be very, very difficult.”
Aviation experts said that it was hard to slow a plane on a wet and slick runway. According to a statement by Air India Express, the plane “overshot” the runway, which was on a flat hilltop, with deep gorges on either side.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday upped its seasonal forecast, now predicting a far-above-average 19 to 25 named storms — seven to 11 of them to become hurricanes and three to six of those to become major hurricanes with winds of at least 111 mph. That’s a few more storms than the agency’s May forecast. The agency increased the chance of an above average hurricane season from 60 percent to 85 percent.
“It looks like this season could be one of the more active in the historical record,” but it’s unlikely to beat 2005’s 28 named storms because the oceans were warmer and other conditions were more conducive to storm formation 15 years ago, said NOAA lead forecaster Gerry Bell.
Colorado State University, which pioneered hurricane season forecasts decades ago, on Wednesday amped its forecast to 24 named storms, 12 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes — all higher than their June forecast.
An average year, based on 1981 to 2010 data, is 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes. Lead Colorado State forecaster Phil Klotzbach said all the factors that cause hurricane seasons to be busy are dialed up, including increased storminess in Africa that seeds the biggest hurricanes, warmer water that fuels storms and reduced high level winds that kill storms.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The sound of generators and chainsaws punctuated the sunrise in New Jersey, where more than 1 million homes and businesses were without electricity. NJ Transit train service remained suspended while crews cleared about 150 trees and repair signals and overhead wires.
Regional rail service was also suspended in Philadelphia after Isaias raised the Schuylkill River and sent an unsecured construction barge into a bridge. Inspectors were checking for damage. Interstate 676, which crosses the bridge, was also closed in both directions.
Patrick Foye, chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said more than 2,000 trees fell across the system’s train and bus network.
“This storm caused severe damage,” Foye said Wednesday. “Not since Superstorm Sandy has our system experienced this type of wind.”
Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Another person died in Pennsylvania when their vehicle was overtaken by water and swept downstream. The 5-year-old girl had gone missing from her Philadelphia-area home during the height of the storm Tuesday and was found dead Wednesday. Authorities said they believed she was swept away by floodwaters in the creek behind her house.
Three others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland, Connecticut and New York City, and another person died in Delaware when a tree branch fell on them, authorities said. A woman was found dead inside a New Hampshire house Tuesday evening.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The wildfire straddling Riverside and San Bernardino counties had consumed nearly 43 square miles of brush and trees since it broke out Friday, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
As of Wednesday morning, the Apple fire was 30 percent contained.
Most residents forced from their homes by the flames were allowed to return Tuesday evening. At its peak, about 7,000 people were under evacuation orders.
The blaze, sparked by a malfunctioning vehicle, burned a dozen buildings, including four homes.
About 200 miles to the northwest, crews battled a fast-growing wildfire that broke out Tuesday and prompted evacuations of rural communities in Kern County.
By Wednesday morning, the Stagecoach fire south of Lake Isabella had charred nearly 6.5 square miles of brush.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Although it quickly weakened to a tropical storm, Isaias made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane and maintained a punishing level of power as it raked over the Eastern Seaboard, forcing a swath of the country — from the Carolinas to the Northeast — to grapple with its devastation.
In North Carolina, one tornado killed at least two people as it eviscerated a rural patch of roughly a dozen mobile homes, leaving only two standing. “The rest of them is pretty much gone,” Bertie County Sheriff John Holley told a local television station.
“It don’t look real,” he said. “It’s sad and it’s hard.”
Officials throughout the storm’s path declared states of emergency and urged residents to stay out of harm’s way, underscoring the multitude of perils lingering in the storm’s wake.
A woman in St. Mary’s County, Md., was killed after a tree fell and crushed her vehicle as she drove; the authorities said it took several hours to remove the woman’s body from the wreckage. At least one other person was killed under similar circumstances in Queens, officials said, after the storm swept into New York City.
More than 3 million utility customers along the storm’s path in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York were without power Tuesday night, according to Poweroutage.us, a website that tracks and aggregates reports from utilities.
Tropical storm warnings reached as far up the Atlantic Coast as Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and a tornado watch was in effect throughout the day for New York City, Long Island, much of New Jersey and parts of Connecticut.
Forecasters warned of the possibility of flash floods across much of the Mid-Atlantic region.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Apple fire was ignited by “a diesel-fueled vehicle emitting burning carbon from the exhaust system,” according to a statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Riverside County Fire Department.
Crews battling the blaze, which is burning north of Cherry Valley in Riverside County, have had to contend with challenging weather conditions, including warm temperatures and strengthening afternoon winds.
The fire has burned 26,450 acres and was 5 percent contained as of Monday afternoon, Cal Fire said.
“Much of the fire activity is being driven by the record-low moisture content of the vegetation in the area combined with high temperatures and low relative humidity,” officials wrote in an incident update. “These conditions are contributing to active fire behavior both day and night.”
Officials added that the blaze — which was first reported at 4:55 p.m. Friday in the 9000 block of Oak Glen Road — is “burning in an area with no recent fire history.”
Roughly 2,300 fire personnel are working to douse the flames.
Multiple evacuation orders and warnings were put in place Sunday in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Roughly 7,800 residents in more than 2,500 households have been ordered to evacuate, officials said. The blaze has destroyed one home.
Cal Fire is seeking information about the blaze from anyone who may have seen a vehicle that appeared to have mechanical problems or unusual smoke emitting from it, specifically in the area of Oak Glen Road when the fire first started, officials said Monday.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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On the coast of the Carolinas, residents were preparing for the Category 1 storm’s arrival Monday night, boarding up their windows and stocking up on generators, flashlights and gas cans. Farther inland, in North Carolina and Maryland, officials said that flooding would be one of the storm’s most perilous risks.
The storm is expected to soak much of the East Coast in the coming days, prompting state officials to caution residents that they must prepare for heavy rainfall and powerful winds while remaining vigilant against the coronavirus.
“I know that North Carolinians have had to dig deep in recent months to tap into our strength and resilience during the pandemic, and that hasn’t been easy,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said. “But with this storm on the way, we have to dig a little deeper. Let’s keep each other safe from the wind and water as well as from the virus.”
Isaias strengthened back into a hurricane on Monday night and was expected to make landfall near the South Carolina-North Carolina border. A hurricane warning was issued from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Surf City, N.C., a region that includes Myrtle Beach, S.C.
The eastern Carolinas and Virginia may get 3 to 6 inches of rain, with isolated areas receiving up to 8 inches. Significant flash floods and urban flooding can be expected through the middle of the week, and widespread minor to moderate river flooding is possible. Tropical-force winds and heavy rain were also expected to hit Maryland.
The Middle Atlantic states, southeastern New York and New England can expect a few inches of rain. Tropical storm warnings and watches were in effect Monday night all the way up the Eastern Seaboard, including in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and Stonington, Maine.
Heavy rainfall in northeastern New Jersey, New York City and the lower Hudson Valley was expected to begin late Monday night, building into heavier downpours by this afternoon and evening, said Matthew Wunsch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Emergency management officials in New York City said the storm might bring 3 to 6 inches of rain in some areas.
Gov. Philip Murphy of New Jersey asked people Monday to stay inside during the storm, clarifying that it should not be an invitation to huddle together with friends and relatives for the kind of gatherings that have been behind a recent rise in coronavirus cases there.
“I’m not a fan of hurricane parties,” Murphy said, referring to the events that became something of a tradition in Florida during minor storms. “If it’s a hurricane party, you’re inside. It just doesn’t make sense, folks. It doesn’t end well. And we know that.”
Officials in Florida expressed relief over the weekend, saying that Isaias failed to deliver the punch they had feared after it first became a Category 1 hurricane in the Caribbean. It brought rain and wind, but not enough to create significant damage.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Apple fire in Riverside County burned up steep and rugged hillsides as it spread north and east toward the San Gorgonio Wilderness area while continuing to threaten houses to the south.
The wildfire had burned at least 20,516 acres and had 5 percent containment as of Sunday night.
The terrain is characterized by a web of narrow canyons and drainage channels, which “is creating this higher potential for extremely active fire behavior,” said Lisa Cox, fire information officer for the San Bernardino National Forest.
“What we saw yesterday was a perfect example of that,” she said. “So we did see a very large pyrocumulus cloud just kind of mushroom up into the sky that people could see all the way to Los Angeles.
“And what happens is when those really thick fuels start ripping and burning in those canyons, it creates this incredible power. The fire actually — it doesn’t even matter what the wind’s doing at that point — it just creates its own weather.”
The cloud pushes embers down and blows them in all directions, creating the potential for rapid and unpredictable spread, Cox said.
“The concern with that is that firefighters cannot control what that plume of smoke does,” she said. “Firefighters cannot control when it’s going up in the sky and coming down in all directions.”
Still, she said, they can prepare by making sure evacuations are ordered and putting down retardant and water in anticipation of where the embers might rain down. The huge smoke plume contributed to poor air quality.
More than 1,300 firefighters were battling the blaze using both ground equipment and helicopters and air tankers. They included structure protection crews whose mission is “to get down into those communities and save homes,” Cox said.
Multiple evacuation orders and warnings remained in place Sunday in both Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Roughly 7,800 residents in over 2,500 households were ordered to evacuate, April Newman, a public information officer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Riverside County Fire Department, said Saturday afternoon.
An evacuation center was opened at Beaumont High School for people and animals.
The American Red Cross arranged for hotel rooms for 32 people from about 10 households Saturday night, regional disaster officer Debbie Leahy said Sunday. Many of those who were ordered to evacuate appear to have made their own accommodations, she said.
“They’re taking care of themselves which is great, and then the Red Cross is assisting those that might need a little help,” she said.
The evacuation point is staffed by volunteers who are trained in COVID-19 safety protocols and outfitted with face coverings, and social distancing is strictly observed, she said. All who enter must undergo a brief health screening, and nurses are also conducting daily telephone screenings of the evacuees who were placed in hotel rooms, she said.
“We’re in a COVID environment, and then if we have these wildfires at that, it complicates the situation,” she said. “But if we just all focus on safety we’re going to be OK.”
Officials allowed flames to run up the side of Mount San Gorgonio, an 11,000-foot peak, because it wasn’t safe to let crews work in such steep, rugged terrain, Cox said.
“We don’t want to put firefighters in a dangerous situation,” Cox told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. “It’s burning in a straight line up a mountain.”
No injuries were reported.
Weather conditions contributed to the fire’s rapid spread. Humidity levels plummeted to the teens by mid-afternoon Sunday, with poor overnight recovery along slopes and ridges. The mercury hit 109 degrees Sunday in nearby Palm Springs.
Westerly winds were forecast to pick up after 3 p.m. and peak between 6 and 9 p.m. at 10 to 20 mph, with gusts of up to 30 mph, said Miguel Miller, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.
The pattern of winds strengthening in the late afternoons and evenings will likely persist for the next several days, he said.
“It’s not anything outrageous or very strong but it’s enough to push the fire around a little bit,” he said.
But if the fire spreads another 10 to 15 miles to the east, where the San Gorgonio pass creates an intense natural wind tunnel, the situation could change, he said.
“If we can keep it out of that tunnel then we’ll be doing firefighters and everybody a big favor,” he said. “But hopefully these winds that we’re having will not send it into that dangerous area.”
The U.S. Forest Service on Saturday ordered an emergency closure of the San Gorgonio Wilderness area of the San Bernardino National Forest, including the Pacific Crest Trail between the forest boundary and Forest Road 1N01. Forest Service recreation areas in the Forest Falls area were also closed.
Forest Service recreation staff and volunteers have been visiting trailheads to let hikers and backpackers know that the wilderness area is closed, and on Saturday announcements were also made via helicopter, Cox said.
“They’re not in danger right at this moment but we preemptively want to make sure they have enough time to get out,” she said.
The vegetation fire was first reported at 4:55 p.m. Friday in the 9000 block of Oak Glen Road, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. The cause remains under investigation.
The fire was burning through thick fuels, which were fueled by seasonal rainfall that was close to average in the area, Miller said.
“That made for a decent green up, as they call it, in the springtime — leafing out the vegetation, the grasses get going,” he said. “Then by May, June, certainly by July you get a curing. Those grasses simply dry up, they turn yellow, they turn flammable. And that’s why summertime is the high fire season.”
Experts now call this period where weather conditions increase the risk of rapid fire spread “high fire season” because fire season is largely year-round, he said.
“High fire season is defined differently for every season because it depends a lot on vegetation growth, winter rains and the number of dry events such as offshore flow and Santa Anas that dry out vegetation prematurely,” he said.
“But late July and early August is certainly right when we start ramping up.”
(Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES; ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials dealing with surging cases of the coronavirus in Florida kept a close watch on the storm that was weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Saturday afternoon, but still brought heavy rain and flooding to Florida’s Atlantic coast.
The National Hurricane Center advised late Sunday afternoon that the storm was about 65 miles off the east coast of Central Florida, and about 410 miles south of Myrtle Beach, S.C.
It was strengthening slightly with sustained winds just under a Category 1 hurricane, taking a north-northwest path, according to the center.
“Don’t be fooled by the downgrade,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned at a news conference after the storm spent hours roughing up the Bahamas.
Upper-level winds took much of the strength out of Isaias, said Stacy Stewart, senior hurricane specialist at the hurricane center in Miami.
“We were expecting a hurricane to develop and it didn’t,” Stewart said Sunday. “It’s a tale of two storms. If you live on the west side of the storm, you didn’t get much. If you live east of the storm, there’s a lot of nasty weather there.”
Authorities closed beaches, parks and virus testing sites, lashing signs to palm trees so they wouldn’t blow away. DeSantis said the state is anticipating power outages and asked residents to have a week’s supply of water, food and medicine on hand. Officials wrestled with how to prepare shelters where people can seek refuge from the storm if necessary, while also safely social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Hurricane Center issued the warning for more than 150 miles of the Florida coastline, stretching from Boca Raton to the northern bound of Brevard County, according to an advisory Friday afternoon. Hurricane warnings are still in effect for portions of the Bahamas through today.
Hurricane watches, tropical storm warnings, a storm surge watch and a tropical storm watch are in effect for other parts of Florida’s east coast.
The center forecast that the storm would near southeast Florida this afternoon and through Sunday, and then travel north up the state’s eastern coast late Sunday. Isaias threatened strong winds, heavy rainfall and high storm surges late this weekend.
Isaias, a Category 1 hurricane, is expected to continue to strengthen early today and remain a hurricane for the next few days, but it is not forecast to strengthen to a Category 2, said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.
The storm, already the ninth named system of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, approached the Bahamas from the southeast Friday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. Strong squalls and possible storm surges, forecast between 3 to 5 feet, threatened the islands, according to the center.
The threat from Isaias to the Bahamas comes less than a year after Hurricane Dorian ravaged Abaco and Grand Bahama.
The storm hit the Bahamas as it is grappling with a rapid increase in the number of coronavirus infections that has only accelerated in recent days, in what health officials are calling a second wave.
Florida has also been grappling with a surge in coronavirus cases. There were more than 461,000 cases statewide and more than 6,500 deaths as of Friday since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database. Friday was the third consecutive day Florida set its record for the most deaths reported in a single day.
At news conferences Friday, the Miami-Dade and Broward County mayors said coronavirus testing sites would be closed until next week.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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(Deborah Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The storm’s maximum sustained winds of 60 mph turned several streets into fast-flowing rivers and toppled trees and some telephone and electrical cables in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from previous hurricanes and earthquakes. The National Guard rescued at least 35 people, including two newborns. Authorities in the northwest town of Rincon reported a woman missing after floodwaters swept her away when she tried to drive across a bridge.
Government workers in the Dominican Republic used loudspeakers to urge people to evacuate ahead of the worst of the storm, while police arrested a handful of surfers in the capital of Santo Domingo accused of violating government storm warnings.
Especially hard hit was Puerto Rico’s southern region, which still shakes daily from aftershocks. Heavy rains inundated neighborhoods weakened by the temblors, causing some recently abandoned homes to collapse.
“Everyone is in a constant state of emergency,” said Marieli Grant with Mercy Corps.
Isaias was centered about 95 miles east-southeast of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas late Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at 18 mph, and its center was forecast to move near the southeastern Bahamas during the night, be near the central Bahamas late today and move near or over the northwest Bahamas and near South Florida on Saturday.
A hurricane warning was issued for the northwestern Bahamas, including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abacos Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahamas Island, and Bimini.
Tropical storm warnings were posted for the Turks and Caicos Islands and portions of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Bahamas. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the east coast of Florida from Ocean Reef to Sebastian Inlet.
The storm knocked out power to more than 400,000 clients across Puerto Rico, including hospitals that switched to generators, and left some 150,000 customers without water. Crews opened the gates of one dam that last month had such a low water level that officials cut service every other day for some 140,000 customers. Outages also were reported in the neighboring U.S. Virgin Islands.
Other damage, including 14 percent of cell towers down, was reported elsewhere across Puerto Rico, where tens of thousands of people still use tarps as roofs over homes damaged by Hurricane Maria in September 2017.
“I didn’t think it was going to be this strong,” said Jose Pagan, a 22-year-old who lives in the eastern mountain town of Juncos and whose home was slightly flooded. “It’s a rather difficult experience because it reminds us of Maria.”
More than 50 people sought public shelter in Puerto Rico, said Gov. Wanda Vazquez, who urged those living near swollen rivers to find refuge. But many remained wary of shelters given a spike in COVID-19 cases on the island.
In the western town of Mayaguez, Alan Rivera, a 40-year-old engineer, told the AP that the street in front of his house turned into a flowing river — something that didn’t even happen during Hurricane Maria. He and his family planned to temporarily move in with his parents despite concerns about the coronavirus.
“We have to take the risk,” he said. “There’s no other alternative.”
U.S. President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration in Puerto Rico as a result of the storm.
Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches of rain across Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and northern Haiti, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches.
(Danica Coto, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The hottest weather will occur on Friday as a dry air mass from the east moves through the region, pushing people to local beaches, where the ocean is unseasonably cool.
“We could have temperatures of 100 or more from Rainbow down to Valley Center to Escondido, Ramona, El Cajon, Alpine and Portrero,” said Mark Moede, a weather service forecaster. “And it could hit 118 at Borrego Springs and 120 at Ocotillo Wells.
“It won’t be a good time to go hiking in those areas.”
Moede said it’s highly likely that heat records will be set in such places at Ramona and El Cajon.
Over the three-day period, temperatures will range from the mid- to upper-70s at local beaches to the 80s a short distance inland and 90 or above in spots like Miramar. A shallow marine layer could persist for much of the day at some beaches, particularly Oceanside.
The heat will ease a bit on Saturday, but many inland areas could reach 100.
The region won’t have to deal with high humidity; the seasonal monsoon has yet to make an appearance.
Sea surface temperatures are in the 60- to 65-degree range. They’re usually in the upper 60s to low 70s at this time of year. Recent upwelling has caused colder, deeper water to rise to the surface. Forecasters say the surf will remain small throughout the weekend.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Tuesday’s preliminary high of 125.2 degrees in Baghdad shatters the Iraqi capital’s previous record of 123.8 degrees set on July 30, 2015, for any day of the year.
On Wednesday, Baghdad followed up with a temperature of 124 degrees, its second-highest temperature on record. On Monday, it had reached 123 degrees.
The heat forced many residents indoors, and street merchants sought whatever shade they could find. With the state electricity grid failing, many households were relying on generators to power refrigerators, fans or air-conditioning units, the machines adding a guttural hum to the city’s already-noisy streets.
Security forces fatally shot two protesters Monday during demonstrations over a lack of electricity and basic services amid the heat wave.
More near-record temperatures in the 120s are likely today in and around Baghdad before a slight moderation Friday. Highs to round out the week into the weekend should fall back into the upper 110s.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“Plaintiffs in this case raise some of the most disturbing allegations of malfeasance by government actors in Michigan’s history,” Justice Richard Bernstein said.
The court’s opinion was a key procedural step in long-running litigation that now will return to the Court of Claims.
By a 4-2 vote, the Supreme Court said Flint residents could pursue a claim of diminished property values. Residents also can argue that their right to bodily integrity was violated by the use of corrosive water from the Flint River.
That part of the opinion was a 3-3 tie. But it’s a victory for residents because a tie under court rules affirms an earlier decision in their favor by the Michigan appeals court.
Flint used water from the Flint River in 2014-15 without treating it to reduce the corrosive effect on old pipes. As a result, lead leached into the system. Use of the river water was supposed to be a temporary measure while a pipeline was built to Lake Huron.
The lawsuit names then-Gov. Rick Snyder, two former Flint government managers appointed by Snyder and public agencies that repeatedly assured the public that the water was safe.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Now a tropical depression, Hanna was 65 miles north of Fresnillo in the Mexican state of Zacatecas as its winds weakened to about 25 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Its remnants still threatened to bring rainfall and flash flooding to waterlogged parts of South Texas and Northern Mexico.
For 66-year-old, Nora Esquivel, who has mostly stayed in her home in Weslaco, Texas, in Hidalgo County since March because of the pandemic, flooding damage to her home from Hanna meant greater chance of exposure to the virus.
“No contact with nobody, only my daughter once in a while, and now with this, I have to allow people to come into my house, the insurance and all this and I’m scared,” said a tearful Esquivel, who takes heart medication and had to be rescued from her home Sunday morning by her son on a kayak.
“All my friends are dying. I have fear for my family, for everybody, not just me and this is the whole world.”
Gov. Greg Abbott said the state was sending additional testing supplies and hospital personnel to South Texas communities impacted by Hanna to ensure the storm doesn’t exacerbate the spread of the virus.
“The spread of COVID can be far more deadly than the damage caused by the storm,” Abbott said on KRGV-TV. He planned to tour damaged areas on today.
Separately, Hawaii avoided a direct hit Monday from Hurricane Douglas and the Category 1 storm was swirling just north of the island chain.
The Central Pacific Warning Center lifted the hurricane warning for the island of Kauai, the final remaining hurricane warning in place for the nation’s only island state. There were no initial reports of injuries and what damage there was appeared to be minor.
The storm tracked just north of the islands, and officials said it appeared to pass about 45 miles north of Maui and possibly closer to Oahu.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Downgraded to a tropical storm, Hanna passed over the U.S.-Mexico border with winds near 50 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It unloaded more than 12 inches) of rain on parts of South Texas and northeastern Mexico.
Border communities whose health care systems were already strained by COVID-19 cases — with some patients being airlifted to larger cities — found themselves under siege from the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic season. There were no immediate reports of any deaths on either side of the border.
Dr. Ivan Melendez, the health authority in Hidalgo County, Texas, was treating a COVID patient overnight at a hospital when he and a nurse noticed water streaming down a wall and pooling on the floor. The water was flowing through a vent in the room, which had been retrofitted with a fan to create negative pressure and prevent the virus spreading through the hospital.
Henry Van De Putte, CEO of the Red Cross’ Texas Gulf Coast chapter, said the organization would open more shelters with reduced capacity to ensure social distancing. Volunteers and people seeking refuge will undergo temperature checks, and a medical professional will be assigned to each location, he said.
A community building known as the “Dome” in Mercedes, Texas, was set aside for evacuees who had tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to the virus. Across the region, shelters were also opened in hotels, schools and gyms.
Van De Putte emphasized that people should not delay seeking help because of the virus.
“Yes, coronavirus provides risk, but so does floodwater, so does not having electricity, so does not having required medications,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can do possible to make it a safe environment.”
Coastal states scrambled this spring to adjust emergency hurricane plans to account for the virus, and Hanna was the first big test. Gov. Greg Abbott said Saturday that some people in need of shelter would be given hotel rooms to keep them apart from others.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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If Douglas, which was downgraded to a Category 1, reaches the islands, it would be only the third hurricane in modern times to do so.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for the counties that include the islands of Kahoolawe, Kauai, Lanai, Maui, Molokai, Niihau and Oahu, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory Sunday.
Hurricane conditions were expected as early as Sunday afternoon local time on Oahu, and in Kauai and Niihau Sunday night, and could continue into today, the center said. A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Island of Hawaii.
“Douglas will pass dangerously close to, or over, the islands today, bringing a triple threat of hazards, including, but not limited to, damaging winds, flooding rainfall and dangerously high surf,” the center said Sunday.
It is rare for hurricanes to hit Hawaii because of the islands’ size compared with the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Other conditions in Hawaii, including lower water temperatures and wind shear, also weaken hurricanes.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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There were no immediate reports of damage in the Alaska Peninsula and the tsunami warning was canceled after the magnitude 7.8 quake offshore created a wave of a less than a foot.
The earthquake struck Tuesday at 10:12 p.m. and was centered in waters 65 miles south-southeast of the tiny community of Perryville, at a depth of 17 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Residents in some small towns within a hundred miles of the quake reported very strong shaking and some shaking was felt more than more than 500 miles away in the Anchorage area, said Michael West, Alaska state seismologist.
The tsunami warning prompted coastal residents to evacuate to higher ground, with social media posts showing long lines of people fleeing towns like Homer and Kodiak as tsunami sirens wailed.
On Kodiak Island, the local high school and the Catholic church opened their doors for evacuees.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said investigators determined that lines northeast of Geyserville were responsible for igniting the Kincade fire last October that ripped through a wide swath of Sonoma County.
Tinder-dry brush and strong winds combined with warm temperatures and low humidity helped the fire spread at “extreme” rates, the statement said.
The agency didn’t release details of the investigation but said the report had been sent to the county district attorney’s office, which will decide whether to file criminal charges.
The fire burned 374 homes and other buildings and injured four people before it was doused.
Messages to PG&E seeking comment weren’t immediately returned but the utility told regulators last year that its lines were the likely cause of the fire.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The change will come to the relief of many.
Borrego Springs hit 119 on Sunday, breaking the record of 116 for July 12. That record was set in 1976. Campo soared to 107, breaking the record of 102 set in 1983. And Ramona reached 100, breaking the record of 99 set in 1999.
It wasn’t a record, but Ocotillo Wells climbed to 117, while San Diego reached 84, which is 10 degrees above normal.
Forecasters say a coastal eddy will send moisture flowing ashore, creating a marine layer that will limit daytime heating, especially at local beaches, where the sea surface temperatures reached the 71- to 74-degree level.
The weather service also says that stable air across inland San Diego County will prevent the summer monsoon from taking hold. A tropical depression appears to be developing west of Manzanillo, Mexico, but it will not have an immediate effect on the weather in Southern California.
San Diego is expected to reach 77 on Monday and a seasonal 74 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ramona will be 91 on Monday, 86 on Tuesday and 87 on Wednesday.
Here is a sample of Sunday’s highs:
| Valley Center | 100 |
| San Pasqual Valley | 100 |
| Alpine | 99 |
| Santee | 98 |
| El Cajon | 97 |
| Escondido | 97 |
| Poway | 97 |
| Rancho San Diego | 95 |
| Fallbrook | 95 |
| Miramar | 94 |
| Laguna Mountain | 94 |
| Julian | 93 |
| Montgomery Field | 93 |
| Lemon Grove | 91 |
| Palomar Mountain | 90 |
| San Marcos | 89 |
| Vista | 89 |
| National City | 88 |
| Oceanside Airport | 85 |
| Chula Vista | 84 |
| Encinitas | 83 |
The storm system was expected to bring 2 to 4 inches of rain, with the possibility of minor coastal flooding from New Jersey to Rhode Island as well as flash flooding, The U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its 5 p.m. advisory. That’s down from earlier forecasts of about 3 to 5 inches of rain. The storm made landfall along the coast of New Jersey about 10 miles northeast of Atlantic City, according to national forecasters.
The Trump campaign said Friday it was canceling a rally planned tonight in Portsmouth, N.H., citing safety concerns associated with the tropical storm.
The rally was set for an outdoor space in an airport hangar, in the hopes that anxious supporters would be more comfortable attending an open-air gathering in the middle of a pandemic than they were in Tulsa, Okla., last month, when just 6,200 people showed up to fill a 19,000-seat indoor arena where Trump spoke.
Current weather forecasts for Portsmouth indicate that the rain is supposed to stop there around noon today; the rally was scheduled for 8 p.m.
Several beaches in Delaware had been temporarily closed because of the storm. And police in Ocean City, Md., asked drivers to avoid southern parts of the tourist town because flooding had already made some roads impassable. Some streets in the New Jersey shore towns of Sea Isle City and Wildwood were flooded, according to social media posts. Seaside Heights, N.J., reported a sustained wind of 37 mph and New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport reported a wind gust of 45 mph, said forecasters.
“We expect some pretty heavy winds, and we need people to be ready for that, and some flash flooding in certain parts of the city,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a briefing Friday.
President Donald Trump said the storm is being monitored and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was poised to help if needed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A massive high-pressure system over the southwestern U.S. is spreading into Southern California, where it will push temperatures 7 to 9 degrees above normal. These won’t be the “dog days of summer” — the humidity won’t be high enough.
Still, forecasters say the weather will be dangerously hot in places like Ocotillo Wells, which could reach 118 degrees. Borrego Springs will climb to 113 to 115. Farther north, Palm Springs could hit 120.
All of San Diego’s desert areas will be under an excessive heat warning from 10 a.m. Saturday to 8 p.m. on Monday.
Saturday will be the hottest day at the coast. The temperature will hit 83 degrees at San Diego International Airport. That’s 9 degrees above average. Most areas east of Interstate 15 will be 90 and above.
It may feel even hotter. There will be very little wind to provide relief.
The heavy surf that slammed San Diego beaches last weekend has faded away. Forecasters say waves will be in the 1- to 3-foot range in most areas. Tropical Storm Cristina, which is sputtering southwest of Baja California, won’t send significant energy to Southern California.
Sea-surface temperatures will be in the mid-to-upper 60s, with some spots in the low 70s. It will be an ideal weekend for water sports in Mission Bay.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm had top sustained winds of 45 mph and was moving to the north at 8 mph. A tropical storm warning was issued Thursday afternoon from Cape May, N.J., to Watch Hill, R.I. The warning area includes Long Island and the Long Island Sound in New York.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Pounding rain since late Friday in the southern region of Kyushu has triggered widespread flooding. More rain was predicted in Kyushu and the western half of Japan’s main island of Honshu as the rain front moved east.
In Fukuoka, on the northern part of Kyushu, soldiers waded through knee-high water pulling a boat carrying a mother, her 2-month-old baby and two other residents.
“Good job!” one of the soldiers said as he held the baby up to his chest while the mother got off the boat, Asahi video showed. Several children wearing orange life vests over their wet T-shirts arrived on another boat.
An older woman told public broadcaster NHK that she started walking down the road to evacuate, but floodwater rose quickly to her neck. Another woman said, “I was almost washed away and had to grab an electrical pole.”
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 49 victims were from riverside towns in Kumamoto prefecture. Another victim was a woman in her 80s found inside her flooded home in another prefecture.
About 3 million residents were advised to evacuate across Kyushu, Japan’s third-largest island.
Tens of thousands of army troops, police and other rescue workers mobilized from around the country worked their way through mud and debris in the hardest-hit riverside towns along the Kuma River. Rescue operations have been hampered by the floodwater and continuing harsh weather.
Japan is at high risk of heavy rain in early summer when wet and warm air from the East China Sea flows into a seasonal rain front above the country. In July 2018, more than 200 people, about half of them in Hiroshima, died from heavy rain and flooding in southwestern Japan.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The comet, officially known as C/2020 F3, was spotted by NASA's NEOWISE satellite in March, as it made its initial approach to the sun. It survived its loop around the sun and will be reaching the point in its orbit where it is closest to Earth in the next week. NEOWISE is expected to remain visible to the naked eye through July.
Those in the northern hemisphere can catch this comet in the north sky for most of the month at early dawn and dusk. Comets often appear faint in the sky, so it is easiest to catch a glimpse in the early morning and evening, when there is just enough sunlight to see them against the night sky, but not so much they are washed out.
"For the northern hemisphere, it's very low to the horizon in the early morning," says Karl Battams, an astrophysicist with the Naval Research Laboratory. "People need to get up early, but it's easily visible with binoculars."
Look for NEOWISE to climb higher into the sky before disappearing into its orbit in August.
The comet got a special shout-out over the weekend from Bob Behnken, a NASA astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station after participating in the first launch of SpaceX Dragon Crew in May.
ISS astronaut Ivan Vagner also tweeted about the comet, noting its large, visible tail. The tail on NEOWISE could indicate that it is strong enough to remain intact in orbit.
People on Earth have also started seeing the comet on the horizon, says NASA. With its Astronomy Picture of the Day program, NASA invites anyone -- amateur to professional astronomers -- to submit their own photos of cosmic events here.
In case you wondered, the comet does not pose any danger to the planet and will pass by harmlessly.
Part of the NEOWISE satellite operations is to help researchers distinguish between near-earth objects with dangerous orbits (potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs), and those that are not a threat, according to NASA. Its infrared lens allows it to see comets particularly well, as they are commonly darker objects in the night sky, says Battams.
NASA's NEOWISE satellite launched first in 2009 as WISE. It's relaunch in 2013 as NEOWISE brought with it a new mission: "to assist NASA's efforts to identify and characterize the population of near-Earth objects," says NASA.
"NEOWISE is a really crucial satellite for nearer or potentially hazardous asteroids," says Battams. "It's a really important satellite to have."
During its tenure, NEOWISE has discovered hundreds of thousands of near-Earth objects, or NEOs. Data collected by NEOWISE is critical in mapping solar bodies and analyzing the trajectory of space objects, including this new comet.
(CNN)
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Helicopters and boats rescued more people from their homes in the Kumamoto region. More than 40,000 defense troops, the coast guard and fire brigades were taking part in the operation.
Large areas along the Kuma River were swallowed by floodwaters, with many houses, buildings and vehicles submerged almost up to their roofs. Mudslides smashed into houses, sending people atop rooftops waving at rescuers.
At a flooded elderly care home in Kuma Village, where 14 residents were presumed dead after rescuers reached them on Saturday, rescue continued Sunday for the dozens of remaining residents and caregivers.
Sixty-five residents and about 30 caregivers were trapped at the riverside care facility Senjuen when floodwaters and mud gushed in. All remaining 51 residents, including three who had hypothermia, had been rescued by boats and taken to hospitals for treatment by Sunday afternoon, officials said.
In Hitoyoshi City, the deluge poured into houses near the main train station. “The water rose to the second floor so fast and I just couldn’t stop shivering,” a 55-year-old woman who was visiting her relatives told the Asahi newspaper.
She and her relatives ran upstairs, swam out of a window and eventually took refuge on the roof to wait for their rescue.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Myanmar Fire Service Department, which coordinates rescues and other emergency services, announced about 12 hours after the morning disaster that 162 bodies had been recovered from the landslide in Hpakant, the center of the world’s biggest and most lucrative jade mining industry.
The most detailed estimate of Myanmar’s jade industry said it generated about $31 billion in 2014. Hpakant is a rough and remote area in Kachin state, 600 miles north of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.
“The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud,” the fire service department said.
It said 54 injured people were taken to hospitals. The tolls announced by other state agencies and media lagged behind the fire agency, which was most closely involved. An unknown number of people are feared missing.
Those taking part in the recovery operations, which were suspended after dark, included the army and other government units and local volunteers.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep sadness at the death and sent condolences to families of the victims and Myanmar’s government and people.
Gutteres reiterated “the readiness of the United Nations to contribute to ongoing efforts to address the needs of the affected population,” said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
The London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness said the accident “is a damning indictment of the government’s failure to curb reckless and irresponsible mining practices in Kachin state’s jade mines.”
“The government should immediately suspend large-scale, illegal and dangerous mining in Hpakant and ensure companies that engage in these practices are no longer able to operate,” Global Witness said in a statement.
At the site of the tragedy, a crowd gathered in the rain around corpses shrouded in blue and red plastic sheets placed in a row on the ground.
Emergency workers had to slog through heavy mud to retrieve bodies by wrapping them in the plastic sheets, which were then hung on crossed wooden poles shouldered by the recovery teams.
Social activists have complained that the profitability of jade mining has led businesses and the government to neglect enforcement of already weak regulations in the jade mining industry.
“The multibillion-dollar sector is dominated by powerful military-linked companies, armed groups and cronies that have been allowed to operate without effective social and environmental controls for years,” Global Witness said. Although the military is no longer directly in power in Myanmar, it is still a major force in government and exercises authority in remote regions.
Thursday’s death toll surpasses that of a November 2015 accident that left 113 dead and was previously considered the country’s worst. In that case, the victims died when a 200-foot-tall mountain of earth and waste discarded by several mines tumbled in the middle of the night, covering more than 70 huts where miners slept.
Those killed in such accidents are usually freelance miners who settle near giant mounds of discarded earth that has been excavated by heavy machinery. The freelancers who scavenge for bits of jade usually work and live in abandoned mining pits at the base of the mounds of earth, which become particularly unstable during the rainy season.
Most scavengers are unregistered migrants from other areas, making it hard to determine exactly how many people are actually missing after such accidents and in many cases leaving the relatives of the dead in their home villages unaware of their fate.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fires come amid a notable heat wave in parts of the sprawling region. A high temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 F) was reported a week ago in the town of Verkhoyansk. If the reading is confirmed, it would be the hottest day ever recorded in the Arctic.
According to figures reported Saturday by Avialesookhrana, Russia’s agency for aerial forest fire management, 2.85 million acres were burning in Siberia in areas that cannot be reached by firefighters.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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But Russian news agency TASS, citing a spokesman with the state nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom, reported that the two nuclear power plants in northwestern Russia haven’t reported any problems.
The Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish radiation and nuclear safety watchdogs said last week they’ve spotted small amounts of radioactive isotopes harmless to humans and the environment in parts of Finland, southern Scandinavia and the Arctic.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Last week, the temperature in the area hit 88 degrees.
“Nature is taking its revenge on us, probably,” Sergei Portnyagin, the village head, said by telephone. “We’ve been too bloody in how we’ve treated it.”
The climate has been warming rapidly in the Arctic for years, but even by those standards, a heat wave roasting northern Siberia for the past few weeks has been shocking.
Wildfires are spreading. The fishing is meager, the mosquitoes ravenous. People are nailing their windows shut with foil and blankets, seeking refuge from the midnight sun.
The town of Verkhoyansk, more than 400 miles farther north than Anchorage, Alaska, topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit last Saturday, possibly the hottest temperature ever recorded above the Arctic Circle.
Verkhoyansk had been best known as a place of exile in czarist Russia and for sharing the Northern Hemisphere’s cold temperature record — 90 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, set in 1892.
Even before the current heat wave, climate change has been transforming life in Russia’s northern reaches, with global implications.
“Very strange things are happening here,” said Roman Desyatkin, a scientist based in the Siberian city of Yakutsk who studies perhaps the most far-reaching consequence of the region’s warming climate — the thawing of its frozen ground. “Our plants, our animals and our people are not used to such great heat.”
The frozen ground, or permafrost, lies just below the surface across much of Russia — as well as swaths of Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia. In some areas, including parts of northeastern Siberia, the permafrost contains large chunks of ice.
With every hot Arctic summer, more of it thaws, flooding pastures, twisting roads, destabilizing buildings and eroding riverbanks.
The thawing permafrost has global consequences because it results in the release of greenhouse gases from the decomposition of organic material that had long been frozen. A group of scientists convened by the United Nations said last year that the process could unleash as much as 240 billion tons of carbon by 2100, potentially accelerating climate change.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management wants to allow fossil fuel extraction in roughly 82 percent of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the state’s North Slope. Less famous than the neighboring Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it is one of the most ecologically valuable tracts of federal property.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The earthquake’s magnitude was 7.5, according to Mexico’s national seismological service, and it was centered in the Pacific Ocean, about 14 miles off the coast, south of Crucecita, a beach town in the southern state of Oaxaca that has been popular with tourists. It struck at 10:29 a.m. local time.
The U.S. Geological Survey, however, estimated the magnitude at 7.4; it is not unusual for preliminary measurements to vary.
Another quake, estimated by the USGS at 4.9 magnitude, struck the same region Monday night. By early afternoon Tuesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, there had been 147 aftershocks to the larger quake, and officials warned that more were expected.
Four people have been confirmed killed in the earthquake, according to the governor of Oaxaca, Alejandro Murat, and David León, Mexico’s national coordinator of civil protection.
Information on the toll trickled in throughout the day, and local news reports showed rubble from some damaged buildings in Oaxaca.
“Fortunately there was no major damage,” López Obrador said in a Twitter video posted early in the afternoon, one of a series he posted, relaying updates from León and others. A phone pressed to his ear, the president said, “collapses, some broken glass, signage fell, walls, but nothing serious.”
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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“Due to more sunlight being scattered by the dust particles, there will likely be more vibrant sunsets and sunrises of the orange and red side of the visible light spectrum,” said David Wally, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Upton, N.Y.
But the dust plume also could have effects on certain health problems.
“This can be an allergen that is uncomfortable with asthma or reactive airways,” Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, said Monday. He suggested that people monitor the “level of air particles in their area and take precautions in working or being outside as this passes through.”
Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, also said Monday that “particulate matter of this dust cloud contains more silica, and is a hazard to those with underlying lung conditions. But even normal healthy people are subject to irritant effects.”
He recommended wearing masks and using air filters, as well as avoiding outdoor activities.
Satellite images from the last few days show the thick dust as a brown mass moving off the west coast of Africa, crawling across the Atlantic and then drifting over the eastern Caribbean on Sunday. The mass is expected to arrive in the Gulf Coast states, including Texas and Louisiana, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Because it is a dry layer of air, the dust helps suppress the development of tropical systems, according to the National Weather Service.
“The dry nature of the air mass that originates from the Sahara limits thunderstorm and cloud development, which are needed for the development of tropical cyclones,” Wally said.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Neil Jacobs, NOAA’s acting administrator, “engaged in the misconduct intentionally, knowingly or in reckless disregard” for the agency’s scientific integrity policy, according to a panel commissioned by the agency to investigate complaints against him.
The scandal over the forecast for Hurricane Dorian has come to be known as “Sharpiegate,” after Trump modified a NOAA forecast map shown in an oval office briefing to depict the storm threatening Alabama.
On Sept. 1, Trump wrote on Twitter that Dorian, which was then approaching the East Coast of the United States, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., which is part of NOAA, posted on Twitter: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”
Alabama was not struck by the hurricane.
Five days later, Jacobs’ office issued an unsigned statement calling the Birmingham office’s Twitter posting “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
That unsigned statement turned out to be the result of pressure from the White House on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees NOAA and who threatened to fire the political staff at NOAA unless the contradiction of Trump was addressed.
In Monday’s report, Stephen Volz, an assistant administrator at NOAA who was chosen to review the complaints and make recommendations, called for the agency to better ensure “the right of NOAA scientists to review, comment and amend any official communication that relies on their scientific analysis.”
Volz also recommended that the agency create a formal agreement guiding interactions between NOAA and Department of Commerce officials, “acknowledging the responsibility for NOAA to own the scientific content and allowing for Commerce to weigh in on policy content.” And he called for NOAA’s senior leadership and political officials “to take scientific integrity training” and then sign a statement saying they would follow those principles.
Scott Smullen, a spokesman for the agency, said that NOAA “welcomes the report and its recommendations, which would strengthen the policy of consulting NOAA scientists in developing communications materials involving their expertise.”
“Scientific integrity is at the core of NOAA’s work and is essential for maintaining the public’s trust in the agency’s ability to provide accurate, thorough and timely science,” Smullen added.
Craig McLean, the agency’s acting chief scientist and one of the people whose complaints prompted the review, said the process “demonstrated that scientific integrity is at the core of NOAA’s mission and culture and is essential for us to maintain the public’s trust.”
The White House and the Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.
The findings prompted criticism from Democrats.
“The American people have placed their trust in our national emergency response systems to keep them safe and informed during a crisis,” Rep. Paul D. Tonko, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “The political leaders who interfered in our emergency response system need to publicly apologize or resign.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Firefighters doused a brush fire along the U.S.-Mexico border that crossed into Otay Mesa.
The fire crossed the border about 9:15 a.m., Cal Fire Capt. Issac Sanchez said. It burned in rugged and steep terrain about two miles west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, but crews were able to keep it from growing beyond 2 acres.
Sanchez said crews are monitoring several other blazes near the border that could move north, he said.
A fire ignited on Camp Pendleton, the base confirmed in a tweet Tuesday.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., Camp Pendleton tweeted that the base’s fire department continued to fight fires in the Zulu Impact Area, and that base firefighters and Cal Fire were handling a 5-acre blaze. They said there was no danger of the fires spreading to people on base or the surrounding areas.
And in East County, an on-ramp and off-ramps to Interstate 8 at West Main in El Cajon were temporarily closed while crews knocked down a brush fire in the afternoon.
Strong Santa Anas, which rarely occur in June, sent temperatures soaring more than 20 degrees above normal across the county Tuesday, smashing or tying records from the coast to the foothills.
“The numbers were amazing,” said Mark Moede, a forecaster at the National Weather Service.
San Diego International Airport hit 93 degrees, 24 degrees above normal. Chula Vista reached 92 and Encinitas hit 90. The reading at the airport tied the record for June 9, dating back to 1877. Oceanside Harbor reached 87, exceeding the day’s previous high by 11 degrees. That record was set in 1990.
Escondido hit 98, tying the record for the date, set in 1979. And El Cajon topped out at 97, eight degrees above the record, set in 2015.
But Tardy said temperatures at and near the coast will rise into the 80s today, and will hit the low 90s across inland areas.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Hunting methods that for years were decried by wildlife protectors and finally banned as barbaric by the Obama administration will be legal again on millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness in time for the warm July weather.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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After drenching much of the South, forecasters now expect the remnants of Cristobal to bring fierce winds, heavy rain and thunderstorms to much of the Midwest today.
A very strong storm system sweeping out from the Rocky Mountains is expected to meld with Cristobal in the next couple of days, said Greg Carbin, who oversees forecasts at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
“The two will eventually merge into a large cyclone,” Carbin said. “It’s a pretty fascinating interaction we’ll see over the next couple of days.”
Wind gusts of up to 45 mph are expected in Chicago by tonight, the National Weather Service said.
High winds could be felt from Nebraska to Wisconsin, forecasters said. In parts of Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, the gusty winds and low humidity will bring the threat of wildfires in areas with dry grass, National Weather Service forecasters warned.
(ASSOCIATE PRESS)
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The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory that will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.
“The winds will start on Monday night and peak on Tuesday morning,” said Stefanie Sullivan, a weather service forecaster. “Temperatures will be a solid 20 degrees above normal.”
Downtown San Diego could reach as high as 92 on Tuesday. The average this time of year is 69.
Sullivan said a storm system that’s dropping snow in the northern Sierra Nevada will move into the Great Basin, triggering a shift that will send offshore winds flowing across Southern California. The strongest winds will hit San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as part of north coastal Los Angeles County.
Sullivan said the winds will gust to about 40 mph through San Diego County’s mountains and valleys. The air will heat up as it flows to the coast.
“The coast will cool down a lot after the winds subside,” Sullivan said.
It does not appear that the weather service will issue a red-flag weather warning for the county, although the relative humidity will be lower than normal on Tuesday.
Moderate to strong rip currents are expected along the coast today. Sea surface temperatures reached 67 degrees Sunday at the Scripps Pier in La Jolla.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The National Hurricane Center warned that Cristobal was expected to bring rainfall of between 4 to 8 inches, sustained winds of 50 mph, possible tornadoes and a storm surge of 3 to 5 feet. The storm made landfall at 5 p.m. local time Sunday near Grand Isle, La., south of the city.
Though the strong storm that has moved across the Gulf did not strengthen into a hurricane, New Orleans residents took the threat seriously, stacking sandbags in front of store entrances and parking their cars in elevated areas to avoid potential floodwaters.
Shoreline flooding from the surge and inland flooding from heavy rain were predicted to be the most widespread and serious hazards along the Gulf Coast.
A five-foot surge had already inundated some coastal areas in southeast Louisiana and Mississippi as of Sunday afternoon. Up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in parts of the Florida Panhandle, with some of the storm’s heaviest rainfall concentrated between Tallahassee and Jacksonville.
While wind gusts were generally below damaging levels, they had been clocked in the 40 to 60 mph range along the coast in southeastern Louisiana and Mississippi. Of greater concern were tornadoes. On Saturday, a tornado that spun up on the periphery of the storm caused damage in Orlando.
Cristobal is predicted to be drawn north through Arkansas today, then into Missouri, Illinois and the Great Lakes on Tuesday, intensifying some as it merges with another storm system.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Cristobal had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and was moving north at 12 mph. It was expected to cross the Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, regain tropical storm strength and eventually track to the Gulf Coast.
Shortly after midday, it was centered about 35 miles south-southeast of Merida and about 595 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
A tropical storm watch was issued for the northern Gulf of Mexico coast from Intracoastal City Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border.
Cristobal made landfall in Mexico as a tropical storm Wednesday before weakening. It had formed this week in the Bay of Campeche from the remnants of Tropical Storm Amanda, which had formed last weekend in the eastern Pacific and hit Central America.
The two storms have combined to soak the region with as much as 35 inches of rain in some areas over the past week. At least 30 deaths have been attributed to the two storms and the flooding and landslides they unleashed.
The Hurricane Center’s projected track shows the storm reaching the Gulf Coast by early Monday, and it said Cristobal could bring heavy rain from East Texas to Florida this weekend and into early next week.
In Bacalar, in the south of Quintana Roo state, 230 families were isolated by the rains and had to be airlifted out, David Leon, Mexico’s national civil defense coordinator, said Friday. Leon added there had been light damage in 75 municipalities in seven states.
In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards on Thursday declared a state of emergency to prepare for the storm’s possible arrival there.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 20,000 tons of diesel leaked into the Ambarnaya River near the city of Norilsk last Friday, after a fuel tank collapsed at a power plant. Norilsk Nickel, which owns the plant, said in a statement that thawing permafrost had caused one of the tank’s pillars to collapse. The oil leaked more than 7 miles from the site.
The accident is one of the biggest oil spills in modern Russian history, Aleksei Knizhnikov of the environmentalist group WWF Russia said. In a statement, Greenpeace Russia compared the discharge to the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska in 1989.
Putin said he had been angered that he had learned of the spill only on Sunday, and, after declaring the state of emergency on Wednesday, denounced company officials in a videoconference that was broadcast live.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Phase 5 of the bluff stabilization project is expected to cost about $66 million in all, said an official at the San Diego Association of Governments, the area’s regional planning agency. The money will come from a combination of federal, state and local sources.
State Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, announced a year ago the allocation of $6.1 million for the planning and design of Phase 5. The $11.6 million announced last week by U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, will be used for construction.
“The rail service through Del Mar supports countless jobs and economic activity throughout the region, so it’s critical that we stabilize the coastal bluffs under these tracks,” Levin said in a news release.
The track is the only railway link between San Diego and Los Angeles and all points north and east of Los Angeles. It’s used primarily by Coaster commuter trains, Amtrak passenger trains, and BNSF freight trains. The section of track between San Diego and the Orange County border is owned and maintained by North County Transit District.
“This critical corridor serves commuters, our military, and the economy — moving $1 billion of goods each year,” said Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, chairman of the SANDAG board of directors.
The first three phases of bluff stabilization were completed in 2003, 2007 and 2009, and a fourth phase began last month and is expected to continue through the summer.
“We got off to a slow start,” said John Haggerty, SANDAG’s director of engineering and construction. “It started right in the middle of COVID-19, so there were a lot of questions being asked. It took a long time to get up to speed.”
However, the COVID-19 crisis brought at least one advantage for the project, Haggerty said.
Most of the work under way is right along the tracks, so all activities must stop when a train goes by. However, because so few people are riding Coaster and Amtrak trains, their schedule has been temporarily reduced, and as a result construction is interrupted less frequently.
The fifth phase is on track to begin in about 18 months and take about two years to complete.
That phase will include the installation of more of the steel-and-concrete columns, called soldier piles, that hold back the earth beneath the tracks. More than 200 of the piles were installed along the seaward edge of the tracks in the first three phases. Also planned are more work on the erosion control and drainage structures at the top of the bluff.
A sixth phase of work, still several more years in the future, will focus on building structures such as seawalls to protect the base of the bluffs from erosion. That work is expected to cost between $50 million and $60 million, and so far no money has been allocated for it.
“The final plan is to make sure that the bluffs don’t recede,” for at least the next 30 years, Haggerty said.
Eventually, SANDAG intends to move the 1.7 miles of track in Del Mar to a new inland route below ground and away from the bluffs. Preliminary studies have identified several possible routes, and more work is needed to identify the best location.
(Phil Diehl, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The move, part of the Trump administration’s push to weaken environmental rules it sees as standing in the way of new development, upends how the United States applied a section of the Clean Water Act for nearly half a century. The energy industry hailed the change as a way to speed up pipelines and other projects, while environmentalists warned that it could undercut state and tribal efforts to safeguard rivers and drinking water.
The new rule would set a one-year deadline for states and tribes to certify or reject proposed projects — including pipelines, hydroelectric dams and industrial plants — that could discharge pollution into area waterways. It also would limit any reviews to include only water quality impacts, based on a more narrow definition of the Trump administration finalized last year.
In a call with reporters Monday, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler argued that some states had abused the law in the past, using long delays to trap energy-related projects “in a bureaucratic ‘Groundhog Day.’” The changes, he said, would give states “more than enough time” to scrutinize proposed projects, while preventing them from citing reasons not directly related to water quality or holding them “hostage” for long periods.
“Our system of representative democracy does not allow for one state to dictate standards or decisions for the entire nation,” Wheeler said.
The change stems from an executive order President Donald Trump issued in April 2019 in which he instructed federal agencies to do everything possible to pave the way for energy infrastructure.
Robert Irvin, president of the environmental group American Rivers, said in an interview that the shift would undercut the powers of Congress because when it passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it “gave states the authority to do more than the federal government is doing in order to clean up our rivers and have fishable, swimmable waters.”
“This administration is happy to put the responsibility for dealing with the pandemic on the states, but they’re far too quick to strip states of authority when they’re trying to protect rivers and clean water,” Irvin said.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“San Diego is a sunny place and it’s sort of natural for people to think, let’s tap into the sun and be able to use the energy that’s heating up our roofs and turn it into electricity,” said Dan Jacobson, director of Environment California, which released the “Shining Cities 2020” report.
San Diego amassed 420.4 megawatts of total installed solar photovoltaic (PV), the technology that converts sunlight into direct current electricity by using semiconductors. Only Los Angeles racked up more solar PV, with 420.4 megwatts [sic]. On a per capita basis, that breaks down to 294.8 watts for greater San Diego. Honolulu came in first place by a wide margin, with 840.9 watts per person.
“It’s expensive to ship things, including fossil fuels, to Hawaii,” Jacobson said. “So the opportunity for people to generate their own electricity at their home, use it exactly where they live, makes a lot of financial sense.”
San Diego has always finished near or at the top of the annual Shining Cities report, which first came out in 2013. At that time, the survey counted just eight cities with 50 watts or more of solar PV capacity per capita. This year, 26 surpassed that threshold.
Since 2016, San Diego’s per capita solar number has grown 116.8 percent in the Shining Cities study.
There still appears to be room to grow.
The report estimated the amount of rooftop PV potential on small buildings and reckoned that San Diego has 2,218.8 megawatts that can be harvested. At more than 5,400 megawatts, Los Angeles had the most, followed by Houston with more than 4,600 megawatts.
Six cities in California finished in the overall Top 25 but a growing number of metropolitan areas outside the Golden State took big leaps. Albuquerque, N.M., moved up seven spaces to No. 3 in per capita solar, San Antonio improved by six notches to finish No. 6 and Wilmington, Del., jumped nine places to No. 18.
Environment California lobbies the Legislature in Sacramento and the report included a host of policy recommendations. On the federal level, the group wants to maintain the solar investment tax credit. The credit this year dropped from 30 percent to 26 percent. It falls to 22 percent in 2021 and is scheduled to be eliminated for residential customers in 2022.
If solar is growing so quickly, is the federal tax credit still needed?
Putting in solar “is an upfront cost that people have to make with their own money,” Jacobson said, “and being able to recoup some of that money in their federal taxes is a good way to get more people to install solar on their roofs.”
Solar installations are a key part of the city of San Diego’s climate action plan that aims to achieve 100 percent renewable energy use citywide by 2035.
According to the plan’s most recent annual report, the city has seen a 4.9 percent increase in job growth in the renewable energy sector since 2010.
“Now, as we’re grappling with a pandemic that has had a devastating impact across the globe, it is more crucial than ever that climate action also drives our economy by creating jobs for the future, reducing energy costs for families and businesses, and building a more sustainable future for all,” San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a statement.
(Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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After nearly a year and a half of wrangling during one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in U.S. history, it’s unclear if PG&E is now any better equipped to protect the 16 million people who rely on it for power.
The drama is scheduled to enter its latest act starting today in a trial examining PG&E’s $58 billion plan to get out of bankruptcy. That proceeding, known as a confirmation hearing, will overlap with a hearing by state power regulators who also must approve PG&E’s plan.
The outcome will affect the future of a sprawling service territory that includes San Francisco, Northern California’s world-famous wine country, Yosemite National Park and the Silicon Valley home of Apple, Google and Facebook.
The utility has been blamed for more than 100 deaths in the past decade, including 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter in a blaze that destroyed the town of Paradise.
“PG&E has a narrow tightrope to walk when it comes to doing what it needs to prevent wildfires, remain financially solvent and to keep rates from skyrocketing,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, an activist group and frequent foil of the company.
PG&E believes it is ready to navigate that gauntlet. The company plans “to implement needed changes across our business to improve our operations and governance for the long term,” chief financial officer, Jason Wells, assured state power regulators in a May 14 letter.
That confidence isn’t widely shared.
Some of the lawyers representing wildfire victims are worried a $13.5 billion settlement they helped negotiate is turning out to be an illusion. They contend PG&E may only end up paying $5.4 billion in cash, with $1.3 billion in future payments tied to uncertain tax benefits. Another $6.75 billion in company stock is in danger of plunging in value during a pandemic-driven recession or, worse, if PG&E causes another disaster in a wildfire season that is expected to be even more dangerous than usual.
Meanwhile, PG&E’s intention to nearly double its debt load as part of its financial rehabilitation is raising fears about its ability to raise the additional money for an estimated $40 billion in improvements to electrical equipment. Its infrastructure is in such bad shape that PG&E expects to deliberately shut off power for several years to avoid igniting more wildfires during the dry, windy conditions that are an annual rite of Northern California autumns.
Footing those bills ultimately may fall on PG&E’s customers, who are already being asked to help pay for high insurance premiums for the utility’s past negligence. In 2010, its poorly maintained natural gas lines blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno, killing eight people and leading to the company’s felony convictions.
A federal judge overseeing PG&E’s five-year probation remains so appalled by its shoddy safety practices that he is seeking stricter requirements on the utility before his supervision ends in January 2022.
“This failure is upon us because for years, in order to enlarge dividends, bonuses, and political contributions, PG&E cheated on maintenance of its grid,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote last month.
The San Bruno explosion occurred six years after PG&E finished its first bankruptcy, triggered by illegal manipulation of California’s then-deregulated power market. That was widely seen as a squandered opportunity to force PG&E to invest in safety measures instead of boosting profits.
Besides the tragedy in San Bruno, PG&E equipment has been blamed for a series of wildfires that caused more than $50 billion in losses. It used the bankruptcy process to settle those claims for $25.5 billion, including the $13.5 billion nominally promised to more than 80,000 people who lost family, homes and businesses in the wildfires.
To finance those deals and other obligations, PG&E’s debt will nearly double to almost $40 billion if its plan is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali and state regulators.
California’s political leaders and regulators promised to seize on PG&E’s latest bankruptcy to ensure the utility would emerge on solid financial ground and move toward protecting customers.
That hasn’t happened, warned San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and more than 200 other elected officials from municipalities served by the utility who oppose the company’s plan. “PG&E has failed financially twice in the past 20 years, and we have no reason to believe that it will not enter bankruptcy again, after the next wildfire season,” they wrote.
Liccardo likened PG&E’s current plan to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic at a time the economy is sinking into a recession.
“Nothing has changed for the better,” he said in an interview. “I am certain people are going to wind up with higher electricity bills at a time they can least afford them.”
Liccardo led an effort pushing for a government-financed takeover that would turn PG&E into a not-for-profit cooperative, but a formal bid never materialized.
With no other options, wildfire victims eager to rebuild their lives were left in an untenable position that probably contributed to 85 percent of them voting in favor of PG&E’s plan, said Jared Ellias, a professor at the UC Hastings College of the Law.
“You hold your nose and you vote for it to get some money into your pockets sooner rather than later,” he said.
In one of PG&E’s biggest concessions, the company will replace 11 of its board 14 members, including CEO Bill Johnson, who signed a three-year contract 13 months ago. His June 30 departure ensures his tenure lasts just long enough for him to keep his $3 million signing bonus.
Lawyers, bankers and other specialists are also in line for $1.6 billion. Meanwhile, PG&E was able to avoid paying a $200 million fine to the state of California for causing the wildfires. State regulators believed PG&E’s egregious neglect warranted the penalty, but the Public Utilities Commission backpedaled and waived the fine earlier this month after the company persuaded the regulatory agency paying the $200 million would cause its entire bankruptcy plan to collapse.
Will Abrams, a wildfire survivor in Santa Rosa, expects the bankruptcy case to be another domino in a cascading debacle.
“I don’t see this as an ending to a chapter, because this reorganization hasn’t really addressed the issues head on,” Abrams lamented. He said PG&E continues to focus on “who should get paid how much, as opposed to dealing with what really needs to get done to have a safer company.”
(Michael Liedtke, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Dow said the ponds held only water, and it has detected no chemical releases from the plant in Midland where the company was founded, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said state officials would evaluate the plant when they’re able. Once the flooding recedes, Dow will be required to assess the Superfund site — contaminated with dioxins the company dumped in the last century — to determine if any contamination was released, the EPA said.
Meanwhile, the Tittabawassee River crested at just over 35 feet in Midland, about 3 feet below the forecast level.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had warned that the city of 42,000 people could end up under 9 feet of water after floodwaters overwhelmed two dams and forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people from their homes.
But the danger isn’t over, and Midland officials asked that residents not return yet. The National Weather Service said communities farther downstream were bracing for flooding in the coming days.
No injuries or fatalities related to the flooding have been reported, Midland spokeswoman Selina Tisdale said.
Residents near the river were urged to seek higher ground following what the National Weather Service called “catastrophic dam failures” at the Edenville Dam, about 20 miles northwest of Midland, and the Sanford Dam, about 8 miles downriver.
Midland City Manager Brad Kaye said Wednesday that the Sanford Dam is overflowing but that the extent of structural damage isn’t yet known.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Residents can use the map to see nearby flood channels, which absorb excess water and allow it to flow out of neighborhoods, and propose the clearing of five of the city’s 223 channels in ranked order.
The city began seeking resident input on which channels to clear in 2016, but this is the first time city officials added a more user-friendly interactive map.
“It really is a one-stop shop,” said Bethany Bezak, the city’s assistant deputy director of storm water.
The move comes as Mayor Kevin Faulconer has proposed reducing from six to four the number of channels cleared this coming fiscal year to help close a large deficit blamed on plummeting tax revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The online survey, which is available through Monday, will help city officials decide which channels to clear in fiscal year 2023, which begins in July 2022. Channels set for clearance in the next two fiscal years have already been set.
City officials must choose the channels years ahead of time because many channels, especially those dominated by vegetation instead of concrete linings, require complex environmental approvals from state and federal agencies.
Those approvals are required because clearing channels has effects beyond flood control. They include restoring native habitats, eliminating invasive vegetation and boosting water quality.
Most of the channels funnel excess water through canyons and into the ocean. Clearing sometimes includes removing accumulated sediment and trash.
The total cost to clear a channel typically ranges from $500,000 to $1 million. The six channels slated for clearing this fiscal year cost an average of $625,000.
While city officials examine every foot of every channel when deciding which ones to prioritize for clearing, Bezak said it’s still crucial to gather public input.
City officials will recommend channels for clearing to the City Council’s Environment Committee this fall, with the full council expected to approve the list late this year.
Allowing the public to alert the city to unknown clogging or other problems helps the city spend taxpayer money more wisely and efficiently, Bezak said.
New state storm water regulations have put more pressure on the city to upgrade its system.
Before the pandemic cratered city financial resources, San Diego was facing a projected deficit over the next five years of $53.3 million in operating needs and $857.2 million in capital costs. But additional cuts are expected when the City Council adopts a final budget June 8, so those numbers are likely to climb.
Because the city is facing unique storm water challenges in coming years, Faulconer is proposing that storm water efforts be removed from the city’s Transportation and Storm water Department and placed in a new Storm Water Department.
Bezak said the move makes sense, noting that the city’s storm water infrastructure has an estimated value of $6 billion.
The new interactive map can be found at sandiego.gov/stormwater/services/maintenance.
(David Garrick, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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Cyclone Amphan is expected to make landfall this afternoon, and forecasters warned of extensive damage from high winds, heavy rainfall, tidal waves and some flooding in crowded cities like Kolkata.
The cyclone had winds of 136-142 miles per hour and is forecast to weaken before it makes landfall around India’s West Bengal state and Bangladesh.
It is the second super cyclone on record that has formed over the Bay of Bengal, said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, India’s meteorological chief. The first was a devastating 1999 cyclone in Odisha state that left nearly 10,000 people dead.
“This type of cyclone can be disastrous,” Mohapatra said.
Videos and photos from India and Bangladesh showed families near the coast or in other flood-prone areas being evacuated to cyclone shelters. Some carried bags with their belongings, and all had their faces covered to protect against the virus. Officials went from village to village with loudspeakers warning people of the storm.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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No injuries were reported, but officials said goods tumbled from market shelves, sidewalks heaved and some storefront windows cracked shortly after 4 a.m. People from Salt Lake City to California’s Central Valley tweeted that they felt the quake.
Nevada Highway Patrol photos showed cracks on U.S. Highway 95 that crews were working to repair about 35 miles west of Tonopah. A detour to state Route 360 added more than 20 miles to motorists’ trips.
The vast open range east of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada is seismically active, said Graham Kent, director of the Nevada Seismological Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno. He compared Friday’s event with twin December 1954 earthquakes at Fairview Peak and Dixie Valley. Kent said those temblors were magnitudes 7.1 and 6.8.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported Friday’s temblor struck just east of the Sierra Nevada. It was centered about 4.7 miles deep, the agency said, and dozens of aftershocks were recorded. Kent said a 5.1 magnitude aftershock struck 30 minutes after the initial quake.
State troopers and sheriff’s patrols from Esmeralda and surrounding Mineral and Nye counties checked highways for possible damage. A sheriff’s dispatcher in the historic mining boom town of Goldfield said the 112-year-old Esmeralda County Courthouse escaped damage.
Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly reported broken storefront glass, stress cracks on asphalt streets, loose hanging signs, items knocked off shelves and minor lifting of sidewalks.
“Overall, everything appears to be sound at this point,” Knightly said. “However, we have learned that other than obvious earthquake damage some damage is discovered later.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The decision by Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the EPA, appears to defy a court order that required the agency to establish a safe drinking-water standard for the chemical by the end of June. The policy, which acknowledges that exposure to high levels of perchlorate can cause IQ damage but opts nevertheless not to limit it, could also set a precedent for the regulation of other chemicals, people familiar with the matter said.
The chemical — which is used in rocket fuel, among other applications — has been under study for more than a decade, but because contamination is widespread, regulations have been difficult.
In 2011, the Obama administration announced that it planned to regulate perchlorate for the first time, reversing a decision by the George W. Bush administration not to control it. But the Defense Department and military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have waged aggressive efforts to block controls, and the fight has dragged on.
According to the staff members, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about agency decisions, the EPA intends in the coming days to send a federal register notice to the White House for review that will declare it is “not in the public interest” to regulate the chemical.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Typhoon Vongfong blew into Eastern Samar province at noon with fierce rain and wind as tens of thousands of people were being evacuated to safety in provinces along its northwestward path through the country’s most populous region. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.
After landfall, the storm maintained its maximum sustained winds of about 96 miles per hour but its gusts intensified to 158 mph, weather agency administrator Vicente Malano said.
The typhoon hit as the Philippines struggles to deal with coronavirus outbreaks, largely with a lockdown in the main northern region of Luzon that is to be eased this weekend, except in metropolitan Manila and two other high-risk areas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The quake began 6.2 miles below the earth’s surface, a common depth for that area. It appears that the temblor started on the northwest end of the Superstition Mountain fault zone, San Diego State University seismologist Tom Rockwell said on Sunday afternoon.
The USGS said shaking was felt in Santee, El Cajon, Escondido, Oceanside, Del Mar, Encinitas, Campo, Julian, Ramona, San Diego, Borrego Springs, Boulevard, Vista, Lakeside, Imperial Beach, Lemon Grove, National City, and Carlsbad.
The quake also was notable because it occurred at the southeast end of a related fault that caused the magnitude 6.5 Borrego Mountain quake in 1968. That quake began 1 mile north of Ocotillo Wells.
“When the Borrego Mountain earthquake struck in 1968, it was the largest and most damaging quake to have hit Southern California since the Kern County earthquake, 16 years earlier,” says the Southern California Earthquake Center website.
“It was felt as far away as Las Vegas, Fresno, and even Yosemite Valley. The quake caused damage across most of Southern California — power lines were severed in San Diego County, plaster cracked in Los Angeles, and the Queen Mary, in drydock at Long Beach, rocked back and forth on its keel blocks for 5 minutes.”
Sunday’s temblor “is another moderate earthquake in the larger San Jacinto fault zone, and there is a 5 percent chance of a larger event within the next 24 hours.” Rockwell said. “This also may be a foreshock. But it most likely won’t be followed by a larger quake.”
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Some higher-elevation areas in northern New York and New England reported snowfall accumulations of up to 10 inches, while traces of snow were seen along the coast from Maine to Boston to as far south as Manhattan.
John Cannon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said parts of northern New England saw as much as 10 inches of snow and even coastal areas of Maine and New Hampshire got a dusting. There were even reports of flurries in Boston.
“We’ve had several inches in many areas in the Northeast. This is a rare May snow event,” he said.
The hardest hit areas were hill town communities like Sugar Hill, N.H., which got 10.5 inches, and Carrabasset Valley in Maine, which got 9 inches, he said.
Conditions at the Mount Washington Observatory, atop the highest peak in the Northeast, were downright arctic Saturday afternoon, with the wind chill at minus 22 degrees and winds gusting at 87 mph.
In many areas, the snowfall was one for the record books, even if it didn’t stick around. Massachusetts hadn’t seen measurable snow in May since 2002, while in Manhattan’s Central Park, the flakes tied a record set in 1977 for latest snow of the season.
The wintry weather came two days after Vermont began to lift restrictions on tennis, golf and other outdoor activities that had been imposed to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Gov. Phil Scott tweeted sympathy to Vermonters frustrated by the weather following weeks of being inside.
“I know snow on May 9th isn’t a welcome sight for many Vermonters, just as we’re cautiously allowing outdoor recreation to get going again,” he wrote. “But this is just a snapshot in time. Just like better weather is ahead, better days will come, as well. We will get through this, together.”
Usually the polar vortex is a batch of cold air that stays trapped in the Arctic all winter, but a couple of times during the season, it wanders south and brings bone-chilling cold and snow to Canada and parts of the United States.
There are freeze watches and warnings out for much of the Northeast. Temperatures are expected to dip below 30 through this morning in parts of New Jersey and New York and a freeze warning has been issued until this morning in parts of Pennsylvania.
(David Klepper, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Then it left behind a smelly mess of dying algae.
The microorganisms produce stunning bioluminescence that has illuminated the surf for several weeks. Red tides occur when they reproduce en masse, staining seawater rusty brown with as many as 20 million cells per liter.
A photochemical reaction in the cells emits a flash of electric blue when they are jostled by waves, in a sort of southern, aquatic version of the aurora borealis. As the bloom dies out, however, the unpleasant scent of decay can travel miles from shore.
“The smell is because the red tide is breaking down,” said Michael Latz, a biologist with Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “When it reaches its final phase, then it’s going to die off. The organisms, as they break open and die, they’re releasing organic material into the water. And also, there are bacteria that are feasting on that organic material, and they’re releasing odors. You put it all together and you have the breakdown of the red tide producing odors, and the bacteria producing odors, and it makes it very stinky.”
The “sulfurous, rotten, decaying” stench has remarkable carrying power as it wafts inland on sea breezes, Latz said.
“I’m a mile and a half inland,” he said. “I smell it here. There are reports from the UTC area that they can smell it there.”
Some kinds of red tide produce toxins that are harmful to sea creatures and humans, Latz said, but the events in San Diego County aren’t poisonous, just putrid. Nonetheless, some people are sensitive to the fumes, and may develop rashes or respiratory irritation, he said.
Matt O’Malley, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper, counts himself as one of those unfortunates, and said his eyes tear up when he catches a whiff of the malodorous microorganisms.
“I live a mile and a half away, and I can smell it very strong at night, to the point that my wife and I thought something died in my backyard,” he said.
Along Coast Highway, the smell ebbs and flows, growing stronger in some stretches, and fading at others. It can be particularly strong at lagoons, where fish die-offs have followed the algal bloom and bust. As bacteria devour the remains, they deplete oxygen and essentially suffocate other creatures.
“They’re very metabolically active through their respiration, and they use up a lot of oxygen,” Latz said. “So especially in enclosed areas or the bottom of the ocean where that settles out, that causes extremely low oxygen levels that can be harmful to other animals, especially fish. We’ve heard reports of fish kills, and dead fish washing up on beaches and coastal lagoons.”
On Thursday, the smell was strong in South Carlsbad, and then abated a bit in Leucadia. Moonlight Beach in Encinitas exuded a briny, metallic tang, rather than the full stench of decomposition. Although the water was an unsettling shade of brownish orange, beachgoers took advantage of the newly reopened beaches to walk, wade and swim.
“It was kind of normal,” said Warren Galvin, 12, of Point Loma, who visited Moonlight Beach with his family.
The red tide hasn’t deterred the family from their neighboring beach either, said his mother, Lorraine Galvin.
“It’s been red tide at Ocean Beach, and we have been swimming and surfing,” she said. “My mom lives in Carlsbad and she said it was pretty pungent.”
Jasper Isbell, who rode his bike to Moonlight Beach with friends, said he didn’t notice much odor around his home in Cardiff, but has caught a whiff of wretched smell at other spots.
“At La Costa it smells bad,” he said. “It smelled like I guess gross, dead fish.”
Also at issue have been rafts of seaweed washing ashore during the red tide event. Scripps researcher Ed Parnell said he doesn’t think the red tide would significantly affect giant kelp, though it may crowd out sunlight from lower growing species of seaweed. However, he said, the most likely causes of the seaweed piles would be the recent swell, which prunes older or poorly anchored plants, or spring tides associated with the full moon.
“Seaweed wrack has a fortnightly cycle of moving up and down the shoreline in blobs of rotting tissue,” he said. “Extreme high tides associated with spring tides wash it high up onto the beach where it sits and decays until the next set of spring tides wash it back into the ocean where the blobs gets moved somewhere else and stranded.”
The red tide cycle has generated both natural wonder and nuisance for many San Diegans who are itching to emerge from quarantine to enjoy the outdoors.
Beachgoers have reveled in the luminescent waves, which happily coincided with beach reopenings of many coastal cities starting around May 1, after more than a month of COVID-19 closures.
Now that the weather is warmer and social-distancing rules are relaxed enough to allow beachgoers to walk, swim or surf, it’s frustrating to some that the ocean is serving up a stinky stew.
“Certainly at a time when there are so many stressors, we want to take advantage of our beautiful coastline, but the smell and the irritability (that it creates prevent that),” O’Malley said. “At a time when a lot of us are looking to get back out and take advantage of the recreational opportunities our coast provides, there is limited availability.”
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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“The hottest spots will be places like Poway, Escondido, Valley Center, El Cajon and Alpine,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster. “There’s almost no sea breeze, so those areas will get really hot.”
Forecasters say the hottest weather will occur today when temperatures reach around 80 degrees in some beach towns and the upper 90s to 100 in the valleys. An excessive heat advisory is in effect for the deserts, where temperatures could reach the 103- to 108-degree range.
The heat wave is driving a lot of people to the coast, where some beaches remain closed due to the threat posed by the coronavirus. In a mysterious change, the ocean has been unusually warm, reaching 73 degrees on Monday at the Scripps Pier in La Jolla.
“There has been a pretty persistent atmospheric high pressure pattern over the Gulf of Alaska, which is driving a blob-like ocean temperature pattern in the Gulf of Alaska,” said Art Miller, a climate researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The warm ocean by the coast does not look to be directly linked to that, but rather due to the high pressure over the western U.S.”
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Currently fewer than 25 million people live in the world’s hottest areas, which are mostly in the Sahara region in Africa with mean annual temperatures above about 84 degrees Fahrenheit. But the researchers said that by 2070 such extreme heat could encompass a much larger part of Africa, as well as parts of India, the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia and Australia.
With the global population projected to rise to 10 billion by 2070, that means as many as 3.5 billion people could inhabit those areas. Some of them could migrate to cooler areas, but that would bring economic and societal disruption with it.
The parts of the world that could become unsuitably hot “are precisely the areas that are growing the fastest,” said Timothy A. Kohler, an archaeologist at the University of Washington and an author of the study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The 3.5 billion figure is far higher than most estimates of the global population that will face the most dire effects of climate change. A 2018 World Bank study, for example, estimated that climate change would force about 140 million people in Africa, South Asia and Central and South America to migrate within their own borders by 2050.
Kohler and his colleagues said the 3.5 billion figure was a worst case, based on emissions of greenhouse gases continuing to increase substantially in coming decades. If emissions decline and warming slows, they said, the number of people affected could drop to about 1 billion.
“Our core result is what you could call a sensitivity of humanity to warming,” said another of the study’s authors, Marten Scheffer, a professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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But, sometimes after disaster, communities come together and bring out the best in people.
As daylight dawned in Cookeville after that horrific night and the scope of the devastation became clear, Sarah Romeyn knew she had to help. She learned a family had lost their home and their dog, Bella, in the tornado. Romeyn’s now credited with reuniting Bella with her aching family, some 54 days after the life-changing storm blew through.
The heartwarming reunion was more than a month in the making. On Sunday, Bella — an Australian shepherd that went missing from the home of Eric and Faith Johnson — was returned to her family.
Bella had awoken the pair and their children on the night of the storm moments before the tornado struck. Seconds later, their house was leveled. The family escaped with their lives, but as they emerged from the wreckage following the storm’s passage, they realized something was missing: Bella.
Romeyn teamed up with A.A.R.F. — All About Rescue and Fixin’, Inc. — in Cookeville to borrow surveillance cameras, and, drawing on the “trapping” experience of Sarah Fostello at Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, set out to bring Bella home.
Romeyn spread the word about Bella’s status and got a tip on the dog’s whereabouts.
With the help of a cheeseburger, Romeyn collected Bella and a reunion soon followed.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The court ruled 6-3 that a wastewater treatment plant in Hawaii could not avoid provisions of the act, which regulates the release of pollutants into rivers, lakes and seas, by pumping them first into groundwater, from which they eventually reached the ocean.
Justice Stephen Breyer’s compromise language said an Environmental Protection Agency permit is required when a discharge is “the functional equivalent” of a direct release into navigable waters.
While environmentalists had won a broader victory in the lower court, they were happy to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“This decision is a huge victory for clean water,” said David Henkin, an attorney for Earthjustice who argued the case. “The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act’s protections for rivers, lakes, and oceans.”
While the case must go back to lower courts, Henkin said, “we fully expect that Maui County’s sewage plant will be required to get a Clean Water Act permit (requiring) the county to protect the ocean from sewage discharges in a way it has refused to do to date.”
The test endorsed by the court’s majority is “one under which environmentalists can prevail in most every kind of case that environmentalists have brought under the Clean Water Act,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law expert at Harvard Law School.
The EPA was noncommittal about how it would be implemented.
“We will respect the court’s finding that ‘as to groundwater pollution and non-point source pollution, Congress intended to leave substantial responsibility and autonomy to the states,”’ EPA spokeswoman Corry Schiermeyer said in a statement.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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More than 150,000 businesses and homes from Texas to Georgia were without power as the severe weather blew eastward, snapping utility lines as trees fell, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
In Georgia, a tornado Thursday swept through the city of Adel in Cook County, tearing off roofs and flipping at least one car and a small plane.
Johnny West, Cook County’s emergency management director, told The Valdosta Daily Times there was damage throughout the county and “heavy damage” in the city. Photos submitted to WALB-TV show trees snapped in half and metal roofing material draped over some utility lines still standing.
Damage was caused by a combination of straight-line winds and the tornado, said Wright Dobbs, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tallahassee, Fla., office.
Winds peeled roofing material off a church in Alabama and sent an awning crashing onto a car at a gas station. In Adel, Ga., pieces of metal flew off a building during a possible twister.
Earlier, an apparent tornado killed three people and injured 20 to 30 more in and around the southeast Texas town of Onalaska. Suspected twisters destroyed 46 homes and damaged another 245 in the surrounding area, according to Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy. The judge told the Beaumont Enterprise on Thursday that the dead included a woman in her 20s, a man in his 50s and another man whose age they don’t know.
Nine suspected tornadoes touched down in southern Oklahoma, National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Zwink said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A dome of high pressure is settling over the West Coast, blocking the sort of storms that produced near-record rainfall throughout the region earlier this month.
“The weather is going to warm up fast on Wednesday and will be the warmest on Friday when we get weak Santa Ana winds,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster. “Things will turn a little cooler on Sunday. But we’ll get back into the warmth next week.
“We’re going from cool and wet to warm and dry. Temperatures will be 5 to 10 degrees above normal, and 15 degrees higher in some spots.”
Forecasters say today’s high in San Diego will hit 74, or 7 degrees above average. It is expected to be 78 on Thursday, 81 on Friday and Saturday, and 79 on Sunday.
El Cajon is expected to be 82 today, 85 on Thursday, 91 on Friday, 89 on Saturday and 86 on Sunday.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler said the rollback was reversing what he depicted as regulatory overreach by the Obama administration. “We have put in place an honest accounting method that balances” the cost to utilities with public safety, he said.
Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist whose previous clients have gotten many of the regulatory rollbacks they sought from the Trump administration.
Environmental and public health groups and Democratic lawmakers faulted the administration for pressing forward with a series of rollbacks easing pollution rules for industry — in the final six months of President Donald Trump’s current term — while the coronavirus pandemic rivets the world’s attention.
With rollbacks on air pollution protections, the “EPA is all but ensuring that higher levels of harmful air pollution will make it harder for people to recover in the long run” from the disease caused by the coronavirus, given the lasting harm the illness does to victims hearts and lungs, said Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, the senior Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The EPA move leaves in place standards for emissions of mercury, which damages the developing brains of children and has has been linked to a series of other ailments. But the changes greatly reduce the health benefits that regulators can consider in crafting futures rules for power plant emissions. That undermines the 2011 mercury rule and limits regulators’ ability to tackle the range of soot, heavy metals, toxic gases and other hazards from fossil fuel power plants.
The Trump administration contends the mercury cleanup was not “appropriate and necessary,” a legal benchmark under the country’s landmark Clean Air Act.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In Alabama, people seeking shelter from tornadoes huddled in community shelters, protective masks covering their faces to guard against the coronavirus. A twister demolished a Mississippi home save for a concrete room where a married couple and their children survived unharmed, but 11 others died in the state.
About 85 miles from Atlanta in the mountains of north Georgia, Emma and Charles “Peewee” Pritchett laid still in their bed praying as a suspected twister splintered the rest of their home.
“I said, ‘If we’re gonna die I’m going to be beside him,”’ the woman said Monday. Both survived without injuries.
Nine died in South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said, and coroners said eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said two people were killed in Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina.
With a handful of tornadoes already confirmed in the South and storms still raging up the Eastern Seaboard, forecasters fanned out to determine how much of the widespread damage was caused by twisters.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the storms were “as bad or worse than anything we’ve seen in a decade.”
“We are used to tornadoes in Mississippi,” he said. “No one is used to this.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said some storm victims already were out of work because of shutdowns caused by COVID-19. “Now they have lost literally everything they own,” he said.
The storms caused flooding and mudslides in mountainous areas, and knocked out electricity for nearly 1.3 million customers in a path from Texas to Maine.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Mississippi Emergency Management Agency director Greg Michel said one person killed was in Walthall County, two were killed in Lawrence County, and three were killed in Jefferson Davis County. All three counties are more than an hour’s drive south of Jackson, near the Louisiana state line.
The National Weather Service said strong winds were sweeping through other parts of Mississippi, and a tornado was spotted north of Meridian near the Alabama state line.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Sunday night after he said several tornadoes had struck the state.
“This is not how anyone wants to celebrate Easter,” Reeves said on Twitter. “As we reflect on the death and resurrection on this Easter Sunday, we have faith that we will all rise together.”
Before the storms moved into Mississippi, the weather service reported multiple tornadoes and damaging winds over much of northern Louisiana. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries. Utility companies reported thousands of power outages.
The mayor of Monroe, La., Jamie Mayo, told KNOE-TV that the storm damaged 200 to 300 homes in and around the city. Flights were canceled at Monroe Regional Airport, where siding was ripped off buildings and debris was scattered on runways. Airport director Ron Phillips told the News-Star the storm caused up to $30 million in damage to planes inside a hangar.
In northwest Louisiana, officials reported damage to dozens of homes in DeSoto and Webster parishes, according to news outlets.
The weather service said the greatest risk for strong Easter Sunday storms covered much of Mississippi, Alabama and western Georgia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The system was expected to die out late Friday night, capping a six-day period in which Palomar Mountain received at least 8.40 inches of rain while 7.30 inches fell in Encinitas, 6.30 inches fell in Valley Center and 3.50 inches hit San Diego International Airport.
By 1 p.m. Friday, the reading at the airport made this the fourth wettest April in San Diego — a record that dates back to 1850, according to the National Weather Service.
The airport has received more than 13 inches of precipitation during the current rainy season — something that has not happened since 2004-05, when the city got more than 22 inches.
“The storm had headed toward Las Vegas on Thursday then came back and has just been sitting on top of us,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster. “It’s the perfect scenario for prolonged rain.”
The system, which originated in the Gulf of Alaska, also brought light snow, covering the peaks at Palomar Mountain and Mount Laguna. Traffic was unusually light Friday on the region’s streets and freeways due to people sheltering at home. But the rain, falling in vertical sheets, contributed to a crash Friday morning that killed a father and left his teen son gravely injured, and flooding shut down state Route 78 in Oceanside for much of the day.
San Diego police said the fatal crash happened about 7:50 a.m. when a 50-year-old man lost control of his BMW while speeding through the rain northbound on Carmel Canyon Road north of Carmel Country Road.
The sedan slammed into a tree and was sheared in half by the impact, police said. The driver died, his 17-year-old son sustained life-threatening head injuries and his 15-year-old daughter suffered minor injuries.
Friday’s steady rain also caused flooding that prompted a full closure of state Route 78 in both directions near El Camino Real in Oceanside around 8:15 a.m. that lasted all day.
The California Highway Patrol’s Oceanside office shared several photos and videos on Instagram of two ducks swimming across the flooded highway.
There were also the usual crashes and rescues that come with heavy rain. Around 10:30 a.m., a Jeep veered off state Route 94 near Interstate 15 in San Diego, down an embankment and into the fast-moving waters of Chollas Creek.
The Jeep landed on its wheels, but stranded two people inside. Fire and lifeguard crews from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department set up a rope system and used a ladder as a bridge to rescue the pair. The depth of the lower San Diego River reached 12 feet, 4 inches, causing minor flooding in Fashion Valley.
By 5 p.m. in Encinitas, a rain-drenched hillside gave way, causing a mudslide to crash into a nursing home off Santa Fe Drive and Bonita Drive, according to a Sheriff’s Department official.
Nobody was injured, but the mudslide caused a partial roof collapse and some flooding inside the facility.
The storm began producing sprinkles last Sunday, then intensified on Monday afternoon and evening as the system pulled a lot of moisture from the subtropics. The so-called atmospheric river lasted into Tuesday. It rained sporadically into Wednesday and Thursday, when forecasters thought the storm was finally about to clear off to the east. But then came the U-turn.
“It’s unusual to get this much rain, especially in April,” Tardy said. “We’re going to have a second growth of grass and flowers. It’ll be a really pretty spring.”
The storm broke several records.
Forecasters say the airport received 1.98 inches on rain Friday, breaking the record for April 10. The previous record was 1.03 inches, set in 1952. Oceanside Harbor got 3.09 inches, breaking the record of 0.30 inches, set in 2001. Vista also hit 3.09 inches, breaking the record of 0.54 inches, set in 1965. Chula Vista got 1.56 inches, breaking the record of 0.48 inches, set in 2016.
Escondido received 1.53 inches, breaking the record of 0.86, set in 1965. Ramona got 1.90 inches, breaking the record of 0.60 inches, set in 2016. Alpine received 1.41 inches, breaking the record of 0.48 inches, set in 1965. And Campo got 0.89 inches, breaking the record of 0.80 inches, set in 1965.
The heavy rain added to the woes of the North County Transit District on Friday, slowing or stopping a number of trains.
Flooding at the Buena Creek Sprinter station in Vista canceled or delayed trains between Oceanside and Vista for much of the day. Flooding west of the Rancho Del Oro station in Oceanside allowed only bus service from that point to the Oceanside Transit Center from late morning on.
Coaster commuter trains between San Diego and Oceanside were delayed at times because of speed restrictions south of Sorrento Valley.
“Our team is very busy with the repercussions of the rain event,” said NCTD spokeswoman Kimy Wall. “Detours and delays will continue to evolve throughout the day. We are monitoring the situation closely, and if we feel it’s unsafe to run trains (or buses) ... we will halt that service accordingly.”
The disruptions had less of an impact than usual due to declined ridership in light of coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions. Because there are so few passengers, the agency has reduced the number of weekday trains and suspended Coaster service on weekends.
(Gary Robbins, Philip Diehl, Alex Riggins & Rob Krier, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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Ukraine’s emergencies service said one of the fires, covering about 12 acres, had been localized. It said the other fire was about 50 acres. Earlier Sunday, the head of the state ecological inspection service, Yehor Firsov, said on Facebook that the fires had spread to about 250 acres. The discrepancy in sizes could not immediately be resolved.
Firsov said radiation levels at the fire were substantially higher than normal.
The post included a video with a Geiger counter showing radiation at 16 times above normal.
But the emergencies service said radiation levels in the capital of Kyiv, about 60 miles south, were within norms.
Ukraine has employed two planes, a helicopter and around 100 firefighters to fight the fires.
The fires were within the 1,000-square-mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone established after the 1986 disaster at the plant that sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe.
The zone is largely unpopulated, although about 200 people have remained despite orders to leave.
According to the official, internationally recognized death toll, 31 people died as an immediate result of Chernobyl, while the U.N. estimates that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster.
In 2005, the U.N. predicted a further 4,000 might eventually die as a result of the radiation exposure.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The quake erupted along the San Jacinto fault system, which scientists say is capable of producing a 7.3 to 7.5 temblor.
The shaker also was strongly felt in downtown Los Angeles.
The quake hit at 6:53 p.m. at a spot near the San Diego-Riverside county line, 11 miles east-southeast of Anza and 16 miles north-northeast of Warner Springs, at a depth of 6.6 miles.
It’s common for quakes to occur at depths of 10 miles in Southern California.
“This was a moderate earthquake in an area that has produced a lot of moderate earthquakes,” said Tom Rockwell, a San Diego State University scientist who has studied the San Jacinto system for years.
“This is a section of the fault where we expect larger quakes. The last big one occurred on Nov. 22, 1800, when we had a 7.3 earthquake. It produced up to 13 feet of lateral displacement near Anza.”
The average return time of a big quake in that area is 270 years.
“Could be have a big one tomorrow? Yes,” said Rockwell. “Could it wait another 100 years? Yes. The return time is quite variable.
“There is a 5 percent chance that this was a foreshock to a larger earthquake in the next 48 hours. But there’s a 95 percent chance that nothing will happen.”
Significant aftershocks to Friday’s quake were expected.
(Gary Robbins, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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The Department of Water Resources said its monthly manual survey of a broad field near Echo Summit showed the snowpack was about one third less than normal for this time of year.
The survey, conducted behind the site of a former stagecoach stop off Highway 50, showed 43.5 inches of snow and a “snow water equivalent” of 16.5 inches. That was 66 percent of the average for the start of April.
The survey, traditionally a closely watched barometer of California’s “water year,” was conducted without any media members present because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The results from the site at Phillips, near the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, were roughly in line with electronic sensors measuring the snowpack elsewhere. Those sensors show the snowpack’s snow water equivalent at 15.2 inches, or 53 percent of normal.
Officials had hoped for a March Miracle after a nearly rain-free February in most parts of the state.
The measurements represent the latest evidence of California’s dry winter. The U.S. Drought Monitor, produced by several federal agencies, last week showed 40 percent of the state was facing drought-like conditions and another 35 percent was considered abnormally dry.
(THE SACRAMENTO BEE)
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The body of Zezico Guajajara, a teacher who had repeatedly denounced illegal logging, was found shot on a road near his village in Maranhao state, the state’s human rights secretary said on its social media accounts. The Guajajara live within the Arariboia Indigenous Territory.
“We lost another warrior, a great leader of the Guajajara people,” Sonia Guajajara, a tribe member and executive coordinator of the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, said in a statement. “Our lives and our fight matter! Zezico’s death will not be in vain, every warrior who falls, many more rise up!”
The federal government’s indigenous affairs agency, Funai, said it had alerted Brazil’s federal police and Maranhao’s public security secretariat and added that it was willing to collaborate with investigations into the indigenous leader’s death.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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With so many demands, the Klamath River has come to symbolize a larger struggle over the American West’s increasingly precious water resources, and who has claim to them.
Now, plans to demolish four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath’s lower reaches — the largest such demolition project in U.S. history — have placed those competing interests in stark relief. Tribes, farmers, homeowners and conservationists all have a stake in the dams’ fate.
“We are saving salmon country, and we’re doing it through reclaiming the West,” said Amy Cordalis, a Yurok tribal attorney fighting for dam removal.
The project, estimated at nearly $450 million, would reshape the Klamath River and empty giant reservoirs, and could revive plummeting salmon populations by reopening habitat that has been blocked for more than a century.
The proposal fits into a trend in the U.S. toward dam demolition as these infrastructure projects age and become less economically viable.
Backers of the Klamath Dam removal say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could vote this spring on whether to transfer the dams’ hydroelectric licenses from the current operator, PacifiCorp, to a nonprofit formed to oversee the demolition. Drawdown of the reservoirs behind the dams could begin as early as 2022.
Opponents, including a group of residents who live around a reservoir, say without the dams, their waterfront properties will become mudflats and their homes will lose value.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A 15-year-old was reported to be in critical condition and 16 others were injured, authorities said.
The European seismological agency, EMSC, said the earthquake measured 5.3 and struck a wide area north of the capital, Zagreb, at 6:23 a.m. Sunday. The epicenter was 4 miles north of Zagreb at a depth of 6 miles.
There were at least four weaker temblors after the initial quake.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said the earthquake was the biggest in Zagreb in the last 140 years.
Many buildings in the capital cracked and walls and rooftops were damaged. Downtown streets were littered with debris. Concrete slabs fell on cars and chimneys landed in front of entrances.
Footage from the scene showed mothers dressed in nightgowns hugging their newborn babies in a parking lot as they evacuated a damaged maternity hospital amid freezing temperatures. The women, newborn babies and incubators were being moved to a new location with the help of the army.
Zagreb’s iconic cathedral was also damaged, with the top of one of its two spires collapsing. The cathedral was rebuilt after it toppled in the 1880 earthquake.
Power was cut as people ran out of their homes. Several fires were also reported. Residents shared photos of belongings falling off shelves, broken bottles and glass inside homes.
Officials first said a 15-year-old was killed, but doctors later said that she was in critical condition and that they were fighting to save her life. They gave no immediate details on the extent of other injuries.
The earthquake struck amid a partial lockdown of the capital because of the spread of the coronavirus. People were told to avoid public areas, such as parks and public squares, but had little choice as they fled their residences.
Plenkovic, the prime minister, urged citizens to remain calm and return to their homes where possible in the central parts of Zagreb, which sustained the most damage.
“We have two parallel crisis that contradict each other,” Plenkovic said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“We knew this past summer had been particularly warm in Greenland, melting every corner of the ice sheet, but the numbers are enormous,” lead author Isabella Velicogna, an Earth science professor at the University of California-Irvine and a senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release.
The mass loss from Greenland alone was enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2 millimeters, the study found.
Between 2002 and 2019, across the full time series of two satellite missions, the study found Greenland lost 4,550 billion tons of ice, or an average of 265 billion tons per year.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The 5.7-magnitude quake just after 7 a.m. damaged the spire and statue atop the iconic Salt Lake Temple. Elsewhere, bricks were showered onto sidewalks and a chemical plume was released outside the city.
The epicenter was just southwest of Salt Lake City, between the airport and Great Salt Lake. It was felt by about 2.8 million people who were already hunkered down inside their homes to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Many ran outside in panic amid the shaking that lasted as long as 15 seconds.
“This is extremely bad timing, because we already have the coronavirus issue going on right now causing a lot of anxiety,” Gov. Gary Herbert said.
Planes were diverted from Salt Lake City International Airport and the control tower and concourses were evacuated. Far fewer people than normal were in the airport, due to the coronavirus precautions. On a typical travel day, the airport would have had about 24,000 people inside and more making connections. But there were just 9,000 on Wednesday, making an evacuation easier, airport executive director Bill Wyatt said.
Marsha Guertzgen of Evanston, Wyo., was about to board a flight when the quake struck. “Pandemonium and chaos” immediately erupted in the terminal — only to be heightened by each aftershock, she said.
“Everybody was running around, they were scared, I don’t think they knew what was going on,” she said. “People were screaming, kids were screaming, people were climbing under things.”
No runway damage was found and most of the damage in the terminal appeared to be caused by a broken water line, Wyatt said. Cargo and non-commercial flights resumed hours later, but commercial flights were delayed into the afternoon.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“I had to grab my glasses for this one because I saw ‘tornado’ and I thought, ‘This must be the wrong alert,’” said Alderete in an interview. “I had been hearing the flooding alerts pretty much all night long.”
But Tuesday’s tornado warnings — the first issued in the Aloha State since 2008 — were no mistake. The first came at 1:22 a.m. local time, when strong rotation was detected just southeast of the island of Niihau. A more intense circulation barreled ashore in Kauai, the northwestern most populated island in the chain, at around 5:55 a.m.
That second rotation was particularly impressive, even complete with a “bounded weak echo region,” or BWER, on radar. That doughnut hole-like formation occurs when an updraft, presumably from a tornadic circulation, is so strong that rain isn’t able to fall within it.
It appeared as the area of spin responsible for prompting the warning passed over the south side of Kauai, at 6 a.m. local time.
When the alert was issued, Alderete’s mind flashed back to Lawrence, Kan., where he spent several years in his youth.
Alderete, a microbiologist, promptly woke his wife and son, grabbed their cat and hunkered down on the lowest floor of their home.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“The storm traveled about 50 miles farther west than we anticipated,” said Alex Tardy, a forecaster for the National Weather Service. “It drew in a lot of moisture that had been sitting over Mexico. Borrego Springs got about 2 inches of rain, which is very rare.”
By 3 p.m., Ranchita had recorded 2.28 inches of rain while Julian reported 1.70 inches. The storm also reached the coast, unleashing 1.46 inches of precipitation in Encinitas and nearly as much in Carlsbad.
The system largely bypassed other areas, notably San Diego International Airport, which got only 0.26 inches of rain.
Slick roads contributed to some crashes and spinouts throughout the day, especially during the morning commute, when the showers were heaviest, including a multi-vehicle crash on south Interstate 805 in North Park.
Some weather-related road issues remained in the afternoon, most notably the closure of the El Camino Real on-ramp to east state Route 78 in Carlsbad due to flooding. But Caltrans San Diego’s website showed only minor slowing in areas on freeways throughout the county as of 4:30 p.m.
Forecasters said there could be scattered showers today. A new storm could arrive on Monday.
| Location | Total (in) |
| Ocotillo Wells | 1.86 |
| Mt. Woodson | 1.69 |
| Santee | 1.26 |
| La Mesa | 1.10 |
| Del Mar | 0.97 |
| El Cajon | 0.86 |
| Chula Vista | 0.73 |
A child died and five people were injured when floods demolished their houses in a rural area in the southern province of Qena, where lightning ignited several fires. Also in Qena, a motorist was killed when winds blew his car into a canal.
Photos and video footage circulated on social media showed flooded roads, damaged bus shelters and broken windows around the country.
In western New Valley province, a technician was electrocuted while trying to fix a lighting column that went off due to the rain, local officials said.
In southern Sohag province, a 35-year-old bystander died under the rubble of a wall that was knocked down by wind.
A 60-year-old man was electrocuted as he walked down the street in his village in the Delta province of Menoufeya.
Authorities shut down Luxor International Airport, a key hub for tourists, and three seaports — the Mediterranean port of Alexandria and the Red Sea ports of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada.
Nile River cruises were closed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Five snow-shoers who were hiking in central Austria were hit by one avalanche at about 9:30 a.m., Austria’s APA news agency reported. Several people witnessed the avalanche and immediately informed emergency services, but the hikers, believed to be from the Czech Republic, were already dead by the time rescuers got to them.
There had been high winds and heavy snowfall in the area over the past few days, leading to the avalanche.
And in southwestern Austria, a police officer who was undergoing Alpine training was killed when he was hit by a separate avalanche. He was hit by a large piece of frozen snow and died at the scene from his injuries, state authorities told APA.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The death toll from the tornadoes stands at 24, with no new fatalities reported since Wednesday. CNN reports that at least five children were killed, including one as young as 2. Victims ranged in age up to 67.
Local media reported that the count of the missing had dropped to zero, according to an announcement from Gov. Bill Lee early Thursday.
Of the 24 fatalities resulting from the twisters, 18 were from a tornado that struck Cookeville in Putnam County, 80 miles east of Nashville. That was rated an EF-4 on the 0 to 5 Enhanced Fujita scale for tornado intensity, making it the first “violent” tornado (rated EF-4 or higher) in the National Weather Service Nashville’s forecast area since April 10, 2009.
It was also the strongest-rated tornado nationwide in nearly three years.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The storms were at their worst early Tuesday, shortly after midnight. On Wednesday, authorities said at least two dozen people had been killed by flying debris, collapsing buildings and other hazards created by the winds.
The death toll was highest in Putnam County, where 18 people were killed, Randy Porter, the county’s mayor, said at a news conference Wednesday morning. The dead included 13 adults and five children under the age of 13.
As rescue efforts continued, the number of people missing fluctuated, a sign of how difficult it could be to search for people across a wide area of power outages and sometimes dangerous road conditions. More than 80 people were unaccounted for Tuesday night, then 22 Wednesday morning and then 17 by midday.
Deaths were reported in Wilson and Benton counties, but officials there said there were no reports of missing people.
As the storms swept through central Tennessee, some residents fought to keep their relatives safe, even as their homes collapsed around them. Shirley Brooks, who lives in North Nashville, said there were 16 people living in her house when a tornado hit.
“My daughter and her kids were in the living room,” she said. “The storm hit the window and took it straight out. She was running, grabbing the kids.”
Brooks said she struggled to escape and yelled for help as the house fell apart, and a piece of the roof struck her back. She was eventually able to climb out and over a fence, but her home was destroyed.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Such a temblor also could cut gas and water service from La Jolla to the Silver Strand, collapse some of the city’s older municipal buildings, and close the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, said a report by the San Diego chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
Parts of the fault would rupture the Earth’s surface and shift the landscape 6 to 7 feet, damaging streets so badly it would make it hard for police, firefighters and paramedics to get around.
The study, which was released Wednesday during the group’s quadrennial meeting in San Diego, estimates that the quake would inflict $38 billion in building and infrastructure damage, displacing 36,000 households and wreaking havoc on San Diego’s $245 billion economy.
“We’ve been working on this study for five years and it’s been a real wake-up call for stakeholders,” said Jorge Meneses, president of EERI-San Diego. “They were not aware of all of the possible consequences.
“But they have time to make San Diego more resilient to the kind of damages that could occur.”
EERI is a national technological society whose scientists and engineers evaluate the risk and consequence of large quakes in places like the Bay Area and Seattle’s Puget Sound. The group collaborates with government and first-responders to mitigate potential disaster.
In 2015, EERI focused its attention on the Rose Canyon Fault, which begins beneath the seafloor off Oceanside and extends south, coming ashore in La Jolla, where it proceeds through Mount Soledad and Rose Canyon, along Interstate 5.
Scientists say the fault then cuts through Old Town, Little Italy and downtown San Diego before heading offshore at the Silver Strand and stretching down the coast to roughly Tijuana. Branches of the fault exist beneath San Diego International Airport, which handles nearly 70,000 airline passengers a day, as well as the San Diego Convention Center and Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.
The fault — like the better-known San Andreas — is a strike-slip system. When it slips, one side of the fault moves horizontally in relation to the other.
Meneses and other scientists don’t believe that a quake is imminent on the Rose Canyon Fault, which appears to produce a major temblor roughly once every 700 years. The last significant quake, measuring 6.0, occurred in 1862. The new report says there’s only an 18 percent chance that a fault within the county, or just offshore, would produce a 6.7 or larger quake in the next 30 years.
But the Rose Canyon Fault isn’t well understood, or even well-known. Meneses joked during Wednesday’s conference that when he mentions Rose Canyon some people ask, “Is that a new restaurant?”
Scientists want to make sure that San Diego doesn’t get caught off guard the way Los Angeles did in 1994 when the 6.7 Northridge quake erupted on an unknown fault. Nearly 60 people were killed.
EERI produced a preliminary report in 2017 that said a 6.9 quake could cause $40 billion in property damage and kill 1,000 to 2,000 people. Researchers said a lot of the fatalities could result from an offshore landslide that would produce a tsunami that would hit the Silver Strand.
The final report downplays the prospect of a tsunami and trims the estimated economic damage. But the study says that a quake lasting 15 to 30 seconds could cause extraordinary shaking — enough to trigger landslides on Point Loma and Mount Soledad.
A lot of the most intense energy would hit coastal communities from San Diego down through Tijuana, areas that are densely populated and highly dependent on imported gas and water.
The quake would cause moderate to severe damage to roughly 120,000 of the nearly 700,000 structures that exist countywide, with especially heavy damage to schools, health care and government facilities in coastal areas, where shaking would cause liquefaction, the report adds.
Liquefaction means that loose, saturated soil essentially liquefies during shaking, potentially causing buildings to tilt, sink or fall apart. It can also snap utility lines.
Researchers estimate that half of the schools and hospitals in the county would be able to function on only a limited basis, and that many people would have to flee the coast.
The report further says that, “Department of Defense facilities, particularly those encircling San Diego Bay, will be exposed to severe ground shaking and liquefaction and will likely face widespread damage to older buildings, waterfront structures, and lifeline utility infrastructure.”
Before the end of this year, those facilities will be responsible for serving three nuclear-powered Navy aircraft carriers.
The Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal and San Diego International Airport also could suffer a loss of gas and petroleum lines, which could affect commercial airline traffic as well as passenger ships. The airport serves nearly 25 million passengers a year.
The San Diego-Coronado Bridge has undergone seismic retrofitting and would likely survive the earthquake. But researchers said that feeder streets could be so heavily damaged that the bridge would be knocked out of service.
The report also says that the Coronado Fire Department could lose access to water, crippling its ability to fight fire.
The predictions elicited some sobering reactions on Wednesday.
“I live in the coastal zone and was not aware that I could be out of water for three or four months,” said Ali Fattah, a senior research engineer for the city of San Diego.
Gary Johnston saw an upside: “The probability of a quake like this is low, but the consequences are high,” said Johnston, chief resilience officer for the county Office of Emergency Services. “It focuses us on things we can do now to mitigate and prepare for an earthquake.”
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The twisters that struck in the hours after midnight shredded more than 140 buildings and buried people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. The storms moved so quickly that many people in their path could not flee to safer areas.
“It hit so fast, a lot of folks didn’t have time to take shelter,” Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. “Many of these folks were sleeping.”
The governor declared an emergency and sent the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. State emergency officials, who initially reported at least 25 dead, revised the toll to 24 fatalities on Tuesday evening after determining one death counted earlier was not storm-related.
An unspecified number of people were missing.
Early findings by National Weather Service survey teams indicated that the damage in Nashville and Wilson County to the east was inflicted by a tornado of at least EF-3 intensity, the agency said.
One twister wrecked homes and businesses across a 10-mile stretch of Nashville that included parts of downtown. It smashed more than three dozen buildings, including destroying the tower and stained glass of a historic church. Another tornado damaged more than 100 structures along a 2-mile path of destruction in Putnam County, wiping some homes from their foundations and depositing the wreckage far away.
Daybreak revealed landscapes littered with blown-down walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees, making many city streets and rural roads impassable. More than a dozen polling stations were also damaged, forcing Super Tuesday voters to wait in long lines at alternative sites.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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February is shaping up to be driest on record for much of the state, with chances of light showers on the horizon on March 1 and then not again until March 10.
Sierra Littlefield, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento, said there is a strong chance the state’s capital will see a completely dry February — something that has never happened.
“There is a lot of variability in the storm season, the rainy season for California,” she said. “We do have years that are really dry and years that are really wet.”
Downtown San Francisco is on its way to its first rain-free February since 1864, said meteorologist Anna Schneider.
San Diego has recorded just 0.38 of an inch of rain this month.
The dry beginning of the year comes after a wet 2019 that capped mountains with snow, delivering water to reservoirs and helping to boost lush vegetation that can quickly turn into fuel for wildfires during dry, windy conditions.
About 75 percent of California’s annual precipitation typically occurs from December through February, mostly from atmospheric rivers — long plumes of moisture originating far out in the Pacific Ocean.
But a high-pressure system parked in the Pacific Ocean has been blocking storms from reaching California and steering them to the Pacific Northwest, Schneider said.
The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor map shows 9.5 percent of California is in moderate drought and 60 percent is abnormally dry.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The dramatic rescue by Sea Shepherd, a marine wildlife conservation nonprofit, was caught on video. The footage shows the whale struggling against the netting, as biologists work to free it.
“It’s a sad reminder of why it’s so important for us to protect the refuge against illegal fishing,” said Octavio Carranza, captain of Sea Shepherd’s M/V Farley Mowat, a 110-foot former Coast Guard cutter.
The nonprofit said it was alerted Friday morning to the whale in life-threatening distress in the Vaquita Refuge, a federally protected zone off the eastern coast of Baja California.
The organization is on the front lines of protecting Mexico’s endangered vaquita porpoise from illegal poaching. Only a handful of vaquita are believed to remain alive in the refuge.
The illegal netting is used in the area to poach totoaba, also a protected fish species whose swim bladders sell for a high price on the Chinese black market. Gillnets are he primary threat to the vaquita, a species on the brink of extinction, according to biologists with Sea Shepherd.
The net that entangled the whale spanned several hundred meters in length and was tightly wrapped around the whale’s head, body and tail, impeding its ability to move.
Biologists with Sea Shepherd said when they arrived,the animal was alive but exhausted and had suffered numerous injuries to its pectoral fin and tail. It was unable to dive under the strain of the net.
The emergency response lasted for several hours, with rescue efforts continuing until sunset. Around 6 p.m., the net was removed from the animal’s head and body, and the whale was able to dive deep, disappearing from view.
Netting remained wrapped around the animal’s tail, potentially threatening its long-term survival, biologists with Sea Shepherd said.
(Wendy Fry, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The 106 mph gust, which apparently set a record, was reported at Sill Hill, a high, remote spot in the Cuyamaca Mountains in East County. The reading is roughly equal to the winds that blow during a Category 3 hurricane.
The strong, dry winds toppled at least two big rigs along Interstate 8 and prompted one school district to cancel classes because of safety concerns. A large pine tree also fell onto a home in Encinitas, damaging its roof but leaving residents uninjured.
The first big rig was blown over about midnight on eastbound I-8 near state Route 79 in the Japatul Valley, said California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettencourt. The second high-profile vehicle to go on its side occurred shortly before 6:25 a.m. on eastbound I-8 at Buckman Springs Road. Both trucks were left on their sides for a time because it was too windy to remove them.
Officials announced Wednesday that schools in the Mountain Empire School District in East County would be closed because of windy conditions.
“Due to high winds — which make travel to and from school challenging, especially for high-profile vehicles such as school buses — and power outages in Descanso, Guatay, Pine Valley, and parts of Boulevard, schools in the Mountain Empire Unified School District will be closed today,” the county Office of Education said.
As of 9:15 a.m., 2,976 SDG&E customers were without power in an area stretching from Lake Henshaw to Buckman Springs to Skyline and Bay Terraces. The figure fell to about 1,200 by 2:30 p.m.
The Santa Anas also raised temperatures across the region. San Diego International Airport hit 77, 12 degrees above average. Forecasters say today will be the warmest day of the week. San Diego is expected to top out at 83 degrees.
Winds were thought to be a factor when a pine tree, estimated to be about 75 feet tall, fell onto a house on Wotan Drive near Santa Fe Drive in Encinitas around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The tree knocked down utility lines and SDG&E crews cut off power to the home.
Forecasters said winds were blowing out of the valleys into Oceanside, where there were gusts to 20 mph.
| Location | Wind speed (mph) |
| Sill Hill, Cuyamaca Mountain | 106 |
| Big Black Mountain (near Ramona) | 87 |
| Santa ysabel Ranch | 77 |
| Sill Hill, Cuyamaca Mountain | 106 |
| North Descanso | 75 |
| Sunrise Highway | 68 |
| Pine Valley | 67 |
| Mount Laguna Observatory | 66 |
| Viejas | 58 |
| Hodges Dam | 53 |
| Julian | 49 |
| Alpine | 49 |
In the system’s wake, heavy lake-effect snows east of Lakes Erie and Ontario may be measured in feet rather than inches.
On the low-pressure area’s cold side, a swath of snow already is affecting parts of the Midwest, including in Chicago and Detroit, both of which are major aviation hubs. Snow was headed for northern New England and Canada on Wednesday night and today.
Meanwhile, the Mid-Atlantic was awaiting a burst of strong to severe storms late Wednesday night, with the threat of isolated damaging winds or even an isolated tornado.
This all comes as the swiftly-intensifying low-pressure system approaches the intensification rate needed to be classified as a bomb cyclone, through a process known as bombogenesis. It is possible that this storm will meet the criteria as it treks north into Canada today.
Storms that undergo bombogenesis over land have a tendency to bring especially severe impacts, which can be greater than initially expected, and this storm too may overperform in some respects.
The snow has been falling in Chicago since mid-afternoon Tuesday, but the amounts are far lower than anticipated. Instead of 6 to 10 inches, as initially forecast, the Windy City picked up 0.7 inches of snow Tuesday, with up to an inch more in the cards.
The narrowness of the snow band, along with uncertainty over how much moisture was available to the storm, resulted in a tricky forecast, which was changed Tuesday to reflect the lower amounts.
Snow will continue to the east, with flakes flying over much of northern Indiana, northwest Ohio and southern Michigan on Wednesday.
Detroit is forecast to receive 3 to 4 inches of snow by this afternoon, while Indianapolis — on the disturbance’s fringe — will see an inch or two. Across the border, Toronto is under a snowfall warning for 6 to 10 inches, while Montreal can expect 4 to 8 inches.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Kenya, Somalia and Uganda have been battling the swarms in the worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years. The U.N. said swarms have also been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea and Tanzania and recently reached South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war.
A joint statement Tuesday from FAO director-general Qu Dongyu, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, and World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley called the swarms of locusts “a scourge of biblical proportions” and “a graphic and shocking reminder of this region’s vulnerability.”
The FAO said mature locusts, carried in part by the wind, arrived on the western shore of Lake Albert in eastern Congo on Friday near the town of Bunia. The country has not seen locusts for 75 years, it said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The warnings from officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, contrasted sharply with assessments from President Donald Trump and other White House officials, who have largely dismissed concerns about the virus.
In contrast to his own health officials, Trump, traveling in India, played down the threat, saying, “You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are, in all cases, I have not heard anything other — the people are getting better; they’re all getting better.”
CDC officials and others expressed greater urgency.
“Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in the United States. It’s not a question of if this will happen, but when this will happen, and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, said during the morning briefing with reporters.
Messonnier said the rapid surge in cases outside mainland China in the past several days prompted the change in official warnings.
There is growing evidence that efforts to contain the spread of the virus outside China have failed.
The number of new virus infections in South Korea jumped again today, topping 1,100, and the U.S. military reported its first case among its soldiers based in the Asian country, with his case and many others connected to a southeastern city with an illness cluster.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 134 of the 169 new cases were confirmed in Daegu, where the government has been mobilizing public health tools to contain the virus. Another 19 cases were in neighboring North Gyeongsang province towns.
A U.S. military statement said the 23-year-old soldier was in self-quarantine at his off-base residence. He had been based at Camp Carroll in a town near Daegu, and visited both Carroll and nearby Camp Walker in recent days, according to the statement.
South Korean authorities and U.S. military health professionals were tracing his contacts to determine if other people may have been exposed.
Meanwhile, at least 15 people have died in Iran, and new cases were reported for the first time in Switzerland, Austria and a luxury resort in Spain. In the United States, 57 people have the virus, all but 14 of them evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which had been quarantined in Yokohama, Japan.
Messonnier noted the emergence of cases in multiple nations without a known source of exposure. Evidence of what is called “community spread,” she said, is triggering strategies to confront the respiratory virus, including urging businesses, health care facilities and even schools to plan now for ways to limit the impact of the illness when it spreads.
Health leaders voiced similar warnings in a closed-door briefing Tuesday morning for senators. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said officials had cautioned them that there was a “very strong chance of an extremely serious outbreak of the coronavirus here in the United States.”
Not long after, though, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow tried to assuage concerns over the coronavirus and its impact on the U.S. economy, telling CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange,” “We have contained this. I won’t say (it’s) airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight.”
Even top GOP lawmakers struggled to explain the inconsistent messages coming from the government.
“I can’t comment on what the White House has been saying on this because the people who work for the White House are not saying that,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
The confused messaging threatened to obscure urgent public health advice coming from the CDC. Officials said the agency would be focusing on containing the spread of the virus in the United States, as well as warning people to prepare.
“Disruptions to everyday life may be severe, but people might want to start thinking about that now,” said the CDC’s Messonnier. She said parents may want to call their school offices to see what plans they have in place and consider options for child care. Messonnier added that she called the office of her children’s schools superintendent to find out about the school system’s plans.
Businesses need to consider replacing in-person meetings with telework, Messonnier said. School authorities should consider ways to limit face-to-face contact, such as dividing students into smaller groups, using Internet-based learning or even closing schools. Local officials should consider modifying, postponing or canceling large gatherings. Hospitals should consider ways to triage patients who do not need urgent care and recommend that patients delay surgery that isn’t absolutely necessary.
Some senators who attended Tuesday’s closed-door briefing played down any alarmist tone from health officials. However, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said senators were told that the number of cases in the United States would inevitably grow.
Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La., criticized the briefing for lawmakers, saying officials could not answer his basic questions while they issued dire warnings.
“I thought a lot of the briefing was bulls---,” Kennedy said. “They would answer the question but dodge, bob and weave. I understand there’s a lot they don’t know. I get that. But they need to answer the questions straight up. They all talk about a task force, a committee — a committee’s not going to solve this problem.”
Blunt, Kennedy and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, were among GOP senators who told health officials about concerns during the closed-door briefing, including the level of spending the administration is prepared to commit, the adequacy of preparations and the length of time for development of a vaccine.
“I’m very disappointed in the preparation that’s been done over the last few years anticipating the potential of an outbreak of substance,” Romney said later.
Testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar defended the administration’s overall response and its $1.8 billion emergency spending plan for the virus, which includes $1.25 billion in new money and transfers of other funds from Ebola research. The total the administration proposes to spend to fight the virus is at least $2.5 billion, according to the plan released late Monday.
Democrats slammed the request as woefully inadequate and excoriated the administration for cutting public health budgets for years. Even some Republicans wondered whether it was enough.
“If you lowball something like this, you’ll pay for it later,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told Azar. “You’re not only dealing with the crisis, you’re dealing with the perception of the American people,” Shelby said, adding that the coronavirus could be an “existential threat” for many Americans.
“The steps the president has taken are the most aggressive containment measures ever taken,” Azar said. “Our country is preparing every day.”
(Erica Werner & Yasmeen Abutaleb, THE WASHINGTON POST; NEW YORK TIMES; ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Italian officials reported 11 deaths and 322 confirmed cases of the virus, 100 more than a day earlier. While the majority were concentrated in northern Italy, some of the new cases registered outside the country’s two hard-hit regions, including three in Sicily, two in Tuscany and one in Liguria.
An Italian couple from the afflicted north tested positive in the Canary Islands off Africa, forcing the quarantine of their hotel in what one guest said felt like being “monkeys in a cage.” Austria, Croatia and Switzerland reported their first cases, all in people who recently traveled to Italy.
The four new deaths in Italy, like the seven reported earlier, were in patients who were elderly, suffering from other ailments or both, officials said.
Amid increasing cases and distribution problems with protective gear and test kits, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte defended the measures Italy has taken to contain the outbreak and predicted a stabilizing of numbers soon. But he acknowledged that the rise in cases — the most outside Asia — was “worrisome.“
“Obviously I can’t say I’m not worried because I don’t want anyone to think we’re underestimating this emergency,“ he said before a meeting with a visiting World Health Organization mission. “But we trust that with the measures we’ve implemented there will be a containing effect in the coming days.”
Italy has closed schools, museums and theaters in the two regions where clusters have formed and troops are enforcing quarantines around 10 towns in Lombardy and the epicenter of the Veneto cluster, Vo’Euganeo.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday that companies should allow employees to work from home and hospitals must expand their treatment capacity in order for Japan to control its virus outbreak.
“We are at an extremely important time in ending the spread of infection at an early stage,” Abe said at a meeting of a task force on the outbreak.
He said cases involving unknown transmission routes and small clusters of infections are occurring, and that slowing the pace of new infections is crucial for stopping the spread of the disease. With 10 new cases reported Tuesday, Japan now has 860, the third highest number behind China and South Korea.
Other basic measures announced Tuesday to fight the illness include urging people to wash their hands carefully, follow “cough etiquette” and avoid going out when feeling unwell. They also urge people with mild illnesses to go to family doctors instead of hospitals with specialized virus-control facilities which are treating many seriously ill patients.
In a country known for long working hours blamed for “karoshi,” or death from overwork, the virus scare may help change Japan’s corporate culture and allow people to work more flexible hours.
“In order to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus, commuting in shifts and teleworking need to be widely exercised across society,” said Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama. “We call on the corporate world to actively implement (the measures).”
Flexible working hours are mainly aimed at reducing the risk of becoming infected on packed trains, but companies are also encouraged to “create an environment where employees can ask for sick leave when they are feeling unwell,“ Kajiyama said. He said the trade ministry began flexible hours on Tuesday and is promoting teleworking.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Army Corps of Engineers’ announcement that the project was “indefinitely postponed” surprised some of its own officials, and local politicians and advocates said the decision was stunning at a time when climate change is threatening New York’s future with intensifying storms.
In a statement, the Corps’ New York office said only that the study was suspended because it did not receive funding in the agency’s work plan for 2020. Officials there refused to comment on whether they believed that Trump had influenced the decision. But a senior administration official said the project was shelved because it was too expensive and unfocused.
While Trump cannot single-handedly cancel a Corps project — the funding is allocated by Congress, and its work plan is determined jointly by Corps officials, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget — the unusual suspension of an ongoing project quickly led to speculation that politics had played a role.
Trump’s tweet, in January, criticized one of the five possible proposals to reduce storm flooding along New York Harbor and its rivers: a sea barrier with retractable gates that would stretch from New Jersey to Queens.
The president had called that option “foolish” a day after The New York Times published an article about the proposals. He overstated the barrier’s cost at $200 billion — it was estimated at $119 billion, and later revised to $62 billion — and advised New Yorkers to get “mops and buckets ready.”
A senior Trump administration official said that while the administration “remains committed to helping communities address their flood risks,” the New York project and three others that were also recently suspended in Baltimore, New Jersey and Rhode Island had “little or no programmatic direction or end in sight” and that the Corps was reviewing their scope.
The official said that Corps engineers should not have been surprised, because “it is required that these studies have a reasonable cost and scope. These particular ones did not.”
The Army Corps’ headquarters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We can only speculate, but I think the tweet gives a clue as to the reason” for the suspension, said Robert Freudenberg, vice president for energy and environment at the Regional Planning Association, an urban research and advocacy group. “This is a president who gets good headlines for his base out of acting against ‘blue’ states, and there’s a disturbing pattern of stalling or trying to end projects that are important to the Northeast.”
Julia Arredondo, a City Hall spokeswoman, called cancellation “unacceptable” and “dangerous.” She urged the decision-makers “to reverse course immediately and finish evaluating the options they are considering to protect New York City and the region.”
According to the Corps official in charge of the project, Clifford S. Jones III, it is highly unusual for a Corps project to lose funding after more than three years of work at a cost of several million dollars.
“This doesn’t happen,” Freudenberg said. “This is an in-progress study.”
In recent months, the Trump administration has tangled with officials in New York — his birthplace and a center of liberal opposition to his policies. It has, for instance, barred New York residents from Trusted Traveler programs, such as Global Entry, because of the state’s immigration policies. The administration may also delay congestion pricing, the state’s plan to charge drivers a fee to enter the heart of Manhattan.
The sea barrier project had drawn criticism because it addressed flooding only from storm surges, not from sea rise and stormwater runoff. Some environmentalists and planning experts had criticized the wall options that the Corps was focusing on, saying the structures would create flooding outside the walls and trap pollutants, harming the recovering ecology of the Hudson River and New York Harbor.
(Anne Barnard, NEW YORK TIMES)
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(Joseph Serna, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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This week, after more than a year being ravaged by strong seas and powerful storms, the ship’s voyage came to an end when it crashed onto the rocky shores of Ballycotton, a tiny fishing village on the south coast of Ireland.
The rusty ship, identified as the Alta, had somehow managed to survive a journey thousands of miles from southeast of Bermuda, where it was first disabled and its crew rescued.
“This is one in a million,” John Tattan, the local chief of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, told the The Irish Examiner, a newspaper based in the nearby city of Cork. “It has come all the way up from the African coast, west of the Spanish coast, west of the English [sic] coast and up to the Irish coast. I have never, ever seen anything abandoned like that before.”
It might be something of a mystery how the Alta survived, only to be driven ashore Sunday by a weather system that Britain’s Meteorological Office has named Storm Dennis. But what happened to the crew is not.
On Sept. 19, 2018, the 250-foot cargo ship — which was heading from Greece to Haiti — became disabled about 1,380 miles southeast of Bermuda, a British island territory in the Atlantic Ocean. Unable to make repairs, and running desperately low on food, the 10-member crew issued a mayday Sept. 30.
An aircrew on an HC-130 Hercules airplane from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City in North Carolina dropped about a week’s worth of food to the crew Oct. 2, according to a U.S. Coast Guard account of the rescue.
A week later, the Coast Guard cutter Confidence arrived to rescue the crew just as a hurricane was bearing down.
“We were conducting a law enforcement patrol near Puerto Rico when we were assigned to assist the crew of the motor vessel Alta,” Cmdr. Travis Emge, the commanding officer of the Confidence, said at the time. “We traveled over 1,300 nautical miles to get to the disabled ship ahead of Hurricane Leslie’s forecast track.”
The crew was taken to Puerto Rico, and the ship was supposed to be towed to shore.
But that never happened, and the ship has been drifting ever since.
It was last spotted by a British Royal Navy ice patrol ship, the Protector, in the middle of the Atlantic.
“We closed the vessel to make contact and offer our assistance, but no one replied!” the ship’s crew wrote on Twitter at the time. “Whilst investigations continue we’re unable to give you more detail on this strange event.”
Between the day its crew was rescued and Sunday, when it was found derelict but visibly undamaged, the vessel drifted for over 16 months. Environmental scientists at Cork County Council found no immediate signs of pollution around the vessel, the council said, and experts were scheduled to board this week to assess risks and potential damage.
(Elian Peltier, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Around 2,000 locusts were spotted inside the country, Agriculture Minister Onyoti Adigo told reporters. Authorities will try to control the outbreak, he added.
The locusts have been seen in Eastern Equatoria state near the borders with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. All have been affected by the outbreak that has been influenced by the changing climate in the region.
The situation in those three countries “remains extremely alarming,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in its latest Locust Watch update Monday. Locusts also have reached Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania and more recently Uganda.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Some of the hardest-hit areas were under a flash flood watch Tuesday, as the National Weather Service said as much as 2 inches of rain, and even more in some spots — was expected to fall in a short amount of time in central Mississippi.
The national Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md., projected the greatest likelihood of heavy rains in a band from eastern Louisiana across central parts of Mississippi and Alabama and into far west Georgia.
Authorities around Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson warned hundreds of residents not to return home until they get an all-clear following devastating flooding on Monday.
A near-record rainy winter led to agonizing choices for reservoir managers, who have had to release water that worsens flooding for some people living downstream while saving many other properties from damage.
The intensity and frequency of extreme rain events that fuel major flooding have increased in the Southeast, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, released by the White House in 2018. Southern states are particularly vulnerable to increasingly heavy rains, according to the report, which cites four floods that each did more than $1 billion in damage between 2014 and 2016.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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To the east, Dennis’ gale-force winds also left nine people injured in Germany as their vehicles crashed into broken trees littering roads and train tracks. Flooding and power outages were reported elsewhere in northern Europe.
By Monday evening, Britain’s Environment Agency issued seven severe flood warnings in the central English counties of Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire . Another 200 lower-level flood warnings were also in place, meaning that flooding was expected.
Some 480 flood warnings and alerts were issued across England on Monday, the highest number on record, the agency said.
The storm’s confirmed death toll rose to three as West Mercia police said a body had been found in the search for a 55-year-old woman who had been missing since Sunday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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No injuries were reported from the major flooding in central Mississippi and southern Tennessee. But as the high water recedes, officials expect to find damaged roads and problems with water and sewage pipes. In Savannah, Tenn., two houses slid down a muddy bluff into the Tennessee River, although their residents had fled earlier.
“Please do not move back into your neighborhood or into your home until authorities and officials give you the OK to do so,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news conference.
A near-record rainy winter has forced authorities to release water from swollen reservoirs, potentially worsening the flooding for those living downstream.
“It is a chess match we’re playing with Mother Nature,” said Jim Hopson, spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Pearl River appeared to crest at just under 37 feet, Reeves said. It was forecast to fall below major flood stage at 36 feet early today, although more problems could arise if rains in the next few days are heavier than forecast.
“We as a state are not in the clear yet,” Reeves said.
The Pearl’s highest recorded crest was 43.2 feet on April 17, 1979. The second-highest level occurred May 5, 1983, when the river rose to 39.58 feet.
Reeves thanked residents for heeding evacuation orders. Only 16 search-and-rescue missions were needed, he said, even though as many as 1,000 homes were flooded.
One of those homes belongs to Chris Sharp, who had enough time to find an 18-wheeler, load it with his possessions and drive away Friday from the house his parents bought in the 1970s. The house was inundated in those previous two flood years.
On Monday, he tried to go back with a boat, but a police officer turned him away.
“All you can do is just sit back and watch,” Sharp said by phone from his brother’s nearby house.
He expects several inches of water in his home, and this flood finally has Sharp considering whether his family should move. The home isn’t covered by flood insurance because he said the cost has grown too expensive in recent years.
“I’ve been through it before, so I kind of knew what to do,” Sharp said. “But there’s a bunch of people who didn’t do anything.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Rivers across Britain burst their banks and a number of severe flood warnings remained in place as authorities strove to get people to safety and to protect homes and businesses. The Met Office, Britain’s meteorological service. said the disruption is set to carry through into today.
Major incidents have been declared in a number of areas in England and Wales as authorities mobilized resources to deal with the impact of the overflowing rivers that have cut off some communities.
A man in his 60s died after falling into the River Tawe in South Wales mid-morning and his body was found further along the river, Dyfed-Powys Police said on social media.
On Saturday, Storm Dennis was blamed for the deaths of two men who were pulled from the sea in separate searches off England’s southeastern coast.
Dennis has been so intense that England posted a record number of flood warnings and alerts and a rare “red warning” for extremely life-threatening flooding was announced for South Wales.
The Met Office, Britain’s meteorological service, only issues its highest red warning when it thinks the weather will be so dangerous there’s a “risk to life” and that people must take immediate action to protect themselves. It was the first time a red warning has been sounded since December 2015.
Though the warning lasted only a few hours, South Wales Police declared a major incident as firefighters and rescue crews continued to help communities following multiple floods, landslides and evacuations. Nearby Gwent Police said residents of Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, were being advised to evacuate due to the flooding.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Gov. Tate Reeves said Sunday morning that the Pearl would continue to rise throughout the day, and he warned that the state faces a “precarious situation that can turn at any moment.”
In one Jackson neighborhood, residents paddled canoes, kayaks and small fishing boats to check on their houses, giving lifts to other neighbors. Some were able to get inside while others peeked into the windows to see what, if any damage, had been done inside. Outside floodwaters lapped at mailboxes, street signs and cars that had been left in driveways.
In a bit of good news, officials at a reservoir upriver of the capitol said Sunday that water levels in the reservoir had stabilized, allowing them to send less water downriver. The National Weather Service, which had been anticipating the river would crest Sunday at 38 feet, on Sunday slightly reduced that to 37.5 feet. The river is anticipated to crest today.
But even with that development, officials urged residents to pay attention to evacuation orders, check on road closures before traveling and stay out of floodwaters, warning that even seemingly placid waters could mask fast-moving currents and pollution. Law enforcement officials went door to door in affected areas, telling people to evacuate, Reeves said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Three men were riding snowbikes Saturday afternoon when they were caught in the slide about 10 miles north of Vail. One man was able to dig himself out and called for help at about 4:45 p.m, the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said.
The other men were carried into a gully at the bottom of a drainage area, avalanche debris piled up deeply and they were fully buried, the Avalanche Information Center said in a statement.
Hunter Schleper of Vail told KCNC-TV that he and his friends dug for five hours trying to find the victims. Schleper posted on Facebook that they located the riders under 20 feet of snow.
The Eagle County Sheriff’s Office announced a “search and recovery mission” Sunday morning. The bodies were recovered on Sunday. The sheriff’s office identified the victims as Dillon Block, 28, and Cesar Almanza-Hernandez, 30, both of Gypsum.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fourth named storm of the season, dubbed Dennis by Britain’s Met Office weather service, prompted widespread travel disruptions and had the potential to cause more damage than last weekend’s Storm Ciara given the already saturated ground in much of the country.
The body of one man was pulled out of the sea by a lifeboat from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and followed a seven-hour search that involved a Royal Navy vessel. The search commenced before dawn after a distress call came from the B Gas Margrethe, a Maltese tanker that had been anchored off the coastal town of Margate. Police said they were trying to establish the man’s identity.
In a separate incident, the body of a second man was pulled from the sea in the afternoon. Authorities said the death was not being treated as suspicious.
The Met Office had 68 flood warnings in place around England, which means flooding was expected over the weekend. Another 40 had been issued in Scotland and 10 in Wales by their environmental agencies.
The number of flood warnings spiked sharply Saturday, a clear sign that the storm was deepening heading into today. The highest wind gust, according to the Met Office, was 87 mph in Capel Curig in north Wales.
Hundreds of flights were canceled as a result of the high winds. Easyjet, for example, canceled about 230 flights in and out of Britain as wind speeds were set to hit 70 mph.
Train services were also significantly disrupted. The travel chaos affected tens of thousands of passengers on what would typically be a busy travel day for British families since most schools are closed next week for mid-winter break.
Much of the concern about storm dangers focused on northern England, which suffered during Storm Ciara. At least eight people were killed across Europe during that storm.
On Saturday, around 75 British army personnel and 70 reservists were helping out stretched communities in the flood-hit Calder Valley region in West Yorkshire, constructing barriers and repairing damaged flood defenses.
(Pan Pylas, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A wind chill warning was in effect for northeastern North Dakota and northern Minnesota, with wind chill readings plunging to more than 40 below zero in some areas. Forecasters from the National Weather Service urged people to limit time outdoors and bundle up, as exposed skin could be subject to frostbite in as little as 10 minutes.
It’s possible that at least one death could be attributed to the cold. Police in Omaha said they found the body of Robert Freymuller, 80, early Thursday in a street not far from the assisted-living center where he lived. His death is being investigated, but police said he was not dressed appropriately for the weather; the wind chill had dropped to minus 26 degrees at that time.
In Minnesota, the coldest wind chill reading was in Fosston, in northwestern Minnesota, where the wind chill reached 48 degrees below, the National Weather Service said.
Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District notified parents that classes were canceled “due to extreme winter weather conditions in the early morning hours.” Several other districts were closed, and some had e-learning days, meaning that students received instruction online.
Schools, businesses and organizations were also closed or opened late in Nebraska and Iowa on Thursday, as temperatures dropped to about 10-20 degrees below average in the northern and central Plains.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities have said the deadliest wildfire in California history killed 85 people. But the newspaper reported Tuesday that it had identified at least 50 more people whose deaths were linked to the fire but not attributed to it.
The additional people lived in homes, retirement communities and nursing facilities in the towns of Magalia, Paradise and Concow, according to addresses on wrongful death claims filed as part of a legal case against Pacific Gas & Electric. The utility’s equipment was blamed for starting the fire.
Each claim was vetted by a medical expert and a lawyer, and claimants had to gather evidence showing the person would not have died if not for the fire. Some claims were turned down, lawyers said, because the evidence would not necessarily stand in court.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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An emergency government meeting hours after the locusts were spotted inside Uganda on Sunday decided to deploy military forces to help with ground-based pesticide spraying, while two planes for aerial spraying will arrive as soon as possible, a statement said. Aerial spraying is considered the only effective control.
The swarms of billions of locusts have been destroying crops in Kenya, which hasn’t seen such an outbreak in 70 years, as well as Somalia and Ethiopia, which haven’t seen this in a quarter-century. The insects have exploited favorable wet conditions after unusually heavy rains, and experts say climate change is expected to bring more of the same.
U.N. officials warn that immediate action is needed before more rainfall in the weeks ahead brings fresh vegetation to feed new generations of locusts. If left unchecked, their numbers could grow up to 500 times before drier weather arrives, they say.
“There is the risk of a catastrophe,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told a briefing in New York on Monday, warning that a region where 12 million people already face severe food insecurity can’t afford another jolt.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica, and along with the Thwaites Glacier nearby, it’s a subject of close scientific monitoring to determine whether these glaciers are in a phase of runaway melting, potentially freeing up vast inland areas of ice to flow to the sea and raising sea levels.
According to NASA, the region surrounding the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers contains enough “highly vulnerable ice” to raise global sea levels by about 4 feet.
The new iceberg from Pine Island did not last long as a single chunk of ice, instead breaking off into smaller pieces that will gradually head out to sea. But this behavior is consistent with recent studies of this glacier.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The storm, named by the U.K.’s Met Office weather agency, brought gales across the country and delivered gusts of 97 miles per hour to the Isle of White and 93 mph to the village of Aberdaron in northern Wales. Propelled by the fierce winds, a British Airways plane was thought to have made the fastest New York-to-London flight by a conventional airliner.
The Boeing 747-436 completed the 3,500-mile transatlantic journey in 4 hours and 56 minutes, landing 102 minutes early and reaching a top speed of 825 mph, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.
Storm surges ate away at beaches and pounded rock cliffs and cement docks. The Met Office issued more than 250 flood warnings, and public safety agencies urged people to avoid travel and the temptation to take selfies as floodwaters rose. Residents in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in northwest England battled to protect their homes amid severe flooding as the River Eden burst its banks.
Two huge ports on either side of the English Channel, Dover in England and Calais in France, shut down operations amid high waves. Dover was partially reopened after being closed for 10 hours. Ferries stopped running there and across the region, including in the turbulent Irish Sea and North Sea.
Fierce winds knocked out electricity in northern France. Paris authorities sent out a warning to residents and tourists alike to stay indoors for their own safety. Parks and cemeteries in the city of Lille and nearby towns shut down as strong winds cracked heavy branches. Open-air markets closed early.
Luxembourg and the German city of Cologne announced that all school children could stay home today.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In a tweet Thursday, Trump wrote:
“Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you! Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions — my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches — I’m confident we can get it done!”
A White House official confirmed the administration will not include any funding for Yucca Mountain when it turns in its proposed 2021 budget next week.
That’s a turnabout from last year when the White House called for $116 million to restart the project. In 2018 and 2019, the Trump administration proposed spending $120 million to relicense the massive facility located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Trump did not elaborate on the change of heart but in the 2016 presidential election, he lost Nevada — home to six votes in the Electoral College — by 2.4 percentage points.
Most members of Nevada’s congressional delegation have long opposed opening the facility, arguing Yucca has been unfairly foisted on the Silver State. Some locals called the 1987 congressional action leading to the construction of the facility as the “Screw Nevada bill.”
In response to Trump, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, tweeted: “I look forward to working with you on this critical issue for Nevada and ensuring your budget doesn’t include any funding to restart the failed Yucca Mountain project that a majority of Nevadans reject, regardless of party.”
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, was more pointed, saying in a statement: “They say if you can’t beat them, join them. President Trump tried to shove nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain down our throats for three years. We beat him badly — three times in a row — and he knows it.”
The federal government has yet to open any facility to store the roughly 80,000 metric tons of used-up fuel that has piled up at 121 sites in 35 states. Included in that total is about 1,600 metric tons — or 3.55 million pounds — at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, also known as SONGS.
The operator of SONGS, Southern California Edison, did not directly comment on Trump’s decision.
“When the opportunity to move the fuel presents itself, we’ll be ready,” Doug Bauder, Edison vice president and chief nuclear officer, said in an email. “We at (Edison), and our neighbors in the local community, want a solution that moves the fuel off-site as soon as reasonably possible.”
As part of a 2018 out-of-court settlement, Edison has assembled a panel of nuclear experts and hired a consulting group to develop a “strategic plan” to find a way to move the waste off the plant’s premises.
While Trump’s move could be seen as withdrawing a significant option from consideration, David Victor, chairman of the SONGS Community Engagement Panel, said it may eventually pave the way to develop other alternatives.
“First, it will reduce the iron grip that Yucca has had on any other broader political effort to address spent fuel,” Victor said via email. “In the past, it has been impossible to get enough Republicans supporting legislation on spent fuel unless the deal involved restarting the Yucca process. Maybe that block diminishes.
“Second, it will help underscore that the nation does not have a serious long-term strategy for spent fuel. The more politicians face that reality the better the odds of getting an interim storage plan.”
Two private groups have expressed interest in constructing what is called “consolidated interim storage” sites to take waste from SONGS and other commercial nuclear facilities.
One potential site is near the remote West Texas town of Andrews and the other is in eastern New Mexico. Both groups have made progress toward obtaining all the necessary permits, but each project faces uncertain prospects from political and environmental critics.
Trump’s decision has not dissuaded Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., one of Capitol Hill’s strongest backers of restarting the Yucca Mountain facility, even though Shimkus is retiring at the end of the year.
“We’ve spent 30 years and at least $15 billion” on Yucca “and whatever the proposal is to do something else is going to take at least 30 years and at least $15 billion,” said Jordan Haverly, director of energy and environment policy for Shimkus. “If we’re serious about addressing climate change, it’s almost impossible to do that in a meaningful way without continuing the use of nuclear power and to continue the use of nuclear power we need a place for the waste.”
The Yucca Mountain repository was supposed to open in 2020 but in 2007 Nevada Democrat Harry Reid became Senate majority leader, and when Barack Obama was elected president a year later, his administration took another look at the project and funding was eventually cut off in 2010.
(Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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More than 400,000 homes and businesses were without power Friday after the National Weather Service warned of gusts up to 60 mph from Virginia into New England. Falling trees damaged homes and power lines in many places. North Carolina and Virginia, where hundreds of people had to be pulled from flooded homes, had the most customers without electricity, according to poweroutages.us.
With water levels rising fast after up to 8 inches of rain in just three days, the Tennessee Valley Authority said it began making controlled releases from some of its 49 dams in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. That could lead to more flooding downstream, so people who live near the water should be wary, said James Everett, senior manager of the utility’s river forecast center in Knoxville, Tenn.
In the Northwest, residents also were dealing with heavy rain and flooding.
Residents in the foothills of the towering Blue Mountains in rural northeast Oregon were plucked from their flooded homes by helicopter and others rode to safety in the bucket of a front-end loader as relentless rain and melting snow pushed multiple rivers over their banks.
An earlier heavy snowfall in the mountains combined with two days of steady rain and warming temperatures to unleash floodwaters on the city of Pendleton and rural, mountain foothill communities to its east late Thursday and Friday. The Umatilla River crested just before 10 p.m. Thursday at more than 19 feet, nearly four times the average height for that date. Rivers all around the region overran their banks, setting records as they went.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency in Umatilla, Wallowa and Union counties late Friday to help communities deal with the severe flooding. The declaration means Oregon can mobilize the National Guard if needed.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, officials braced for more flooding and landslides from relentless rains.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued an updated emergency proclamation for 20 counties because of damage from storms that are forecast to continue into the weekend.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The storm front destroyed mobile homes in Mississippi and Alabama, caused mudslides in Tennessee and Kentucky and flooded communities that shoulder waterways across the Appalachian region. In Florida, high winds prompted the closure of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge spanning Tampa Bay, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Tornado watches were in effect Thursday night from northern Florida up through North Carolina.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency Thursday evening because of heavy rains and extreme flooding in several areas. More than 500 people in and around Richlands, in southwestern Virginia, were displaced by flooding and needed rescue from their homes, he said in a statement.
In Harlan County, Ky., two mobile homes floated away as dozens of families were evacuated amid rising water, authorities said.
“It’s a very bad situation that continues to worsen by the hour,” said Harlan County Judge Executive Dan Mosley.
Rain kept falling over a path of splintered trees and sagging power lines that stretched from Louisiana into Virginia. School districts canceled classes in state after state as bad weather rolled through.
One person was killed and another was injured as high winds destroyed two mobile homes near the town of Demopolis, Ala., the Storm Prediction Center reported.
The victim, Anita Rembert, was in one of the homes with her husband, her child and two grandchildren, said Kevin McKinney, emergency management director for Marengo County. The man was injured but the children were unhurt, he said.
High winds there left roadsides strewn with plywood, insulation, broken trees and twisted metal. The National Weather Service was checking the site for signs of a tornado.
Weather-related crashes left at least three people dead and numerous authorities pleaded with motorists to avoid driving where they couldn’t see the pavement.
A driver died in South Carolina when a tree fell on an SUV near Fort Mill, Highway Patrol Master Trooper Gary Miller said. The driver’s name wasn’t immediately released.
In North Carolina’s Gaston County, a driver was killed after his pickup truck hydroplaned in heavy rain, plunged down a 25-foot embankment and overturned in a creek, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol said, according to news outlets. Terry Roger Fisher was pronounced dead at the scene.
An unidentified man died and two others were injured Thursday when a car hydroplaned in Knoxville, Tenn., and hit a truck, police said in a news release.
In Pickens, Miss., the ceiling caved in and furniture flew around 64-year-old Emma Carter’s mobile home. She considered herself lucky after surviving an apparent tornado.
Carter, her two daughters and two grandsons were inside when the strongest winds hit Wednesday afternoon. Her grandson, DeMarkus Sly, 19, told everyone to lie flat and cover their heads as aluminum sheeting from nearby structures slammed into the home.
“We are blessed that nobody got hurt, that nobody got killed,” Carter said.
Flooding, meanwhile, forced rescuers to suspend their search for a vehicle missing with a person inside it in north Alabama’s Buck’s Pocket State Park.
“As the car started shifting because of the water we noticed what appeared to be an arm reaching out,” witness Kirkland Follis, who called 911, told WHNT-TV. The vehicle quickly disappeared Wednesday in waters too dangerous for divers to search.
Anyone who lives near rivers and lakes in the Tennessee Valley should prepare for rapidly changing water levels, said James Everett, senior manager of the TVA’s river forecast center in Knoxville, Tenn. He said the TVA is managing water levels behind 49 dams to avert major flooding, but with more rain expected next week, the agency may have to release water downstream.
(Jay Reeves, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Wednesday’s avalanche increased the overall death toll from the disaster to 38.
Some 300 emergency service workers were called to a highway near the mountain-surrounded town of Bahcesaray in Van province, which borders Iran, after an avalanche struck late Tuesday. That snow slide killed five people and left two missing. Around noon Wednesday, the team was struck by the second avalanche.
Turkey’s emergency and disaster management agency, AFAD, said 33 bodies were recovered from the mass of snow on the steep slope. Earlier, Gov. Mehmet Emin Bilmez said the dead included eight military police officers, three government-paid village guards, three firefighters and nine volunteers.
Emergency teams were still searching for other colleagues under the snow, Bilmez said. He did not say how many more could be missing.
Some 30 emergency workers were either pulled out of the heap of snow or escaped themselves and were hospitalized Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said. There was no further information on their conditions.
Video from the scene showed at least three overturned vehicles at the bottom of a hill during a snowstorm. Some rescuers were struggling to climb out of a steep incline while others dug frantically into the snow with shovels and pick-axes. Fog, heavy snow and strong winds were hampering the rescue efforts.
The head of AFAD’s operations in Van province, Osman Ucar, was among those injured. Speaking from his hospital bed, he said he was dragged along with an excavator that was toppled by the sliding snow.
“I was half-buried,” he said, adding that he escaped on his own.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Winter storm warnings or advisories were in effect from northeastern Oklahoma to the Great North Woods of Maine Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service said. Meanwhile, the Storm Prediction Center said storms that could generate hail, 60 mph winds and possibly twisters across much of Mississippi and Alabama. The threat extended into border regions of Tennessee, and forecasters said bad weather could continue after dark.
Mail carrier Pablo Salinas of San Elizario said the weather and traffic accidents nearly doubled his drive to work from south of El Paso on Wednesday.
“There were four accidents coming in. They closed I-10. I was close to an hour late,” Salinas said.
By noon, Salinas said about 4 inches of snow had melted, with only a bit of snow dusting the palm trees lining the street and the red rock hills above.
El Paso International Airport recorded 2 inches of snow Wednesday, according to National Weather Service meteorologist David Hefner, who said the city averages 6.9 inches of snow per year.
Hefner said the snow tends to melt quickly.
“We can get 4-5 inches overnight, and it’s generally gone by the next afternoon,” Hefner said.
The weather service forecast sunny skies and a high of about 50 degrees today for El Paso.
However, freezing temperatures were expected to preserve Wednesday’s snow accumulations from the Red River Valley of Texas through Oklahoma, prompting school systems to remain closed Thursday in those areas.
The winter storm caused a multi-vehicle pileup Wednesday on an Interstate 70 bridge in central Missouri but mostly missed a parade to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win.
Snowfall was heavier to the east. As the storm hit, University of Missouri officials announced that no classes would be held after 1 p.m., and Jefferson City closed its city offices at 10 a.m.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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None of the American citizens and their family members aboard the commercial airliner, who were evacuated from Wuhan City or its surrounding province, showed any symptoms when they boarded the flight.
However, medical screenings performed after their arrival at Miramar Wednesday morning found that three adults and one child had fever or a cough, possible symptoms of infection with the novel virus that has now sickened more than 25,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 500 in China, according to the latest update from the World Health Organization.
To be clear, there is no proof yet that any of the four actually has a coronavirus infection. Many different illnesses, including the common cold, can cause the symptoms that the repatriated travelers exhibited. Additional DNA-based testing at the CDC will be necessary to determine what exactly is causing those symptoms. In the meantime, all four were transported to medical facilities out of an abundance of caution and to keep any possible infection from spreading in the two quarantine locations on base.
Meanwhile, the flu continues to be the most significant threat in San Diego and around the country. The San Diego County public health department announced 11 new flu-related deaths in its regular weekly snapshot report Wednesday, pushing the local season total to 50.
But, because of the novel nature of the coronavirus, it is receiving attention around the globe, and is sure to get additional notice in San Diego now that the region has possible cases in local hospitals.
Two patients, the CDC said, have been transported to a UC San Diego Health hospital, and an adult and a child were sent to Rady Children’s Hospital near Kearny Mesa.
Dr. Francesca Torriani, medical director of infection prevention and clinical epidemiology at UCSD, said Wednesday afternoon, just hours before she was notified that two patients were headed her way, that care would be handled under special protocols specified by the CDC. They include isolation in special “negative pressure” rooms with special equipment that keeps the air inside from entering the rest of the hospital.
Because the virus travels up to six feet inside large water droplets made airborne when an infected person coughs or sneezes, all medical personnel will wear gowns, gloves, face masks or goggles and custom-fitted N95 masks to cover their mouths and noses when they enter patients’ rooms.
Overall, she said, caring for a patient with coronavirus is really not different from caring for a patient with the flu, which spreads in the same way. These kinds of precautions, she said, are so common that their use requires no additional training.
“This is what we do normally,” Torriani said. “We have patients in contact precautions for other reasons very often, and so hospital personnel is very familiar with those rules.”
She said that potential corona cases are not a severe-enough threat to require the use of a special isolation ward created at UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest during the ebola outbreak scare of 2014. Regular negative-pressure isolation rooms available at the hospital, or Jacobs Medical Center, its sister facility in La Jolla, would be adequate for the task, and the university is not planning to say which of the two hospitals the two adults will be transported to.
The location is more clear for the child and adult, because Rady Children’s operates the only pediatric medical center in the region.
Dr. Nick Holmes, chief operating officer at Rady, said Wednesday afternoon that handling such cases should be well within the capabilities of all hospital personnel. Like UCSD, Rady increased its infectious disease control and isolation capabilities in 2014 during the ebola scare.
“For these cases, we’re using the regular personal protective equipment that we would use for any other airborne pathogen, because its transmission is similar to influenza,” Holmes said. “We use this equipment each and every day at the hospital. It’s our normal course of business, and our staff and nurses have standard competencies in being able to do this.”
Given that Rady generally treats only children, it was not clear Wednesday night how the hospital would handle receiving an adult. An official at the hospital directed all questions to the CDC.
Earlier in the day, Dr. Christopher Braden, a deputy director with the CDC deployed to handle repatriation flights from China to California, said during a news conference that the strategy is to isolate anyone with symptoms because doing so is the best way to prevent such a virus from starting the kind of person-to-person path that can eventually result in a pandemic.
Braden met with base personnel at Miramar Tuesday night, letting them know how the quarantine would work and letting them know that all arriving from China would be housed in two locations: The Bachelor Enlisted Quarters and the Inns of the Corps at Miramar. The BEQ normally houses transient military personnel, while the Inns of the Corps operates as a hotel. Both have been vacated to facilitate the quarantine, according to Capt. Matthew Gregory, a base spokesman.
Braden said Wednesday afternoon that some were concerned about the notion of having potential coronavirus cases in their midst, mainly around whether such a situation might put their children at risk. The physician noted that no base personnel are allowed to visit the two buildings under quarantine, so there should be no worries about contamination.
“We know this situation may be concerning to people in the Miramar base (and) in the surrounding community; however, based on our experience with other coronaviruses, we don’t believe these individuals pose a risk to the community,” Braden said.
While waiting out their 14 days, the CDC has directed those inside the cordon to stay six feet away from each other if they’re concerned about infection, though that precaution is not considered essential because it generally takes prolonged exposure for viral transmission, and anyone with preliminary symptoms would be removed to a hospital immediately.
Pains are being taken, Braden added, to make this quarantine, the first that the CDC has undertaken in 50 years, comfortable. All are to be provided with three meals per day plus snacks and on-premises medical care if they need it. One of the two locations has a playground that quarantined children can use, and a second is to be installed soon.
“We hope to provide for children that they would have somewhere where they could play and grow while they’re here,” Braden said.
The number of people who touched down at Miramar Wednesday, Braden said, was smaller than he first expected. When the flight was first envisioned, he said, it looked like it would have about 290 people on board. Chatting with some of the newly arrived travelers Wednesday, Braden said, it appeared that some who originally intended to evacuate changed their minds at the last minute.
“They thought that actually, for some people, they may have signed up to come and be evacuated, but it was a very hard decision because they are leaving family behind and maybe they changed their mind,” Braden said.
CDC and military officials said Wednesday that they expected Miramar to receive another flight from China this week. But Braden warned that literally everything about the current evacuation plan is fluid.
Miramar is one of three California military bases being used as quarantine sites — the others are Travis Air Force Base and March Air Reserve Base. Travis received another aircraft with quarantined Americans Wednesday, and March is housing 198 people who arrived Jan. 29.
Three bases outside California are also designated quarantine sites. Those are: Fort Carson, Colorado, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and, as the Pentagon announced Wednesday, Camp Ashland, Nebraska.
(Paul Sisson & Andrew Dyer, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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It was nearly 13 years ago when state inspectors determined that the top quarter of the dam might liquefy in the event of a major earthquake and potentially flood eastern Escondido.
Right away, Escondido utility workers lowered the water level of the lake so only the bottom three-quarters of the dam would be needed to hold back water. The amount of water stored in the lake was reduced by about half.
The original dam was constructed with earth and rock in 1895 as part of Escondido’s local water system. In 1925, the dam was raised to its current height using a slurry process. But during a routine inspection in 2007, state officials determined the newer section of the dam could fail in the event of an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7.5.
Five years later, the city began the design process for a new dam that, once built just downstream from the existing dam, would allow restoration of the lake to its pre-2007 capacity of 6,200 acre-feet.
The advantages of having additional storage space is twofold, officials say. The larger the reservoir, the better, because it provides an emergency water supply during times of drought. Also, the more local water stored in the lake means customer savings because less water would have to be purchased from outside sources.
Original cost estimates of the project hovered around $30 million, but it took five more years as the designs were reviewed by state, federal and dam experts. By that point, the cost of the project had gone up to more than $50 million. Adding insult to injury, federal and state wildlife agencies also got involved and said millions of dollars more would be needed to protect wildlife that was living in areas around the lake that dried up when the water levels were lowered.
As of December, the city has spent more than $4.5 million on a consulting agreement with Black and Veatch, an international engineering firm, to design the new dam. On Dec. 18, the City Council upped that figure by another $362,530 to have the firm explore alternatives for a more cost-effective and safe solution to the problem.
Rather than build a dam, the study will examine ways to address dam safety by rehabilitating the existing dam, which means the lake will never contain as much water as it once did, Escondido Director of Utilities Chris McKinney told the council in December.
He said $15 million in state grant loans earmarked for the replacement project can be used for a rehabilitation project, as well, but an extension of the availability of that money needs to be secured.
“The cost of the replacement dam is, in the opinion of city staff, more than the Water Fund can reasonably bear given other critical capital improvement plan commitments,” McKinney wrote in a report to the council. “... The proposed work will examine options that will allow for continued operation of Wohlford Dam as it has been operated for the last decade.”
On Friday, McKinney said the cost of replacing the dam could easily increase even further as construction gets under way. He said it’s common during dam construction to run into problems with the bedrock that can add tens of millions of dollars to building costs.
McKinney said the optimal solution, if cost was no factor, would be to restore the lake to its original capacity. But rehabilitating the existing dam “at the current operating level may provide a pathway to retaining storage that allows for continued use as a local water reservoir and recreational asset, but at a reasonable cost.”
The results of the latest study should be known by April, McKinney said, at which time he will return before the council to see how members want to proceed.
(J. Harry Jones, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Bega Valley Mayor Kristy McBain said damage in her region 150 miles south of Canberra had yet to be assessed by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
“There have been additional homes lost in the Bega Valley,” McBain said.
“We’re talking probably dozens more. We want to make sure we continue to support our community. This fire isn’t over yet,” she added.
She said the overnight fire brought losses of homes in the valley to more than 400 in the current fire season.
Rural Fire Service spokesman Greg Allan said damage assessment teams had yet to confirm media reports of homes lost near the village of Bumbalong, 57 miles south of Canberra.
A dangerous fire threatened southern Canberra and the nearby village of Tharwa. The fire had burned 136,000 acres of forest and farmland by Sunday, with a 92-mile perimeter, the Australian Capital Territory Emergency Services Agency said.
Residents were warned on Sunday to remain vigilant.
“This morning the fire is still active. There are still days and possibly weeks of firefighting ahead of us,” Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Andrew Barr told reporters.
He said a state of emergency for Canberra and surrounding areas would remain in place until at least today. It is the first such emergency declaration in the Australian Capital Territory since 2003, when wildfires killed four people and destroyed almost 500 homes in a single day.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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It is challenging work, especially in remote areas where mobile phone signals are absent and ground crews cannot quickly communicate coordinates to flight teams.
The ground crews are in “the most woeful terrains,” Marcus Dunn, a pilot and the director at Farmland Aviation, said Saturday. “If there is no network, then the fellow on a boda boda (motorcycle), he has to rush off now and go and get a network.”
Just five planes are spraying as Kenyan and other authorities try to stop the locusts from spreading to neighboring Uganda and South Sudan. The United Nations has said $76 million is needed immediately to widen such efforts across East Africa.
The finger-length locusts swept into Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia after unusually heavy rains in recent months, decimating crops in some areas and threatening millions of vulnerable people with a hunger crisis.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The images, from the nearly complete Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, are the most zoomed-in examinations of that turbulence. They reveal structures as small as 18.6 miles on the surface of the sun. Those details are five times smaller than any solar image had captured before, Thomas Rimmele, the telescope’s director, told reporters recently. (The sun is nearly 870,000 miles in diameter.)
The Inouye telescope, a $344 million tool built on the peak of Haleakala on Maui, took these images on its first day of operation in December. This is the “largest, most powerful solar telescope in the world,” Rimmele said. The telescope will help astronomers understand the sun’s magnetic field and its atmosphere, known as its corona, more fully.
From its violent atmosphere, the sun belches energetic particles that move so swiftly that they are able to hit Earth in minutes. Such solar storms are capable of overwhelming electric grids and disturbing radio communications.
“We still do not understand how the corona is heated to millions of degrees when the surface of the sun is only 6,000 degrees,” Rimmele said. (If that phenomenon sounds counterintuitive, well, it is. Solar experts often describe the effect like this: Imagine pulling your hand away from a hot plate, only for your palm to heat up even more.)
“The Inouye telescope has the unique resolution and sensitivity required to perform the most precise measurements of the sun’s magnetic field, especially in the corona,” he said.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Forecasters at the weather service’s Rancho Bernardo and Los Angeles-Oxnard offices said boaters should not venture beyond local harbors between Sunday afternoon and Monday night to avoid a lashing by gale force winds.
The worst conditions will generally occur between 30 and 60 miles offshore. Forecasters noted it is not unusual for boaters to travel that far out to sea to visit San Clemente and Santa Catalina islands. And it is possible that waves as high as 20 feet could appear within 20 miles of the San Diego County coastline.
A gale force warning will be in effect for the outer waters from 2 p.m. Sunday to 2 p.m. Monday.
Strong winds, choppy waves and vicious rip currents are expected along the immediate coast.
Forecasters will update the forecast throughout the weekend with help from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which operates the widely used Coastal Data Information Program.
“Boaters need to make sure to give themselves time to get back into the harbor by Sunday afternoon, because there are going to be brute force winds offshore,” said Alex Tardy, who forecasts extreme weather for the weather service office in Rancho Bernardo.
“Things are really going to rock and roll after sunset on Sunday, and maybe sooner.”
Tardy said the weather service is emphasizing the danger because boaters might be lulled into thinking that everything is fine based on the unusually warm weather that greater San Diego will experience today.
The daytime high is expected to hit or surpass 70 degrees at the coast and climb much higher to the east.
“Most areas east of Interstate 5 will get into the 80s,” Tardy said. “There’s going to be a big turn-around; the daytime highs on Monday will be 15 to 25 degrees cooler than they will be on Saturday.
(Gary Robbins, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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State Auditor Elaine Howle said in her report issued Thursday that the vast majority of California’s major dams aren’t adequately prepared for an emergency, the Sacramento Bee reported.
“Water infrastructure remains a high-risk issue,” she wrote.
The Legislature required the plans after the crisis at Oroville’s flood-control spillway prompted the evacuation of 180,000 downstream residents in February 2017.
The emergency plans are supposed to “specify actions to minimize loss of life and property damage” when dam emergencies occur, according to the report. The law requires emergency plans for the 650 dams regulated by the state — out of more than 1,200 — that have been designated as “high hazard” or “extremely high hazard.”
According to the auditor’s report, hundreds of dam operators have submitted emergency plans, but state officials have kicked the proposals back to them for changes or are still reviewing them.
The report doesn’t identify which of the 22 dams have had their plans approved.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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However, now it’s Canberra itself that the fires are targeting. A heat wave and high winds are combining to create extreme fire danger through Sunday, potentially enabling a bush fire burning on the outskirts of the city of 400,000 to make a run at heavily populated areas.
That fire is burning in Namadgi National Park and was accidentally started by a military helicopter used for firefighting. According to Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Chief Minister Andrew Barr, officials expect the fire currently burning in the Orroral Valley to grow “significantly in size.”
“Canberrans, especially those in southern Tuggeranong, should be on high alert,” he said in a news conference Thursday. “We’ve all seen the damage that uncontrollable fire can cause. On our worst fire days, bush fires become unpredictable and uncontrollable.”’
Barr advised city residents to “prepare themselves, their families and their households in case of an emergency.” He added: “You need a plan for when you will leave. You need a plan for where you will go, and you need a plan for what you will take.”
The fire threat is being described as the worst since 2003, when a firestorm swept into the city, killing four people, injuring more than 400 and destroying about 500 homes.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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For days, they’ve pulverized southeast Brazil, leading to widespread flooding, torrents of mudslides, dozens of dead and thousands of homeless.
Now they’re back again — with more on the way.
After another round of battering rains and landslides Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the death toll has risen to 62 across the states of Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais, where waves of mud have knocked houses off cliffs and buried dozens of people alive, particularly in the capital city of Belo Horizonte.
More than 100 municipalities across the state have announced a state of emergency, with the state government committing nearly $80 million to address the fallout.
“My priority is the security of the Minas Gerais people!” state governor Romeu Zema tweeted. President Jair Bolsonaro may soon visit the devastated community.
On Wednesday, people assessed the damage and shared videos of scenes of destruction on social media. One showed an underground river canal exploding like a series of geysers. Another depicted well-dressed Brazilians looking out from a tony restaurant as the street outside morphed into a river, carrying cars and other debris. There was also a video depicting the collapse of a shopping mall roof.
In a country perennially drenched by rains at this time of year, the scenes were painfully familiar, particularly in the state of Minas Gerais. Last year, during these same sodden January weeks, a tailings dam in the town of Brumadinho burst, killing more than 250 people in what’s considered the worst mining disaster in the country’s history.
Now, as the rains pick up in Belo Horizonte again, doubling the average January rate, there is widespread concern over what tragedy could befall the state next — and which part of the population will bear the brunt of it.
“It is undeniable that global warming and social inequality are causing the poor to live more precariously,” leftist congressman Paulo Teixeira tweeted.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The researchers, working on the Thwaites Glacier, recorded water temperatures at the base of the ice of more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the normal freezing point. Critically, the measurements were taken at the glacier’s grounding line, the area where it transitions from resting wholly on bedrock to spreading out on the sea as ice shelves.
It is unclear how fast the glacier is deteriorating: Studies have forecast its total collapse in a century and also in a few decades. The presence of warm water in the grounding line may support estimates at the faster range.
That is significant because the Thwaites, along with the Pine Island Glacier and a number of smaller glaciers, acts as a brake on part of the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Together, the two bigger glaciers are currently holding back ice that, if melted, would raise the world’s oceans by about 4 feet over centuries, an amount that would put many coastal cities underwater.
“Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” said David Holland, a lead researcher on the expedition and director of New York University’s Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Glaciologists have previously raised alarm over the presence of warm water melting the Thwaites from below. This is the first time, though, that warm waters have been measured at the glacier’s grounding line.
“It certainly has a big impact on our U.S. coast and in many areas,” said Twila Moon, a researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, who was not part of the expedition.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The quake was centered 86 miles northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 87 miles west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit at 2:10 p.m., and the epicenter was a relatively shallow 6 miles beneath the surface.
Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported on the island.
The Cayman Islands were rocked by several of the strong aftershocks that followed in the area, including one measured at magnitude 6.1. Water was cut off to much of Grand Cayman Island, and public schools were canceled today.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire had spread over 23,500 acres since it was started by a transport helicopter landing light that ignited grass in a national park south of Canberra on Monday afternoon, authorities said.
The fire was downgraded from emergency level to the second level on a three-tier danger scale overnight, but it remained out of control, the Emergency Services Agency said.
The village of Tharwa was under threat with drifting embers starting spot fires ahead of the fire front. Emergency services personnel knocked on doors in Canberra’s southern suburbs on Tuesday night telling residents to prepare in case they had to evacuate.
Authorities have warned Canberra that the fire poses the greatest threat to the city of 420,00 people since 2003, when an inferno killed four people and destroyed almost 500 homes in a single day.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“Between (Jan. 23 and 26), rain in Belo Horizonte (has been) 312 millimeters,” said Amete Fernandez, a meteorologist at Brazil’s National Institute of Meteorology, in an interview. That’s a staggering 12.3 inches, or about a month’s worth of rain in 4 days.
According to the Associated Press, 6.7 inches fell within 24 hours alone between Thursday and Friday, breaking a record that’s stood for more than a century. At least 53 people have been killed, the AP reported.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Turkish authorities said the death toll rose to at least 38 people from the magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck Friday night.
Turkish television showed Ayse Yildiz, 35, and her 2-year-old daughter Yusra being dragged out of the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the city of Elazig. They had been trapped for 28 hours.
The quake also injured more than 1,600 people, but at least 45 survivors have been pulled alive from the rubble so far, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference Sunday in Istanbul.
More than 780 aftershocks rocked the region as more than 3,500 rescue experts scrambled through wrecked buildings to reach survivors, working around the clock.
One rescued couple was reunited with a Syrian student who had helped to dig them out of their collapsed home with his hands.
“He is our hero and angel,” a weeping Dudane Aydin said of Mahmud al Osman in an interview on Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Her husband Zulkuf added: “When I saw the light of Mahmud’s phone, we started shouting for help. Then we knew we would get out.”
As overnight temperatures dropped to 23 degrees, emergency teams set up more than 9,500 tents for displaced residents and distributed 17,000 hot meals.
The agency said 76 buildings were destroyed and more than 1,000 were damaged by the quake. Unmanned aerial drones were being used to survey damaged neighborhoods and coordinate rescue efforts.
The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said 20 of the aftershocks measured magnitude 4.0 or above, including a magnitude 4.3 quake that hit the neighboring province of Malatya on Sunday morning,
Erdogan said every effort was being made to find survivors and promised to house displaced residents as soon as possible.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Top transportation officials are gearing up for the largest bluff stabilization effort in nearly a decade. The San Diego Association of Governments and North County Transit District have already dedicated roughly $10 million to repair stormwater drainage structures, replace parts of sea walls and install additional steel and concrete support columns to hold back the earth.
In December, the two agencies penned a letter to the state saying they need another $100 million over the next four years to ensure the safety of bluffs.
Top state officials have recognized the need for stabilization projects and are also calling to accelerate a long-envisioned plan to relocate the tracks inland — a project that could cost as much as $4 billion.
SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata said that his agency could be ready to break ground on building an underground train tunnel through Del Mar in just three years.
“This is a high priority,” he said. “I’m shocked that we haven’t done it before. To keep spending money on temporary solutions isn’t a solution at all.”
Ikhrata added that, because of the massive price tag, such an aggressive timeline would be possible only with coordinated support from local, state and federal officials.
That might be more likely than it sounds.
State officials take notice
State Transportation Agency Secretary David Kim traveled to San Diego last week to launch a new multi-agency collaboration, dubbed the LOSSAN San Diego Regional Rail Corridor Working Group.
The tracks in Del Mar are part of the 351-mile Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) Rail Corridor, which carries about 8 million passengers and more than $1 billion worth of freight every year. The line is a key connection between factories in Mexico and markets in the United States.
“Erosion of the bluffs threatens the stability and viability of the route,” said Kim in an email. “I challenged the group to examine funding programs for the near-term stabilization of the Del Mar bluffs, as well as programs available for planning and constructing a long-term solution.”
Kim signed a letter supporting a SANDAG grant application to the Federal Railroad Administration seeking about $12 million for the bluffs, money he said the state would match.
“The state is committed to this project and this region, and we already have significant skin in the game,” he said.
The meeting brought together a broad array of elected officials and their representatives, as well as federal and state transportation officials, such as Christine Kehoe. The former member of the state Legislature who sits on the California Transportation Commission said she had long known about the instability of the Del Mar bluffs.
However, she said her sense of urgency increased dramatically after a failure in November that left a gaping hole just feet from the tracks. The event led to canceled routes and delays as officials scrambled to make emergency repairs.
“When I saw that photo in the paper after the Thanksgiving washout, then it was, like, this is serious,” Kehoe said. “I thought it’s an issue that needs to be addressed immediately if we’re going to maintain public confidence in our railroad.”
Also part of the working group is state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, who secured last summer more than $6.1 million in funding to help stabilize the crumbling cliffs. She has pledged to keep such cash infusions coming for at least another four years.
“I am committed to working in partnership with all interested parties to find a feasible solution for the Del Mar Bluffs and the rail line,” she said in an email. “This will be a long-term undertaking, requiring a great deal of collaboration across our state and local transportation agencies.”
The new focus on Del Mar’s 1.7 miles of track along the LOSSAN corridor has come as something of a relief to local officials. Del Mar Mayor Ellie Haviland said she’s feeling “optimistic.”
“Getting all the right people around the table will ensure we keep moving forward on the difficult decision that we need to make to get this done,” she said.
“What I’m not excited about is seeing what’s going to have to take place on the bluff to stabilize it,” she added. “That’s not easy to watch, but we don’t have a choice. This is critical to our region.”
Construction on the bluffs
SANDAG has poured more than $15 million into stabilizing the Del Mar bluffs over the last two decades. The last major effort was in 2011 when the agency spent roughly $5 million largely to install solider piles.
There are about 230 of the roughly 3-foot-wide columns inserted in the cliff side, some connected with steel cabling for added reinforcement.
To construct them, crews drill up to 60 feet into the bluffs, drop in a steel I-beam and then fill the hole with concrete. As erosion reveals the supports, wet concrete — known as shotcrete — is sprayed onto the cliff face to strengthen and mimic the look of the bluffs.
SANDAG plans to spend about $5.78 million starting in February to install piles at Ninth and 10th streets and near the south end of Stratford Court. The agency is also planning to reinforce sea walls at 13th, 12th and Seventh streets.
At the same time, SANDAG and NCTD are also planning to spend roughly $4.5 million to upgrade many of the drainage structures.
Concrete collection basins and culverts along the bluffs capture rainwater and funnel it out to sea before it can eat away at the cliffs from the top. However, pipes can become clogged during rain storms, such as during the Thanksgiving collapse.
Transportation officials are hoping to expand the capacity of those structures and in some places replace a number of them to allow stormwater to move more freely.
“We really need to go in and completely clean them out,” said John Haggerty, director of engineering and construction at SANDAG. “It’s anywhere from heavy maintenance to new construction on the top of the bluffs.”
The human factor
Urbanization appears to be greatly exacerbating the situation, from overwatering of lawns in the summer to rainwater in the winter rushing off roofs, streets and parking lots.
Officials estimate that more than 100 inches of water a year wash through the bluffs, compared with just 12 inches under natural conditions.
“Development to the east has created much more runoff than when the railroad was built in the early 1900s,” said Haggerty with SANDAG.
The results can be spectacular and often dangerous, such as when about a year ago a 55-foot-wide section of cliff crashed onto the beach in Del Mar.
The situation is compounded when the network of culverts along the bluffs become blocked with debris and water floods over the face of the bluffs, such as over Thanksgiving when the city received nearly two months’ worth of precipitation in two days.
At the same time, ocean tides are eating away at the base of the cliffs, a situation expected to increase dramatically with sea-level rise from climate change.
“Wave erosion at the bottom of the cliff decreases overall cliff stability,” said Adam Young, a researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography studying cliff erosion in Del Mar and throughout California. “This instability allows elevated rainfall and groundwater conditions to trigger landslides in the upper cliff.”
The bluffs are eroding at an average rate of about a foot every two years, according to SANDAG officials. But cliff failures are more likely in some spots. While parts of the bluffs are made of robust mudstone, others are more prone to collapse, such as those filled with materials when the railroad was first constructed.
(Joshua Emerson Smith, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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Now rain is finally falling in southeastern Australia, but it’s coming at a price. Thunderstorms are delivering localized deluges, with water rushing off topsoil that is too dry to absorb so much water in such a short period of time. Massive hail is slamming urban and rural areas alike. Outflow winds from these storms, which have struck the country during the past several days and are likely to continue for another day, are stirring up massive dust storms that evoke scenes from the American Southwest.
Over the weekend, dust storms and hail blew into parts of southeastern Australia, from Victoria northeastward to Queensland. According to an ABC Australia news report, golf-ball-sized hail and winds of more than 70 mph hit Canberra, the country’s capital, and invaded Sydney as well. In Sydney and surrounding suburbs, trees were damaged and large hail fell as well.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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But what has that change meant in terms of health? Or even in the number of crops produced?
In a study published this month in the journal Nature Sustainability, UC San Diego associate professor of environmental science Jennifer Burney has estimated that from 2005 to 2016, the shutdown of coal-fired units saved 26,610 lives and 570 million bushels of corn, soybeans and wheat in the combined areas where the plants closed.
Burney’s study also came up with an inverse estimate: Plants that remained in operation contributed to more than 329,000 premature deaths and the loss of 10.2 billion bushels of crops. That’s about half the production in the U.S. in a typical year.
“We know that coal-fired power plants produce a bunch of different pollutants, and we know that pollution is bad for human health,” Burney said. “But I think this study puts some hard numbers on that.”
Burney came up with the estimates by poring over data from sources such as electric power generation numbers from the Environmental Protection Agency, mortality figures from the Centers on Disease Control and Prevention and satellite data from NASA that monitor pollutants. She also looked at the specific areas surrounding power plants before and after they shut down.
And more are closing their doors.
In 2005, coal accounted for 50 percent of the power supply in the U.S., but it had fallen to 27 percent by the first half of 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal-fired generation is expected to drop an additional 13 percent this year.
Coal production in California is practically microscopic. There is just one operating plant left in the state — the 63-megawatt Argus Cogen plant in Trona — and according to the California Energy Commission’s latest numbers, coal accounted for 0.15 percent of in-state generation.
California does import electricity from coal-fired plants in other states, but in 2018 the amount came to 3.3 percent of the state’s power mix. The Energy Commission expects the share to drop to almost zero by the end of 2025.
Burney said “this really vast transition” that led to coal plants shutting down prompted her to try to measure the interplay between the retirements and factors like pollution, death rates and crop yields.
A skeptic may question the estimates Burney’s study produced, but she said the numbers aligned along very different locations in very different moments in time.
“It statistically just becomes very improbable that something else is causing it,” she said.
As coal plants have closed, the number of natural gas plants has grown, accounting for more than 35 percent of total U.S. generation, the highest single energy source. While wind and solar are growing in California, natural gas accounts for the largest in-state generation — 46.54 percent, with renewables in second with 32.25 percent.
Natural gas burns twice as clean as coal, but it is a fossil fuel.
While the switch from coal to gas has decided benefits, Burney said the net gain “is a bit more complicated.”
“In this study, looking at the places where natural gas units have come online, you do see increases in pollution around those plants,” Burney said. “They’re not associated in the same really strong statistical way with crop changes or mortality changes. It’s like one fingerprint is there, but maybe not the other. That suggests we have to come back to this when we have more data.”
From a practical perspective, Burney thinks the study can help policymakers get a better understanding of all the elements that might factor in a decision to open, close or extend the life of a power plant.
“If a unit shut down in your county and not mine, there were tangible benefits to you that my county did not see,” Burney said. “There were lives saved there that there weren’t save here. So I think (the study) perhaps made something that previously seemed sort of ‘out there’ but not concrete into something very concrete.”
Burney included crop yields in the study because agriculture’s interactions with climate is one of her research specialties, and she felt it was an area that hasn’t been getting enough attention.
“The food system is something we all share,” Burney said. “It touches literally every single person on the planet.”
(Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The avalanche occurred at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, hitting the two skiers on some of the steepest terrain at the resort, where a series of expert runs snake through trees, past cliffs and down narrow chutes.
“You have to be pretty skilled to get over there in the first place,” said Sean Kent of Reno, who was at Alpine Meadows Friday and has skied the affected area before. “It’s fickle. It comes with the territory. There’s only so much you can do.“
Officials identified the man who died as Cole Comstock, 34, of Blairsden. Placer County Sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Powers said the injured skier had serious lower body injuries and was airlifted to a Lake Tahoe hospital for emergency surgery.
Powers said a ski patrol was on scene in the rugged area almost immediately, where others at the top of the run said two skiers had been on the hill below them in an area within the ski resort’s boundary.
“I know at least one of the victims was partially buried by snow,” Powers said. “When you get conditions like this, there is always a risk of avalanche.”
The Sierra Avalanche Center had warned of dangerous avalanche conditions for all elevations. Its website said there was “a high degree of uncertainty in regards to snowpack instability near and below treeline.”
The storm dumped up to 25 inches of snow at the top of the resort, said Edan Weishahn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Reno. She said 1 to 2 feet of snow fell in the surrounding mountains over a 24-hour period.
Search and rescue crews scoured the rest of the mountain with dogs after the avalanche and authorities did not believe there were any more victims.
Snowboarder Rex Mulvaney of Reno said he noticed some areas had been roped off and people were heading back down the mountain.
“I knew right away something was wrong,” he said. “They don’t usually close something as soon as they open it, like five minutes later.”
The cause of the avalanche was under investigation. The resort said avalanche prevention work had been performed in the area before it was opened to skiers for the day.
The tragedy came at the start of a busy holiday weekend where hundreds of people flock to ski resorts surrounding Lake Tahoe.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Thunderstorms hit Sydney and a wide swath of the surrounding area, including parts of the north coast of New South Wales that have been burning for months, with more rain expected through the weekend.
“It’s a relief,” said Ray White, a group captain for volunteer fire brigades north of Sydney, where serious fires have been burning since July.
The amount of rain varied wildly Friday, from a few drops to more than 4 inches. It was not enough to end the country’s bushfire crisis — dozens of fires farther south are still out of control.
But for one gray and drenching moment, or a few hours in some places, strong rain doused the deadly flames. And the dried-out gardens. And the filthy streets.
The soggy weather — “best day of the year,” said one sports commentator — delivered quite a jolt. Much of Sydney received more rain Friday than it had over the past three months.
A few smaller towns to the northwest welcomed more precipitation than they had seen in entire recent years.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The storms have dumped several feet of unusual snow on parts of western Washington state. As they moved south Thursday, heavy rain and strong winds battered parts of Northern California, while the Lake Tahoe area braced for heavy snow.
Crews in Washington state cleared snow, power lines and trees that had fallen across a highway leading to small towns including Skykomish and Baring, allowing some residents who had been without power for nearly a week to leave and for supplies to be brought in Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, U.S. Highway 2 fully reopened to all travelers.
But authorities warned it could be several days before power is fully restored for hundreds of people in an area along that highway about 60 miles northeast of Seattle in the Cascade Range.
“Realistically, I’m not expecting power here for another three or four days,” Skykomish Mayor Henry Sladek told The Seattle Times.
The problem that crews are facing is that as soon as one downed power line is repaired, “another tree comes down and takes it out again because of the heavy snow,” Puget Sound Energy spokesman Andrew Padula said.
The Washington State Patrol said it was working with sheriff’s deputies to check on people in those communities and that the Masonic Temple in Skykomish was providing hot food, supplies and water to residents.
Garry Vire of nearby Gold Bar, Wash., helped organize a convoy of SUVs and four-wheel drive vehicles that dropped off supplies to people in need.
“These are my neighbors, my family. When the call went out for help, that’s what we did,” Vire told the Times.
Sarah Sadler headed to Vire’s town when the highway reopened Wednesday for “bread, peanut butter, water. And restocking on gas, primarily for the generator and snowmobiles.”
With power out in the tiny town of Index, she told the Times that she had been taking food out of her refrigerator and putting it in the snow.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The findings, released jointly by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, detail a troubling trajectory: 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, trailing only 2016. The past five years each rank among the five hottest since record-keeping began. And 19 of the hottest 20 years have occurred during the past two decades.
The warming trend also bears the unmistakable fingerprint of humans, who continue to emit tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, scientists say.
“No individual hot year — or hot day or hot season, for that matter — is by itself evidence for climate change. But this hot year is just one of many hot years in this decade,” said Kate Marvel, a research scientist at NASA and Columbia University. “The planet is statistically, detectably warmer than before the Industrial Revolution. We know why. We know what it means. And we can do something about it.”
Leaders from nations around the world have vowed to try to limit the Earth’s warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, in an effort to head off catastrophic sea level rise, ever-deadlier extreme weather events and other climate-related catastrophes. But hitting that ambitious target would require a rapid, transformational shift away from fossil fuels that has yet to materialize.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The powerful avalanches have also affected Indian-controlled areas of the disputed region, with at least 10 people killed on Tuesday, officials said.
At least three dozen children were struck by an avalanche as they made their way to school on Monday in the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan, officials said. One child was killed and three others injured.
Most of the casualties took place in the Neelum Valley, which abuts a river that divides the Pakistani and Indian portions of Kashmir.
Heavy rain and snowfall on Saturday triggered the avalanches, which rolled over villages perched on the steep mountains, burying roads out of the valley.
Many were left with a stark choice: burying their dead or taking injured relatives to the hospital, making the long trek through the snow on foot.
Abdul Rahman Sheikh, 62, said an avalanche had buried his home and seven others in his village on Monday. He dug through the snow until midnight to rescue his family, recovering his daughter-in-law — who survived with injuries — and the frozen bodies of eight other family members. He decided to bury the dead first.
“I have eight dead bodies lying in the open. If I send her to the hospital, who will look after her there? And if I go along with her, who will bury the eight bodies?” Sheikh asked mournfully.
Asif Iqbal, a 25-year-old teacher, said he heard a rumble and a crash Monday afternoon and looked outside to see rooftops of nearby houses barely peeking up from the snow.
The accounting was grim: At least 41 bodies were recovered from two villages, according to Syed Yasir Bukhari, a local government revenue officer. Casualties are expected to rise once rescue crews arrive by helicopter, the only way to reach affected areas.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Across much of Australia, volunteers and professionals are fighting to contain widespread blazes, with many also taking risks to save wildlife being killed by the millions. Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, a popular tourist destination off Australia’s southeast coast, has seen some of the worst damage to the nation’s biodiversity. Fires have overrun nearly half of the 1,700-square-mile island, and rescuers have been going tree to tree, trying to save what they can.
“There’s not much that isn’t threatening koalas at the moment,” said Mitchell, who has owned and run Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park with his wife, Dana, for the last seven years. The couple started a GoFundMe campaign so people can help with the rescues. Without quick intervention, koalas that survived the fires “are going to die of starvation,” he said.
In terms of human fatalities, Australia’s blazes this year have been less severe than some previous bush fires — with 27 people killed so far this season, compared with 75 during the nation’s 1983 “Ash Wednesday” inferno. But the effect on wildlife this year has been far more devastating, a preview of what California could experience in future fire seasons.
Scientists estimate that fires have killed from hundreds of millions to more than 1 billion native animals so far in Australia. The toll illustrates that while humans can adapt somewhat to intensifying fires — through better emergency planning, more fire crews and “home hardening” — ecosystems are far more vulnerable.
“Most Australian landscapes are in tune with small-scale summer fires, but not the fires of the proportion and intensity that we are observing now,” said Katja Hogendoorn, a professor at the University of Adelaide’s school of agriculture, food and wine.
“These incomprehensibly large and devastating fires are caused by a combination of lower rainfall and higher temperatures, both consequences of climate change, and here to stay and worsen, unless drastic action is undertaken worldwide,” she said. “As the driest and hottest continent, Australia is at the forefront of this environmental disaster.”
Accurate numbers on animal losses are hard to come by as the disaster unfolds, with some fire officials saying the blazes will continue to burn into March. But already the damage to natural heritage has become clear on the island, from the bottom of the food chain on up.
The highly sensitive home of the green carpenter bee — which already is extinct in two Australian states and is a food source for larger animals — faces dire straits. Much of the bees’ remaining habitat on the island has burned and, on the eastern mainland, is in the line of fire, experts say.
The endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart, a mouse-like marsupial, relies on low-lying vegetation for protection from birds and feral cats. That largely is gone, as is most of the home of the glossy black cockatoo. Much of the landscape is black and smoldering.
“We’re not sure if they’ll be able to come back. It might be the breaking point for them,” said Michaela Haska, the wildlife park’s head keeper, speaking of the dunnarts and the splashy-colored cockatoos. Males are blackish brown, with red tail bands; females are dark and brownish with some yellow spotting.
On Kangaroo Island, the Mitchells’ 50-acre property is surrounded by burn scars but was untouched by the blazes. The fires choked the skies for days with smoke but were clear on Monday for firefighters and their water-dropping aircraft. For weeks, the wildlife park has become a refuge for animals rescued by volunteers and passersby.
The carcasses of animals litter the shoulders of the roads that run across the island’s rugged landscape. Most are dead, and others are in such bad shape they uncharacteristically move toward humans, either unable to see or starved and disoriented.
“We just get out every morning and look,” said Shona Fisher, 59, who rescue workers say has brought in more than 70 koalas with her husband since the fires began. The pair have taken to visiting the island’s groves of commercially planted blue gum eucalyptus each morning to search for survivors.
At the park, there’s a pop-up tent where crews monitor medical equipment including IV drip bags, bandages, gauze and saucers filled with iodine. Nearby are laundry baskets where koalas are nestled, their burned paws bandaged.
Three weeks ago, the scene at the wildlife park was much different. The Mitchells’ low-slung ranch-style home had a small setup of cages and pens in the back for about 20 koalas and other animals, which was enough to treat an irregular stream of ailing wildlife while they continued to operate their park, cafe and other attractions for tourists.
But then the fires came. Two grew moderately out of lightning strikes on Dec. 20 and were on their way to being controlled when a third lightning strike on Dec. 30 created a monster blaze. Within five days, it consumed about a third of the island and, Mitchell said, about 80 percent of the koalas’ island habitat.
For the world’s koala population, mounting losses on Kangaroo Island carry extra weight. The island’s animals are the only chlamydia-free koala population in Australia, making them a sort of insurance policy for the species as a whole.
But every loss, no matter the animal, hits home for the workers at the park.
“For a lot of us, we’re seeing a lot of death, and it’s not just at the park, unfortunately,” Haska said. “Wherever you drive on the island at the moment is a very grim picture.”
The fire has destroyed 65 homes here, some of them during a single night last week when winds carried embers over firefighters and overwhelmed their defenses.
A father and son trapped in their car were killed along a main highway and laid to rest this week. Firefighters on other fronts that night had to make difficult choices of which homes to save and which to abandon.
“It makes it hard, because you got locals there that want you to help them, but realistically, in the end, my crew’s lives are in danger, and I’ve got to protect them from something that we might not come out of,” said Gary Jenkins, a volunteer firefighter who battled the flames. “It was probably one of the worst things I have been through.”
Local farmers also took a big hit, although the larger operations may be in a position to bounce back.
Nick Clark, who manages 10,500 fine-wool-producing Australian merino sheep on 3,000 acres of the island, falls into that category. When the fire made its run across the island last week, it consumed 85 percent of the pasture his animals fed on. It will take years for the land to recover, leading to increased labor and supply costs for the farmer, but he’s confident he can continue on.
On Kangaroo Island and elsewhere, he said, the farms are “getting bigger and the smaller guys getting squeezed out,” he said. “When the fire goes out, there’ll be a period of contemplation and reflection, and it’s easy to fall into a bit of despair.”
Some are calling the Australian fires an animal apocalypse — and a sign of what could happen in California as fires intensify and burn hotter, as they are expected to do under many climate change scenarios.
That prospect concerns many fire ecologists, who have long preached that fires are beneficial to native flora and fauna in California and other Western states, where ecosystems have adapted to regular blazes.
“We have a saying that pyro-diversity begets eco-diversity,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Ashland, Ore.-based Geos Institute, who has studied forest-fire ecology extensively in the western United States.
But the recent super-hot fires in California, and the widespread wildlife deaths in Australia, have some scientists questioning if these unnaturally intense blazes pose a threat to the conventional wisdom, at least in Australia.
Some scientists note there is a long history of wildlife perishing in big fires in California, but the the consequences have received little attention until now.
Robert Fisher, a California-based supervisory scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey, says wildlife often die in these blazes, but those losses are overshadowed, or not reported, because of the threat to the human population.
In the 2009 Station fire in Los Angeles, he said, “I saw thousands of dead animals ... deer, fish, turtles.”
Fisher said the lack of focus on animal carnage in U.S. fires might have something to do with the past loss of the continent’s iconic creatures, the equivalent of koalas, emus and kangaroos.
“We already wiped out the buffalo and grizzlies,” he said. “Can you imagine if thousands of grizzlies were burned? People would be going crazy.”
Across Australia, there is introspection on the topic of climate change — whether the country could have moved faster to acknowledge the causes of warming temperatures and better prepare for the effects. But at Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park on Monday, the focus was on wildlife rescues.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.’ And it happened,” Mitchell said of the fires. “People want to blame someone, and my focus right now is on saving the animals. Maybe I’ll blame someone when I have time to think about it.”
(Joseph Serna & Susanne Rust, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Slamming the “malpractice of the administration” for distributing only a tiny fraction of the $20.2 billion Congress has passed to help the U.S. commonwealth, Democratic Conference Chairman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats were launching an all-out push to end the White House foot dragging.
“The president’s refusal to spend a dime on these American citizens who are in peril is just a stunning abdication of his responsibility,” Jeffries said.
The administration has only made one $1.5 billion allocation of community block grant disaster relief available to Puerto Rico out of five major block grant allocations passed after 2017’s hurricanes ravaged the island. At last count, less than 1 percent of that first pot of aid has been spent. More than $18 billion from four other allocations — for renovating damaged homes and rebuilding the electrical grid — remains locked up by the White House.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The continuing restiveness of the Taal volcano after it rumbled to life Sunday indicates magma may still be rising to the crater, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. It raised the alert level to 4, indicating a hazardous eruption is possible in hours to days. Level 5, the highest, means such an eruption is under way.
The volcano was spurting fountains of lava 1,640 feet into the sky with dark-gray plumes of ash-laden steam that reached more than a mile high. The massive volcanic column at times flashed with streaks of lightning.
More than 200 earthquakes have been detected in and around Taal, 81 of which were felt with varying intensities. “Such intense seismic activity probably signifies continuous magmatic intrusion beneath the Taal edifice, which may lead to further eruptive activity,” the volcanology institute said.
The picturesque volcano in the middle of a lake in Batangas province south of Manila rumbled to life Sunday in a powerful explosion that blasted a 9-mile column of ash, steam and rocks into the sky. Clouds of volcanic ash blowing over Manila, 40 miles to the north, closed the country’s main airport Sunday and part of Monday until the ash fall eased.
The government’s disaster-response agency counted more than 30,400 evacuees in Batangas and nearby Cavite provinces. Officials expected the number to swell.
Government work was suspended and schools closed in a wide swath of towns and cities, including Manila, because of the health risks from the ash. The eruption has not directly caused deaths or major damage. The death of a driver in a crash on an ash-covered road was linked to slippery conditions.
The small island that is home to the 1,020-foot volcano has long been designated a “permanent danger zone.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from Taal volcano’s eruption south of the capital that began Sunday. But clouds of ash blew more than 62 miles north, reaching the bustling capital, Manila, and forcing the shutdown of the country’s main airport with more than 240 international and domestic flights canceled.
An alternative airport north of Manila at Clark Freeport remained open, but authorities would shut it down too if falling ash threatens flights, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.
The government’s disaster-response agency reported about 8,000 villagers have moved to at least 38 evacuation centers in the hard-hit province of Batangas and nearby Cavite province, but officials expect the number to swell with hundreds of thousands more being brought out of harm’s way. Some residents could not move out of ash-blanketed villages due to a lack of transport and poor visibility. Some refused to leave their homes and farms, officials said.
“We have a problem, our people are panicking due to the volcano because they want to save their livelihood, their pigs and herds of cows,” Mayor Wilson Maralit of Balete town told DZMM radio. “We’re trying to stop them from returning and warning that the volcano can explode again anytime and hit them.”
Maralit, whose town lies along the coastline of Taal Lake surrounding the erupting volcano, appealed for troops and additional police to be deployed to stop distraught residents from sneaking back to their high-risk coastal villages.
After months of restiveness that began last year, Taal suddenly rumbled back to life Sunday, blasting steam, ash and small rocks up to 9 miles into the sky, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Dale McLean, who is helping manage the response to a fire near the town of Bodalla in New South Wales state, was part of team that was bulldozing down small trees and burning scrub ahead of the fire’s projected path to try to stop it from reaching a major highway by starving it of fuel.
“This fire took a major run about seven or eight days ago, and with the weather changing now, the weather settling down, the fire has settled down,” he said. “The fire behavior has changed. So we’re able to get in front of the fire now, get on the offensive.”
Other workers echoed McLean’s comments, saying cooler temperatures and mild winds have finally offered them a chance to make progress. The weather is expected to remain benign for the next week, although any deterioration in conditions after that could see the wildfires flare up again.
Meanwhile, U.S. tennis star Serena Williams donated her $43,000 winner’s check from New Zealand’s ASB Classic to the fundraising appeal for victims of the wildfires, joining many other tennis stars to pledge money, including Ash Barty, Nick Kygrios, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova.
Also on Sunday, news came that another firefighter had been killed. Bill Slade — one of the few professionals among mainly volunteer brigades battling blazes across southeast Australia — died after being hit by a falling tree on Saturday near Omeo in eastern Victoria state, Forest Fire Management Victoria Executive Director Chris Hardman said.
The 60-year-old, married father of two was commended in November for 40 years of service with the forestry agency.
“Although we do have enormous experience in identifying hazardous trees, sometimes these tree failures can’t be predicted,” Hardman said. “Working on the fire ground in a forest environment is a dynamic, high-risk environment, and it carries with it significant risk.”
The tragedy brings the death toll to at least 27 in a crisis that has destroyed more than 2,000 homes and scorched an area larger than the U.S. state of Indiana since September. Four of the casualties have been firefighters.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Tens of thousands remained without electrical power Sunday as a result of the storms a day earlier. Officials in far-flung locations were assessing the damages while utility crews worked to restore power.
The storms toppled trees, ripped off roofs and, in some areas, reduced buildings to rubble.
The National Weather Service said it was a tornado packing winds of at least 134 mph that hit Alabama’s Pickens County on Saturday, killing three people.
“I could hear everything just coming apart,” Larry Jones, standing amid the rubble in Pickens County, said in a video posted by The Tuscaloosa News.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey praised the state’s first responders in a statement Sunday expressing grief over the deaths.
“This morning, I have reached out to both the county leadership as well as the legislative delegation to offer my deepest condolences in this terrible loss of life,” Ivey’s statement said.
In northwestern Louisiana, three fatalities were blamed on high winds. A man in his bed in Oil City, La., was crushed to death by a tree that fell on his home early Saturday. A couple in nearby Bossier Parish were killed when the storms demolished their mobile home. The National Weather Service said a tornado with 135 mph winds hit the area.
In Lubbock, Texas, two first responders were killed when they were hit by a vehicle at the scene of a traffic accident on icy roads; in Iowa, where a semitrailer on Interstate 80 overturned, a passenger was killed in similar road conditions.
Near Kiowa, Okla., a man drowned after he was swept away by floodwaters, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.
In Wisconsin, high winds, towering waves and flooding caused millions of dollars in damage to Port Milwaukee on Lake Michigan. Port Director Adam Schlicht called it “an unprecedented event at Port Milwaukee.”
High winds and icy weather were factors in power outages affecting tens of thousands of people in the South and the Northeast. The PowerOutage.US website, which tracks outages, reported more than 11,000 outages in New York as of Sunday evening. Outage numbers were falling but there remained more than 10,000 without power in West Virginia; roughly 17,000 in the Carolinas; 14,000 in Alabama; 20,000 in Mississippi, and 12,000 in Arkansas.
Entergy Corporation said its subsidiaries serving Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi were working to restore power to roughly 30,000 Sunday, most in Mississippi and Arkansas. That was down from a peak of 134,000 outages in the entire Entergy system.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The island of 3.2 million people lost power immediately after the magnitude 6.4 earthquake on Tuesday, and electrical crews have worked around the clock to ramp up additional electricity generation to replace a major power plant that was heavily damaged.
The Costa Sur plant, in the southern town of Guayanilla, had “destruction on a grand scale,” said José Ortiz, executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
One person was directly killed by the earthquake, but at least three people have died of apparent heart attacks that could be related to the earthquake’s effects, local officials said Friday.
The deaths prompted fears that the southern part of the island — where thousands of people are in the dark and on the street — could face serious health problems in the wake of the disaster, as occurred in the months after Hurricane Maria struck in September 2017.
When customers went without electricity for as long as a year after that storm, people died of heart attacks in line at gas stations; those dependent on oxygen machines went without lifesaving equipment; bacterial diseases spread; and seriously ill patients succumbed to their diseases.
By Friday morning, about 20 percent of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s roughly 1.5 million customers remained without power, the utility said, and it was unclear when the remaining customers would have electricity again.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Authorities were assessing the damage after firefighters battled flames fanned by strong winds through the night and lightning strikes sparked new blazes in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia’s most populous states. Conditions were milder today and forecast to remain relatively benign for the next week.
“In the scheme of things, we did OK last night,” Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters that officials were “extremely relieved” the fires had not been more destructive overnight.
A man suffered burns protecting a home near Tumbarumba in southern New South Wales and was airlifted to a Sydney hospital in serious condition to undergo surgery, Fitzsimmons said.
Several firefighters had minor burns, and one suffered shortness of breath but none was hospitalized, he said.
With no heavy rain expected, the 1.58 million-acre blaze that formed overnight when two fires joined in the Snowy Mountains region near Tumbarumba close to the Victorian border is expected to burn for weeks, officials said.
The fire crisis in Australia has killed at least 26 people, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and scorched an area larger than the U.S. state of Indiana since September.
It also has brought accusations that Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government needs to take more action to counter climate change, which experts say worsens the blazes.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The national Storm Prediction Center said more than 18 million people in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma were at an enhanced risk of storms Friday, including from strong tornadoes, flooding rains and wind gusts that could exceed 80 mph, the speed of a Category 1 hurricane. The area included several major Texas cities, including Dallas, Houston and Austin.
The storms also unleashed downpours that caused widespread flash flooding. Dallas police said one person died when a car flipped into Five Mile Creek west of downtown Dallas about 7 p.m.
Earlier in the afternoon, a tornado destroyed two homes near Fair Play, Mo., about 35 miles northwest of Springfield. The Missouri State Highway Patrol said no injuries were reported.
Shortly before 3 p.m., a tornado stripped the shingles from the roof of a home near Tahlequah, Okla., about 60 miles southeast of Tulsa. No injuries were reported there either.
What the NWS described as “a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado” roared through parts of Logan County, Ark., about 45 miles east of Fort Smith on Friday night.
At least three homes were destroyed by the Arkansas tornado, said Logan County Emergency Management Coordinator Tobi Miller, but no injuries were reported. Downed trees and power lines were widespread, she said.
Miller said the tornado skirted her home in Subiaco, Ark. She said she heard but couldn’t see the rain-wrapped twister in the dark.
Such strong winds are a key concern in an area at greatest risk: A zone that includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, the Storm Prediction Center warned. Weather service meteorologists in northern Louisiana said that such a dire forecast for the area is only issued two to four times each year, on average.
“We could see some very strong tornadoes — possibly those that may stay on the ground for some time — not just the brief spin-up tornadoes,” said Matt Hemingway, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Shreveport, La.
Wicked weather also will pose a threat to Alabama and Georgia as the system moves eastward today, forecasters said.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said Friday the state was making necessary preparations ahead of the potential weather.
“At the state level, we continue to closely monitor this storm system, while making all necessary preparations,” Ivey said in a statement.
Rain, snow and ice were in the forecast for parts of the central and eastern U.S., with threats of flooding looming from Arkansas to Ohio.
(Terry Wallace & Jeff Martin, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The national Storm Prediction Center said more than 18 million people in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma will be at an enhanced threat of storms that could include strong tornadoes and flooding rains.
The area includes several Texas cities, including Dallas, Houston and Austin.
A more tightly defined area that includes the Louisiana cities of Shreveport and Monroe and stretches into northeast Texas will be at an even greater risk of damaging winds today, the Norman, Okla.-based Storm Prediction Center warned. A key concern in this area is the likelihood of “a relatively focused corridor for damaging wind,” the Storm Prediction Center warned in a briefing Thursday.
“We could see some very strong tornadoes — possibly those that may stay on the ground for some time — not just the brief spin-up tornadoes,” Matt Hemingway, a weather service meteorologist in Shreveport, said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The aftermath of a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that killed one person, injured nine others and severely damaged infrastructure on Puerto Rico’s southwest coast is deepening as the island’s government says it is overwhelmed.
Many in the affected area are comparing the situation to Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that hit in September 2017, as hundreds of families who are unable to return to their damaged homes wonder where they’ll stay in upcoming weeks and months as hope fades of electricity being restored soon.
“We have to remain outside because everything inside is destroyed,” said 84-year-old Brunilda Sanchez, who has been sleeping outdoors in a government-supplied cot in the southwest coastal town of Guanica. “We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here.”
President Donald Trump declared an emergency in Puerto Rico several hours after Tuesday’s quake hit, a move that frees up federal funds via the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency for things ranging from transportation to medical care to mobile generators. But some local officials worry the help won’t arrive soon enough.
“FEMA is a very bureaucratic agency and it moves very slowly. So slowly that we’re still waiting for federal funds from Maria,” Daniel Hernandez, director of generation for Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, told The Associated Press.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Rural Fire Service in New South Wales state has told fire-weary residents at community meetings south of Sydney in the coastal towns of Nowra, Narooma and Batemans Bay that northwesterly winds were likely to once again drive blazes toward the coast. Vacationers have retreated to beaches and into the ocean in the area in recent weeks as destructive fires and choking smoke have encroached on the tourist towns, scorching sand dunes in some places.
In neighboring Victoria state, fire-threatened populations were urged to act quickly on evacuation warnings.
“We can’t guarantee your safety and we don’t want to be putting emergency services — whether it be volunteers or paid staff — we do not want to put them in harm’s way because people didn’t follow advice that was given,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said.
Temperatures in the threatened area were expected to reach into the mid-40s Celsius (more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit) today, and conditions remained tinder dry.
“If you can get out, you should get out,” said Andrew Crisp, Victoria’s emergency management commissioner. “Because tomorrow is going to be a dangerous and dynamic day.”
The unprecedented fire crisis in southeast Australia that has claimed at least 26 lives since September, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and scorched an area twice the size of the U.S. state of Maryland has focused many Australians on how the nation adapts to climate change. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under withering criticism both at home and abroad for downplaying the need for his government to address climate change, which experts say helps supercharge the blazes.
Last year was Australia’s hottest and driest on record. The Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate monitoring, Karl Braganza, said while the country’s rainfall was expected to pick up a bit, it wouldn’t be enough to snuff out the blazes anytime soon.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Now European scientists have confirmed what had been suspected: 2019 was a very hot year, with global average temperatures the second-highest on record. Only 2016 was hotter, and not by much — less than one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit.
The finding, by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an intergovernmental agency supported by the European Union, continues an unrelenting upward trend in temperatures as emissions of greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and change the climate.
“The past five years have been the five warmest on record; the last decade has been the warmest on record,” Jean-Noël Thépaut, director of Copernicus services, said in a statement. “These are unquestionably alarming signs.”
Last year was more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (about 0.6 degree Celsius) above the average for the period between 1981 and 2010, the agency reported. Several months in 2019 had record average temperatures, with July being the hottest month ever, averaging 0.07 degree Fahrenheit (0.04 degree Celsius) higher than July 2016.
The record-holder for a full year is still 2016. Temperatures that year were influenced by a strong El Niño, when changes in sea temperature, atmospheric pressure and winds in the equatorial Pacific led to short-term variations in temperature. There was an El Niño last year, too, but it was weaker than in 2016.
Most regions in 2019 showed above-average warming, with some — including the Arctic, Europe, southern Africa and Australia — exceptionally warmer.
Overall, Europe had its warmest year ever, with all seasons warmer than average. Summer was blisteringly hot, with heat waves in June and again in July. Single-day temperature records were set in Paris and other cities, and nuclear reactors in France and Germany were forced to reduce output or shut down because the cooling water became too warm.
Central and southeastern Canada were among the few areas that had below-average temperatures.
The Arctic, which is warming more rapidly than other parts of the world, experienced extraordinary conditions last year.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck before dawn Tuesday caused serious damage to one of Puerto Rico’s major power plants, Costa Sur, which generates about 40 percent of the island’s electricity.
Gov. Wanda V´zquez gave government workers the day off Wednesday and urged everyone to stay home, to “avoid chaos.” Most traffic lights were not working.
“This is an event we have never lived through before,” the governor said. “We were not prepared for this. There is no way to prepare for this. It hit us hard, hard, hard.”
The governor said she and other senior officials traveled to the Costa Sur plant to check conditions after a series of earthquakes that have shaken the island since late December. “We were able to verify that it suffered severe damage to the infrastructure, to the point that employees were injured,” she said at a news conference Tuesday night.
A wall fell on an employee, who was hospitalized in stable condition, she said. Officials said that the damage to the plant was so bad that it may be beyond repair. Engineers may instead decide to focus on another power plant, which has received federal funding for improvements.
On Tuesday night, 97 percent of the island was in the dark. But nearly a half-million of the island’s 1.5 million customers had their power restored by Wednesday morning, the power authority said.
On Twitter, the agency said it was generating 542 megawatts of power by Wednesday morning. That is less than one-quarter of the amount normally needed at this time of year. Authorities worked through the night to fire up power plants around the island, but it was unclear whether they could generate enough electricity to make up for the loss of the Costa Sur plant.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Schools, homes and churches along the southern coastline crumbled. Hospitals evacuated patients. A signature tourist attraction collapsed into the sea. At least one person died, crushed by a wall that toppled in his home.
Tuesday’s earthquake followed a 5.8-magnitude quake on Monday and was among numerous seismic events along an underwater fault line in recent days. All of them sent shock waves across the U.S. territory amid fears that further temblors could knock out key infrastructure.
The earthquakes hit communities still struggling more than two years after the catastrophic Hurricane Maria raked the island — many homes remain covered in blue tarps where roofs once stood.
Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced declared a state of emergency Tuesday and said authorities were evaluating the damage and inspecting Puerto Rico’s power generation plants — all of which are along the southern coast near the origin of the seismic activity.
José Ortiz, executive director of Puerto Rico’s power utility, said late Tuesday night that electricity had been restored to 100,000 of the utility’s 1.4 million clients on the island. Officials aim to restore power before the weekend, Ortiz said.
Vázquez Garced added that her government had not yet had direct contact with the White House in Washington as of late Tuesday. A spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said officials are considering the governor’s request for an emergency declaration.
The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico said it had approved the use of emergency reserve funds from fiscal years 2019 and 2020 to be used for expenses related to the earthquakes, but any local expenditures are sure to strain a government that has been bankrupt and struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria’s wrath.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Coal-fired electric power generation, which had rebounded slightly in 2018, fell by a record 18 percent to the lowest level since 1975, the Rhodium study said. Coal burning produces carbon dioxide, which fuels climate change.
But much of that reduction was offset by rising emissions from the use of inexpensive natural gas. And transportation emissions remained relatively flat while emissions from buildings, industry and other parts of the economy grew.
“Last year was definitely a good news, bad news story,” said Trevor Houser, a partner with the Rhodium Group and head of its energy and climate team. “There was the biggest drop ever in electric power emissions but little progress in other sectors of the economy.”
Moreover, Houser said, “emissions are not falling fast enough to meet Copenhagen or Paris agreement targets without a significant change in public policy.”
In 2019, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were roughly 12 percent below 2005 levels. That puts the United States at risk of missing the 17 percent target it agreed to reach by 2020 under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the Rhodium study said. In addition, U.S. emissions last year were still “a long way off” from the 26 percent to 28 percent reduction that the United States pledged to carry out by 2025 under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the study said. The Trump administration has said it will withdraw from the Paris accord next fall.
The United States accounts for 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Houser said.
The Rhodium study comes after U.S. emissions in 2018 rose by 2.7 percent, so net U.S. greenhouse gas emissions ended 2019 slightly higher than at the end of 2016.
Emissions from cars, trucks, planes and other vehicles declined slightly — by 0.3 percent. But industrial emissions rose 0.6 percent; direct emissions from buildings increased by 2.2 percent; and emissions from other sectors — including agriculture, waste, land use, oil and gas methane — jumped 4.4 percent.
(Steven Mufson, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The natural wonder in the town of Guayanilla, shaped like a round stone window with a stunning view of the ocean, had begun to look vulnerable after smaller temblors started to hit the area a week ago, Mayor Nelson Torres Yordán said. On Monday, he said, “it finally fell.”
The quake struck at 6:32 a.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the strongest yet to be felt in the coastal towns west of the city of Ponce that have been trembling for more than a week. The rash of smaller temblors began with three shakes of 4.7, 5.0 and 4.7 magnitude in the space of three hours during the night of Dec. 28-29 and have continued since then, clustered in the same area a few miles offshore.
No one was seriously hurt, Gov. Wanda Vázquez said. Classes at local public schools, which were scheduled to resume today, were pushed back until Jan. 13 to give inspectors time to check the buildings for damage, she said. The schools will conduct earthquake drills the day that they reopen, the governor added. At least one school building in the town of Guayanilla was being used as a shelter.
A strong, 4.9-magnitude aftershock struck about four hours after the big quake, rattling nerves again.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government was committing an extra 2 billion Australian dollars ($1.4 billion) toward the recovery effort in addition to the tens of millions of dollars that have already been promised.
“The fires are still burning. And they’ll be burning for months to come,” Morrison said. “And so that’s why I outlined today that this is an initial, an additional, investment of $2 billion. If more is needed and the cost is higher, then more will be provided.”
Morrison’s announcement of the funds, which will go toward rebuilding towns and infrastructure destroyed by the fires, came as the death toll from the disaster rose with the discovery of a body in a remote part of New South Wales. The body is believed to be that of a 71-year-old man who was last seen on New Year’s Eve moving equipment on his property on the state’s south coast, police said in a statement. Police found the body on Monday between the property and a car, both of which had been destroyed by fire.
Another person in southern New South Wales was reported missing, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Nationwide, at least 25 people have been killed and 2,000 homes destroyed by the blazes, which have so far scorched an area twice the size of the U.S. state of Maryland.
Rain and cooler temperatures on Monday were bringing some relief to communities battling the fires. But the rain was also making it challenging for fire crews to complete strategic burns as they tried to prepare for higher temperatures that have been forecast for later in the week.
“With the more benign weather conditions, it presents some wonderful relief for everybody, the firefighters, the emergency services personnel, but also the communities affected by these fires,” Shane Fitzsimmons, commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, told reporters. “But it also presents some real challenges when it comes to implementing tactical and strategic back-burns and other techniques to try and bring these fires under control.”
More than 135 fires were still burning across New South Wales, including almost 70 that were not contained. Officials have warned that the rain won’t put out the largest and most dangerous blazes before conditions deteriorate again.
Victoria state Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said at least 8 inches of rain would need to fall over a short period of time in order to snuff out the fires — around 20 times what has fallen across the region in the past day. And officials warned that Australia’s wildfire season — which generally lasts through March — was nowhere near its end.
“No one can be complacent. We’ve got big fire danger coming our way toward the end of this week,” Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters in Melbourne. “We are by no means out of this. And the next few days, and indeed the next few months, are going to be challenging.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A high-wind warning will remain in effect through noon today for the county’s mountains and deserts, and a wind advisory will be in effect for the foothills and canyons.
San Diego is expecting a high of 70 degrees today.
| Location | wind speed |
| (mph) | |
| Sill Hill (west of Cuyamaca Peak) | 77 |
| Big Black Mountain (north of Rmona) | 73 |
| Alpine | 64 |
| Beckman Springs (east of Lake Morena) | 63 |
| Devil Canyon (east of Valley Center) | 60 |
| Crestwood | 56 |
| Palomar Mountain | 56 |
| Viejas Grade | 54 |
| Santa Ysabel | 54 |
| Japatul Valley | 53 |
| Sunrise Highway | 48 |
| Otay Mountain | 48 |
| Descanso | 45 |
| Pine Valley | 45 |
| Viejas | 41 |
| Hodges Dam | 40 |
“There has been a lot of blame being thrown around,” Morrison said at a news conference. “And now is the time to focus on the response that is being made. Blame doesn’t help anybody at this time, and over-analysis of these things is not a productive exercise.”
Morrison announced Saturday that he would dispatch 3,000 army, navy and air force reservists to help battle the fires. He also committed 20 million Australian dollars ($14 million) to lease fire-fighting aircraft from overseas.
But the moves did little to tamp down the criticism that he had been slow to act, even as he has downplayed the need for his government to address climate change, which experts say played a key role in supercharging the blazes.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Scott Morrison said 23 deaths have been confirmed so far this summer, including the two in a blaze on Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia. “We are facing another extremely difficult next 24 hours,” he told a televised news conference.
Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said this was the first time that reservists have been called out “in this way in living memory and, in fact, I believe for the first time in our nation’s history.”
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her state was facing “another terrible day” and called on people in areas threatened by the fires to leave while they can.
“I’m pleased to say that we’ve never been as prepared as we are today for the onslaught we’re likely to face,” Berejiklian told reporters at a news conference this morning. “All of the major road networks are still open, but we can’t guarantee that beyond the next few hours. So there are still windows for people to get out.”
Two people were confirmed dead in a blaze on Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia, bringing the overall nationwide death toll this summer to at least 21.
The fire broke containment lines Friday and was described as “virtually unstoppable” as it destroyed buildings and burned through more than 35,000 acres of Flinders Chase National Park. While the warning level for the fire was reduced today, the Country Fire Service said it was still a risk to lives and property.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers warned the fires could move “frighteningly quick.” Embers carried by the wind had the potential to spark new fires or enlarge existing blazes.
More than 130 fires are burning in New South Wales and at least half of those are out of control. Temperatures in parts of the state are expected to soar in the mid-40s Celsius (about 113 Fahrenheit) amid strong winds and low humidity. A total of 48 fires were burning across almost 791,000 acres in Victoria state, and conditions are expected to worsen with a wind change.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Across the scorched southeast, frightened Australians — grabbing a few cherished things, abandoning their homes and choking on smoke so heavy it blotted out the sun — struggled Thursday to evacuate as wildfires turned lush countryside into charcoal wasteland.
And from government officials came a disheartening warning: This weekend will be the worst period yet in Australia’s catastrophic fire season.
“It’s going to be a blast furnace,” Andrew Constance, transport minister of New South Wales, told The Sydney Morning Herald.
The blazes have overwhelmed the country’s firefighting resources, and the fire season, though still young, already ranks as the worst in Australia’s recorded history.
The state of New South Wales declared an emergency in its southeastern region Thursday, calling on residents and vacationers to evacuate. Constance said the relocation was the largest in the region’s history.
To the south, the state of Victoria declared a disaster Thursday, allowing it to authorize the evacuation of areas along its eastern coast.
Using any means they could find, authorities were warning people to evacuate. But with communication across much of the region spotty to nonexistent, it was not clear that everyone would get the message.
In just the past week, at least eight people have died, and many more are unaccounted for. The blazes have consumed more than 1,000 houses, killed countless animals and ravaged a Pacific coast region of farms, bush, eucalyptus forests, mountains, lakes and vacation spots. About 15 million acres have been blackened over the past four months, and more than 100 wildfires are still burning.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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On Tuesday, parts of the city recorded more than a foot of rain, according to the country’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency. The rain persisted on Wednesday and more was predicted this week for the metro area, one of Asia’s largest urban districts and home to more than 30 million people.
At least 35,500 people had been displaced by Thursday, according to the National Disaster Management Agency, as teams of emergency workers sought to clear flooded streets and repair downed power lines.
More than 100 rescue workers from the country’s emergency relief agency and several military units had been deployed in the capital, said Budi Purnama, the operations director of National Search and Rescue Agency.
Budi said the rescue workers were struggling in city streets that had been turned into rushing rivers.
“The water discharge is very fast, the current is so strong that it even pushes parked vehicles,” he said.
About 40 percent of Jakarta lies below sea level, and authorities have tried for years to alleviate flooding. Ordinary rains can swamp neighborhoods, as illegally dug wells and climate change have caused the city to sink faster than any other big city in the world.
As a result, officials announced in 2019 that they would relocate the capital to East Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Tens of thousands of revelers in Jakarta were soaked by torrential rains as they waited for New Year’s Eve fireworks.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said Wednesday that monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged at least 90 neighborhoods and triggered a landslide in Depok, a city on the outskirts of Jakarta.
Wibowo said the dead included a 16-year-old high school student who was electrocuted, while more than 19,000 people were in temporary shelters after floodwaters reached up to 10 feet in several places.
Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan told reporters after conducting an aerial survey over the flooded city that as much as 14.5 inches of rainfall — more than three times the average amount — was recorded in Jakarta and West Java’s hilly areas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Apocalyptic scenes like these in Mallacoota, a vacation destination between Sydney and Melbourne, came on the last day of the warmest decade on record in Australia. The country is in the grip of a devastating fire season, with months of summer still to go, as record-breaking temperatures, strong winds and prolonged drought have ignited huge blazes across the country.
The government prepared to deploy navy vessels and military helicopters to help fight the fires and evacuate people.
The devastation is immense. In the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, more than 900 homes have been destroyed and 9 million acres have burned since November. About 90 fires were still raging in the state Tuesday, with about three dozen more across the border in Victoria. At least 12 people have died.
So heavy was the smoke, it even drifted over to neighboring New Zealand, 1,300 miles away, whose residents woke up to a blood-red sun on New Year’s Day.
With several blazes burning out of control, thousands were stranded in evacuation centers in other towns along the coast as firefighters told people to stay put. Tens of thousands of people were without power, the Australian military was authorized to deploy aircraft and naval vessels, and the government requested firefighting help from Canada and the United States. Telecommunications remained down Wednesday in a 200-mile stretch of threatened area on the southeast coast.
Australia is normally hot and dry in summer, but climate change, which brings more frequent and longer periods of extreme heat, worsens these conditions and makes vegetation drier and more likely to burn. The country recently concluded its driest spring on record. That was followed in mid-December by the hottest day on record, with average highs across the country of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Polls show a large majority of Australians view climate change as an urgent threat and want stronger government action to combat it. The catastrophic fire conditions have put an intense focus on the Australian government’s failure to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which traps heat when released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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