Huge sheets of ice are blocking roads and choking traffic in Fairbanks, Alaska's second largest city, reported the state's transportation department, which has coined the neologism -- a play on "Armageddon" -- to describe the chilly impasse.
"We're experiencing an unprecedented series of winter storms," the department tweeted.
Scientists say the unchecked burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is changing the climate, making it more unpredictable and prone to wild swings.
Rick Thoman, a weather specialist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, called the conditions of the past few days "very unusual".
Hours after thermometers on Kodiak Island in the south reached 19.4 degrees Celsius (67 Fahrenheit) -- the warmest December temperature ever recorded in Alaska -- the interior of the state saw 25 millimeters (an inch) of rain fall in just a few hours, a downpour unseen in decades.
Then when temperatures plummeted again, it all froze.
The rainstorm was caused by the same weather system that brought the soaring temperatures, transporting warm, moist air from Hawaii to the frigid far north.
"This kind of thing -- record high moisture content, record warm air -- is exactly what we expect, of course, in our warming climate.
Unsettled weather was continuing to play havoc with flights in an out of Sea-Tac International Airport in Seattle, with hundreds of flights canceled or delayed this week.
In California, snow and persistent rain also continue to cause problems, with localized flooding forcing evacuations in areas around Los Angeles.
In the north of the state, the tourist magnet of Lake Tahoe -- where forest fires a few months ago caused residents to flee -- has been buried in heavy snow, leaving some people cut off.
More than five meters of snow have now fallen on parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range this month, an all-time record, according to the Central Sierra Nevada Snow Laboratory at University of California at Berkeley.
(NDTV)
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EnerSmart Storage, a renewable energy company based in San Diego, will design, construct and operate the systems. When completed, 12 sites across the county will enhance grid reliability and increase energy efficiency. The entire portfolio will account for 165 megawatts and 336 megawatt-hours of battery storage electricity — enough to power 110,000 homes for two hours.
“We’re super excited about it just because it’s something that is really helping the growth of renewable energy,” said EnerSmart managing partner James Beach, who said the portfolio will assist the San Diego Gas & Electric distribution system. “It’s helping local residents and businesses by having this backup power available.”
The El Cajon site is one of two locations that will deploy zinc battery storage technology manufactured by EOS Energy.
The Chula Vista location is one of 10 sites that will use lithium-iron phosphate batteries made by BYD, a multinational based in China whose North American headquarters is in downtown Los Angeles.
BYD’s iron phosphate batteries are considered less flammable than the widely used lithium-ion batteries often seen in electric vehicles and utility-scale battery storage systems.
The North American Development Bank and Siemens Financial Services have provided the financing for the BYD projects for EnerSmart. Beach said the total loan is $90 million to $100 million.
“We’re really excited to have these projects going and having strong banks behind us to help put them together,” Beach said.
The North American Development Bank, based in San Antonio, Texas, and known as the NADB for short, is a binational institution established by the U.S. and Mexican governments to finance environmental and energy infrastructure projects that are located within 60 miles of the border.
According to the NABD, the San Diego energy storage project will displace the emissions of 31,100 metric tons of carbon per year.
“The new battery storage project helps meet current infrastructure needs and contributes to increasing our global competitiveness and transition to a green economy,” San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Jerry Sanders said in a statement. “We applaud the bank’s commitment.”
The El Cajon and Chula Vista locations are scheduled to begin commercial operations April 1. Beach said he hopes all 12 sites in the portfolio will be up and running by the end of 2023.
The locations with the biggest systems will be in Ramona, which will store 39 megawatts and 78 megawatt-hours of electricity, and Rancho Pe\ñasquitos, storing 30 megawatts and 60 megawatt-hours. Both will use BYD’s iron phosphate batteries.
Energy storage is taking on a larger role in California’s power mix. Under the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, 60 percent of California’s electricity must come from renewable sources by 2030. By 2045, if not earlier, 100 percent must come from carbon-free sources.
Solar production in California is so abundant during the day that the California Independent System Operator, the nonprofit that manages the grid for about 80 percent of the state, often has to send the excess to adjacent states like Arizona or curtail it all together. But when the sun goes down, solar production disappears.
Storage can help solve the problem by taking that excess solar generation, saving it via batteries or other means and then sending it to the grid at night, or at other times when the electric system needs it.
Any extra megawatts can also come in handy when the grid comes under extreme stress due to increased demand — most often seen in California when extreme heat waves lead consumers to crank up their air conditioners. If things get dire, grid operators have to consider instituting rotating power outages, as they did in August 2020.
California accounted for 506 megawatts of battery storage power capacity — the maximum amount of power batteries can discharge at a given moment — as of December 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s by the far the largest amount of any state in the nation.
In the aftermath of the 2020 rolling blackouts, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered power companies to accelerate the deployment of more battery storage projects.
Critics of energy storage point to its relatively high cost compared to conventional sources of power. In the early 1990s, for example, lithium-ion battery projects cost about $10,000 per kilowatt-hour.
Prices have gone down dramatically, though, and earlier this year an analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory projected storage costs for four-hour systems ranging from $143 per kilowatt-hour to $248 by 2030. The industry’s breakthrough price is generally considered to be about $100 per kilowatt-hour.
Beach of EnerSmart estimated the price for the San Diego portfolio will come to about $300 per kilowatt-hour.
(Rob Nikolewski, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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At least one first responder and six others were injured, though Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle acknowledged there could be more injuries and deaths could be possible due to the intensity of fires that quickly swept across the region as winds gusted up to 105 mph.
The first fire erupted just before 10:30 a.m. and was “attacked pretty quickly and laid down later in the day and is currently being monitored” with no structures lost, Pelle said.
A second wildfire, reported just after 11 a.m., “ballooned and spread rapidly east,” Pelle said. The blaze spanned 2.5 square miles and engulfed parts of the area in smoky, orange-hued skies and sent residents scrambling to get to safety.
The activity of the fires, which are burning unusually late into the winter season, will depend on how the winds behave overnight and could determine when crews are able to go in and begin assessing the damage and searching for any victims, authorities said.
“This is the kind of fire we can’t fight head on,” Pelle said. “We actually had deputy sheriffs and firefighters in areas that had to pull out because they just got overrun,” he added.
Evacuations have been ordered for the city of Louisville, home to about 21,000 people, and Superior, which has another 13,000 residents.
The neighboring towns are roughly 20 miles northwest of Denver in an area filled with middle and upper-middle class subdivisions surrounded by shopping centers, parks and schools. The area is between Denver and Boulder, a foothills college town home to the University of Colorado.
Residents evacuated fairly calmly and orderly, but the winding streets in the suburban subdivisions quickly became clogged as people tried to get out. It sometimes took cars as long as 45 minutes to advance about a half mile.
Small fires cropped up here and there in surprising places — on the grass in a median or in a dumpster in the middle of a parking lot — as wind gusts caused the fire to jump and spread. Shifting winds caused the skies to turn from clear to smoky and then back again as emergency sirens blared nearby.
Some of the several blazes in the area Thursday were sparked by downed power lines.
Six people who were injured in the fires were being treated at UCHealth Broomfield Hospital, spokesperson Kelli Christensen said. A nearby portion of U.S. Highway 36 also was shut down.
Colorado’s Front Range, where most of the state’s population lives, had an extremely dry and mild fall, and winter so far has continued to be mostly dry. Denver set a record for most consecutive days without snow before it got a small storm on Dec. 10. It hasn’t snowed since, though snow was expected in the region today.
The fires prompted Gov. Jared Polis to declare a state of a emergency, allowing the state to access disaster emergency funds.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Cities in at least five other states in Brazil’s north and southeast have also been flooded in recent days.
In Bahia, flooding has affected more than 470,000 people. In at least 50 cities, water surged into homes and businesses, and people were forced to abandon their belongings. Official data from the state government say 34,163 people have been made homeless and almost 43,000 are displaced. There have been a total of 21 deaths and 358 people injured since the beginning of the month.
This is the heaviest period of rainfall for Bahia in the last 32 years, according to the website of the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters, a government agency. In southern Bahia, it rained more than five times the normal amount for this time of the year.
In an interview with local radio stations Tuesday morning, Bahia Gov. Rui Costa compared the situation to a “bombardment.” He also said that coronavirus vaccines were lost in the floods of some cities.
“Some municipal health offices and medicine depots were completely under water,” he said.
On Tuesday, the population of at least four municipalities in Bahia received warnings to leave their homes because of the increased flow of the Pardo River due to the opening of the Machado Mineiro dam’s sluice gates in neighboring Minas Gerais state, according to the state government’s advisory office.
Bahia’s Civil Defense superintendent, Col. Miguel Filho, told The Associated Press that there are still flooded and isolated cities, and rains are still ongoing.
He added that at least five dams in Bahia are at risk of bursting. Bridges and federal and state roads in the state were destroyed and have been provisionally rebuilt to allow food and other items to be brought to people in need.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“It’s snowmaggedon,” said Kulieke, 71, whose mountain cabin was buried under at least 4 feet of powder Monday amid record-breaking snowfall [during the] third-snowiest month in the Sierra Nevada. “It’s just beyond belief how much snow there is.”
Officials at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab at Donner Pass said the area’s snowfall totals have surpassed the previous December record of 179 inches set in 1970. By Tuesday morning, the lab had received a whopping 202.1 inches of snow, making it the on record.
The snow comes as a much-needed surprise for the bone-dry West, where only months ago, officials put residents under a state of drought emergency.
But December roared in like a lion, with back-to-back storms dumping up to 15 feet of snow across the Sierra Nevada and other mountain areas of California. Though experts wouldn’t go so far as to call it a drought-buster, they said every bit helps.
Though welcome, the snowfall has also proven dangerous. There have been rockfalls, road closures and multi-vehicle pileups as the latest storm barreled through the state from north to south.
Highway 50 near South Lake Tahoe was backed up and “at capacity” Tuesday, officials said. Residents were urged to stay home or face delays of up to 10 hours. Other highways were completely blocked, including Interstate 80, which was closed much of the day Tuesday from Colfax to the Nevada state line.
In South Lake Tahoe, officials activated the city’s emergency operations center and warned drivers against unnecessary travel as basic services were strained or overwhelmed.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The lingering system rendered several major highways and state roads in Northern California impassable, with public-safety agencies posting video warnings of the extreme conditions.
The closed roads included Interstate 80, which was shut down from Placer County near Sacramento to the Nevada state line, and state Highway 50 in Sacramento Valley and the Lake Tahoe Basin, according to Caltrans.
A winter storm warning remained in effect for most of the region until 9 p.m. Monday, the National Weather Service said, adding that some areas could get another 2 feet of snow.
“The impacts on the roads are quite severe, and travel, in some cases, will be outright impossible,” Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist in College Park, Md., at the Weather Prediction Center of the Weather Service, said Monday.
On state Route 89, an avalanche closed the road from Tahoe City, Calif., to near Squaw Valley, the site of the Winter Olympics in 1960, the California Highway Patrol said on Twitter on Monday.
The storm, which began over the holiday weekend, shattered records for snowfall and low temperatures across the West.
At a research station operated by the Central Sierra Snow Lab of the University of California Berkeley, the snowfall for December surpassed 193 inches as of Monday morning — a record, researchers said. The previous record of 179 inches was set in 1970, said the lab, which is at an elevation of 6,894 feet.
“P.S. Sorry for the late update today!” the lab said on Twitter. “That snow was deep and hard to get through to do the measurement. It took us 40 minutes to get from the front door of the lab to where the measurement is completed 50 yards away!”
In a region that has been beleaguered by wildfires and drought, the snowfall could have its benefits.
The snowpack in the Sierra was at dangerously low levels after recent weeks of dry weather but the state Department of Water Resources reported on Monday that the snowpack was between 145 percent and 161 percent of normal across the range with more snow expected.
The Northstar California Resort in Truckee closed its mountain operations on Monday amid blizzard conditions. The ski resort has received more than 6 feet of snow over the last 48 hours, according to the resort’s Facebook post.
In San Diego County, a winter storm warning will be in effect until early today for the mountains above 5,000 feet.
“This storm is likely to bring an accumulation of 3 inches to as many as 7 inches of snow to the mountains in areas like Julian and Pine Valley,” said meteorologist Elizabeth Schenk.
Yet another winter storm is due in San Diego later this week starting early Wednesday and persisting through Friday, Schenk said.
In the Pacific Northwest, temperatures in western Washington and Oregon aren’t forecast to rise above freezing until at least Thursday, and possibly not until the weekend, forecasters said.
Emergency warming shelters were opened throughout Oregon and western Washington as temperatures plunged into the teens and forecasters said an arctic blast would last for several days.
For the second day in a row, Seattle broke a record Monday for lowest temperature on that particular day.
At the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a low of 17 degrees was recorded Monday, Orrison said. That broke the record of 20 degrees for the day in 1968, he said.
On Sunday, it was 20 degrees at Sea-Tac, breaking the record of 22 degrees in 1948.
(Neil Vigor, NEW YORK TIMES; ASSOCIATED PRESS; CITY NEWS SERVICE; WASHINGTON POST)
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The city governments of Jussiape and Itambe posted warnings on social media urging people to seek safety.
"A dam with a high volume of water has broken and a strong flash flood is expected to affect the municipality of Itambe in a few moments. All residents should evacuate from the banks of the river Verruga urgently," said the city message posted on Instagram.
The Bahia state government's press office said heavy rains have caused floods that have killed 18 people and affected at least 50 cities since early November. It said more than 16,000 people are homeless as a result of the flooding.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Authorities near Reno said three people were injured in a 20-car pileup on Interstate 395, where drivers described limited visibility on Sunday. Further west, a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 80 was shut until at least Monday from Colfax through the Lake Tahoe region to the Nevada state line.
The California Department of Transportation also closed many other roads while warning of slippery conditions for motorists.
“Expect major travel delays on all roads,” the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nev., said Sunday on Twitter. “Today is the type of day to just stay home if you can. More snow is on the way too!”
The weather service issued a winter storm warning for greater Lake Tahoe until 1 a.m. Tuesday because of possible “widespread whiteout conditions” and wind gusts that could top 45 mph.
Turbulent weather stretched from San Diego to Seattle. More than a foot of snow was reported near Port Angeles on Washington state’s Puget Sound. Portland, Ore., received a dusting, but the city was expected to get another 2.5 inches tonight, according to the weather service.
In California, rockslides closed more than 40 miles of coastal Highway 1 in the Big Sur region south of the San Francisco Bay Area. There was no estimate for the reopening of the scenic stretch that is frequently shut after wet weather.
The latest in a series of storms hit Southern California with heavy rain and wind that flooded streets and knocked down power lines late Saturday. Gusts toppled trees, damaged carports and blew a track-and-field shed from a Goleta high school into a front yard two blocks away, according to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. No injuries were reported.
More than 1.8 inches of rain fell over 24 hours in Santa Barbara County’s San Marcos pass, while Rocky Butte in San Luis Obispo County recorded 1.61 inches, the weather service said.
Los Angeles International Airport said a “storm-related electrical issue” forced a partial closure of Terminal 5, causing post-Christmas passengers to divert to other terminals for certain services.
“Cancellations and delays are possible, so it will be important to check your flight status today if flying through Terminal 5,” LAX tweeted.
In the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, crews were repairing a section of State Route 18 that washed down a hillside after heavy rain late Thursday. The closure of the major route into the Big Bear ski resort area could last for weeks, officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But the emergency in La Palma, the most northwest island in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago, is not over due to the widespread damage the eruption caused, the director of the Canaries’ volcanic emergency committee said in announcing the much-anticipated milestone.
“It’s not joy or satisfaction — how we can define what we feel? It’s an emotional relief. And hope,” Pevolca director Julio Perez said. “Because now, we can apply ourselves and focus completely on the reconstruction work.”
Fiery molten rock flowing down toward the sea destroyed around 3,000 buildings, entombed banana plantations and vineyards, ruined irrigation systems and cut off roads. But no injuries or deaths were directly linked to the eruption.
Perez, who is also the region’s minister of public administration, justice and security, said the archipelago’s government valued the loss of buildings and infrastructure at more than $1 billion.
Volcanologists said they needed to certify that three key variables — gas, lava and tremors — had subsided in the Cumbre Vieja ridge for 10 days in order to declare the volcano’s apparent exhaustion. Since the eruption started on Sept. 19, previous periods of reduced activity were followed by reignitions.
On the eve of Dec. 14, the volcano fell silent after flaring for 85 days and 8 hours, making it La Palma’s longest eruption on record.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the eruption’s end “the best Christmas present.”
“We will continue working together, all institutions, to relaunch the marvelous island of La Palma and repair the damage,“ he tweeted.
Farming and tourism are the main industries on the Canary Islands, a popular destination for many European vacationers due to their mild climate.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A tsunami was not expected to follow, the National Weather Service said.
The earthquake occurred just after noon and was centered off the coast about 210 miles northwest of San Francisco, just off a town called Petrolia that is home to fewer than 1,000 people. The nearest population center, Eureka, is about 45 miles north.
That left only about 25,000 people in the range of strong or very strong shaking, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though residents as far away as Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area reported feeling trembling.
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s office of emergency services did not issue any evacuation orders, though a few roads were closed due to rockslides. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated economic losses of less than $10 million and no fatalities.
Photos showed shattered store windows, broken bottles fallen into store aisles and tiles that had fallen loose from a commercial building’s ceiling.
The area last suffered an earthquake of a similar magnitude in 1993, when one person died, according to the USGS.
Petrolia General Store manager Jane Dexter told the San Francisco Chronicle the rumbling and shaking lasted for about 20 seconds. Glass bottles fell off the shelves at the store, bursting on the floor, but no one was hurt, she said.
“It was bigger than (anything) I’ve felt in a long time out here,” she told the Chronicle.
California’s Office of Emergency Services said 2,500 people were notified about the earthquake before shaking began through the state’s early warning system called MyShake.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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At its strongest, the typhoon packed sustained winds of 121 mph and gusts of up to 168 mph before it blew out Friday into the South China Sea.
At least 208 people were killed, 52 remained missing and 239 were injured, according to the national police. The toll was expected to increase because several towns and villages remained out of reach due to downed communications, power outages and clogged roads, although massive clean-up and repair efforts were underway with the improved weather.
Many of those who died were hit by falling trees or walls, drowned in flash floods or were buried alive in landslides. A 57-year-old man was found dead hanging from a tree branch in Negros Occidental province and a woman was blown away by the wind and died in the same hard-hit region, police said.
Governor Arlene Bag-ao of Dinagat Islands, which was among the southeastern provinces first hit by the typhoon, said Rai’s ferocity in her island province of more than 130,000 was worse than that of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful and deadliest typhoons on record and which devastated the central Philippines in November 2013 but did not inflict any casualties in Dinagat.
“If it was like being in a washing machine before, this time there was like a huge monster that smashed itself everywhere, grabbed anything like trees and tin roofs and then hurled them everywhere,” Bag-ao told The Associated Press by telephone. “The wind was swirling north to south to east and west repeatedly for six hours. Some tin roof sheets were blown away then were tossed back.”
At least 14 villagers died and more than 100 others were injured by flying tin roofs, debris and glass shards and were treated in makeshift surgery rooms in damaged hospitals in Dinagat, Bag-ao said. Many more would have died if thousands of residents had not been evacuated from high-risk villages before the typhoon arrived, she said.
Like several other typhoon-hit provinces, Dinagat remained without electricity and communications and many residents in the province, where the roofs of most houses and buildings were ripped off, needed construction materials, food and water. Bag-ao and other provincial officials traveled to nearby regions that had cellphone signals to seek aid and coordinate recovery efforts with the national government.
More than 700,000 people were lashed by the typhoon in central island provinces, including more than 400,000 who had to be moved to emergency shelters. Police, soldiers and the coast guard rescued thousands of residents including in the riverside town of Loboc in hard-hit Bohol province, where residents were trapped on roofs and trees to escape from rising floodwaters.
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(S.D. NEW SERVICES)
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The most recent death was recorded in Lyon County, which had not previously reported any casualties.
As of Friday, only one person remained missing, in Hopkins county, Beshear said. He called that 'incredible news' during a briefing ahead of a blood drive in the rotunda of the state Capitol building.
More than 1,300 state workers and National Guard members have been mobilized to areas hit by the storms, which cut a 200-mile path through Kentucky alone. The National Weather Service recorded at least 41 tornadoes, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky.
(S.D. NEW SERVICES)
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Richard Shimanek, 84, a farmer and rancher who lived near Leoti, died Thursday night at a hospital in Denver, Leoti Mayor and Fire Chief Charlie Hughes said. He was outside his home trying to fight the fire Wednesday when he fell and couldn't get up, Hughes said.
The Ellis County sheriff's office said Friday that the remains of Derrick Kelley, 36, were found near his burned vehicle in a rural area of the country. The coroner identified the remains, the sheriff's office said.
Both men were killed in wildfires that erupted Wednesday in western and central Kansas, fueled by dry conditions and winds up to 90 mph. The Kansas Forest Service said 625 square miles burned in 11 counties in western Kansas, with smaller fires in other counties.
Several smaller fires across the state were contained by Friday and crews were monitoring them to prevent resignations, said Shawna Hartman, spokeswoman for the Kansas Forest Service.
But several larger fires were still burning, some in areas that were inaccessible to ground crews, she said. Officials were using helicopters to dump water on those fires, in an attempt to knock back the flames and heat and allow ground crews in.
It will take several days to determine how many acres burned and to completely contain the blazes and make the areas safe, she said.
(S.D. NEW SERVICES)
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Less than a week after a string of deadly tornadoes devastated six states, Wednesday night brought weather that was extremely unusual for the Midwest at this time of year: 70-degree temperatures, wildfires, tornadoes and winds that surpassed 75 mph.
“In the middle of December, it’s obviously extraordinary, unprecedented,” said Mike Fowle, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, noting that the city of Des Moines, Iowa, broke a record by reaching 74 degrees.
Before Wednesday, Fowle said, there had been only five confirmed tornadoes in December in Iowa, dating to 1950. On Wednesday alone, there were at least five tornadoes across the state.
Storm teams from the weather service were crisscrossing the Midwest on Thursday surveying the damage, and the extent was still coming into full view.
The storm system, which was moving into Canada on Thursday, came five days after tornadoes whipped through Kentucky and five other states, killing at least 88 people.
Residents of communities across Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa were still struggling with widespread power outages Thursday. Most were in Michigan, with more than 200,000 customers without power by evening, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates data from utilities across the country. An additional 80,000 were still experiencing outages in Wisconsin.
Of the five deaths, four occurred on the roads. In Kansas, Trooper Mike Racy of the Highway Patrol said three people had been killed in two separate car crashes Wednesday, after dust storms had turned driving conditions dangerous.
In Iowa, one man was killed after a gust of wind overturned his tractor-trailer on a highway.
Another man, a 65-year-old Minnesota resident, died when he stepped outside for a cigarette during a storm and was found a short time later with a head injury, pinned under a fallen 40-foot tree.
The storm system also spawned wildfires in Kansas with winds of up to 100 mph, local authorities said.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Kentucky authorities said the sheer level of destruction was hindering their ability to tally the damage from Friday night’s storms. At least 88 people — including 74 in Kentucky — were killed by the tornado outbreak that also destroyed a nursing home in Arkansas, heavily damaged an Amazon distribution center in Illinois and spread its deadly effects into Tennessee and Missouri.
In Kentucky, as searches continued for those still missing, efforts also turned to repairing the power grid, sheltering those whose homes were destroyed and delivering drinking water and other supplies.
“We’re not going to let any of our families go homeless,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in announcing that lodges in state parks were being used to provide shelter.
In Mayfield, one of the hardest-hit towns, those who survived faced a high in the 50s and a low below freezing Monday without any utilities.
“Our infrastructure is so damaged. We have no running water. Our water tower was lost. Our wastewater management was lost, and there’s no natural gas to the city. So we have nothing to rely on there,” Mayfield Mayor Kathy Stewart O’Nan said on CBS. “So that is purely survival at this point for so many of our people.”
Across the state, about 26,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, including nearly all of those in Mayfield. More than 10,000 homes and businesses have no water, and an additional 17,000 are under boil-water advisories, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett told reporters.
Kentucky was the worst hit by far in the cluster of twisters across several states, remarkable because they came at a time of year when cold weather normally limits tornadoes. At least 74 people died in the state, Beshear said Monday, offering the first specific count of the dead.
In Bowling Green, Ky., 11 people died on the same street, including two infants found among the bodies of five relatives near a residence, Warren County coroner Kevin Kirby said.
Beshear warned that it could take days longer to pin down the full death toll, with door-to-door searches impossible in some places.
“With this amount of damage and rubble, it may be a week or even more before we have a final count on the number of lost lives,” the governor said.
Initially as many as 70 people were feared dead in the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, but the company said Sunday that eight deaths were confirmed and eight people remained missing, while more than 90 others had been located. Bob Ferguson, a spokesman for the company, said many employees gathered in a tornado shelter, then left the site and were hard to reach because phone service was out.
On Monday evening, Louisville Emergency Management Director E.J. Meiman said at a news conference that the company indicated everyone in the building during the storm had been accounted for.
Debris from destroyed buildings and shredded trees covered the ground in Mayfield, a city of about 10,000 in western Kentucky. Twisted sheet metal, downed power lines and wrecked vehicles lined the streets. Windows were blown out and roofs torn off the buildings that were still standing.
Five twisters hit Kentucky in all, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 200 miles, authorities said.
In addition to the deaths in Kentucky, the tornadoes also killed at least six people in Illinois, where the Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville was hit; four in Tennessee; two in Arkansas, where the nursing home was destroyed and the governor said workers shielded residents with their own bodies; and two in Missouri.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Monday that it has opened an investigation into the collapse of the Amazon warehouse in Illinois.
( ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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History is replete with examples of devastating December tornadoes. But the tornado rampage from Arkansas to Illinois on Friday night and early Saturday morning rose to another level, unlike anything seen in modern records.
In particular, the violence and longevity of the tornadic storm that crossed four states, from northeast Arkansas to western Kentucky, was unusual for December or any time of year, if not unprecedented.
On average, about two dozen tornadoes form in the Lower 48 states each December.
In 2014, Weather.com listed the five deadliest December tornadoes, summarizing devastating events such as the Dec. 5, 1953, Vicksburg, Miss., tornado, which killed 38 people, and a 1947 storm on New Year’s Eve in northwest Louisiana that left 18 dead. The year after Weather.com published that article, a swarm of tornadoes swept from Texas to Michigan between Dec. 23 and 26. Thirteen people died in Mississippi and Tennessee during tornadoes on Dec. 23, and 13 died in Texas on Dec. 26.
Just two years ago, 40 tornadoes tore across the South on Dec. 16 and 17, killing three people.
But none of those events were as deadly or destructive as what transpired Friday and Saturday. More than 100 people are feared to have been killed, making it the deadliest December tornado outbreak on record.
Beyond the human toll, the outbreak was exceptional for several meteorological reasons.
First, there is little precedent for the path length of the quad-state tornadic storm, which carved a 250-mile course through northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky. The storm exhibited evidence of rotation even longer, for about 11 hours and 600 miles, according to Jack Sillin, a meteorology student at Cornell University.
While it is still not clear whether the storm spawned just a single tornado or several twisters, a rotating storm of that duration is very unusual any time of year.
The tornadic storm was extreme not only for its duration but also for its intensity. Evan Bentley, a tornado specialist at the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, tweeted that radar data would indicate it unleashed winds of 190 to 205 mph, suggesting it would rate as an EF4 or top-tier EF5 on the 0-to-5 Enhanced Fujita scale for tornado intensity. Meteorologists are surveying the storm damage to assign an exact rating; the process could take a few days.
If the storm rates as an EF5, it would join only two other December tornadoes this strong.
Bentley also tweeted that the tornadic storm was rotating at an average speed of 94 mph for four hours, while noting that published research shows “only 1.5 percent of all tornadoes” spin at such speeds.
Radar data also revealed that the storm lofted debris for more than three hours, which is practically unheard of. Sometimes, radar detected debris above 30,000 feet, an incredibly rare occurrence.
The storm activity also moved into areas unusually far north. While tornadoes are not uncommon in Arkansas and adjacent states to the south during December, tornadoes in Kentucky at this time of year are somewhat unusual.
Noah Bergren, a meteorologist in Paducah, tweeted that from 1995 to 2020 the state saw a total of just 15 December tornadoes. “[I]n the past week we have already had 6, possibly even more to be confirmed,” he wrote. “December averages our 2nd quietest month for tornadoes annually.”
The Weather Service issued 146 tornado warnings during the event, the most on record during December.
Only a highly anomalous storm environment could support such an extreme situation. Often, in December, the amount of fuel available to storms is limited, which is why violent tornado outbreaks aren’t more common.
But on Friday, temperatures over the zone where the storm erupted were record-setting. The high temperatures, 20 to 30 degrees above normal, fast-forwarded the atmosphere to conditions more typical of April.
The other key ingredient for tornadoes, wind shear, or a turning of winds with altitude, was also present in high quantities on Friday, as it often is in winter. The shear is generated as the jet stream, which separates cold air from warm air, dives into the Lower 48 states.
As the highly energetic winter jet stream dived into the central states and collided with this springlike environment, the atmosphere exploded.
Many other atmospheric intricacies also contributed to the severity of the event, but it would not have been possible without the record-setting warmth.
( Jason Samenow, WASHINGTON POST)
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He stood in a gravel lot next to the giant ruin of metal and wood, which just days ago was the candle factory where his sister, Janine Johnson-Williams, had clocked in for her shift.
The factory where he works, 45 miles up the road, shut down when the storms were approaching, Johnson said. He could not find anyone in Mayfield to tell him anything.
Late Sunday evening, Johnson finally got word. His sister was dead.
Sunday was a day of wrenching discoveries across the middle of the country, where an outbreak of tornadoes Friday night, including one that traveled more than 220 catastrophic miles, left a deep scar of devastation.
But as work crews dug through ruins and small-town coroners counted the dead Sunday, there was at least a glimmer of hope that the death toll may not end up being as enormous as initially feared.
On Sunday evening, Troy Propes, CEO of Mayfield Consumer Products, which runs the candle factory that was demolished by the tornado and which many dread may account for the largest number of deaths in the storm, said in an interview that only eight people had been confirmed dead at the factory and another six remained missing.
Bob Ferguson, a company spokesperson, said that of the roughly 110 workers who were on the late shift at the factory Friday night, more than 90 employees had been accounted for.
Still, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters Sunday that the state had not confirmed those figures and said that search operations were still under way at the site.
“There have been, I think, multiple bodies,” Beshear said. “The wreckage is extensive.”
The death toll from the tornado swarm includes people who had been killed in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee, but the greatest loss of life was unquestionably in Kentucky, where Beshear said that at least four counties had tolls in the double digits. A dozen people were killed in Warren County, several of them children; in Muhlenberg County, there were 11 victims, all in the tiny town of Bremen. One was 4 months old.
“We’re still finding bodies,” Beshear said. “I mean, we’ve got cadaver dogs in towns that they shouldn’t have to be in.”
In Edwardsville, Ill., officials released the names of six people who were killed while working at an Amazon delivery depot that was hit by a tornado. “At this time, there are no additional reports of people missing,” the Edwardsville Police Department said in a statement Sunday.
More than 50,000 customers were still without power in Kentucky on Sunday afternoon, and more than 150,000 were without power in Michigan, which was also affected by the sprawling storm.
Beshear said there were “thousands of people without homes” in Kentucky, although the sheer amount of devastation made precise figures, at this point, impossible to come by.
“I don’t think we’ll have seen damage at this scale, ever,” he said.
But even as the accounting of the storm was slowly being made, much was still dreadfully unknown.
In the town of Dawson Springs, where Beshear’s father was born and where his grandfather owned a funeral home, the list of the missing was eight pages long, single-spaced, the governor said in an interview on CNN.
On Sunday, slabs lay bare on the ground where houses once stood along the streets of Dawson Springs. Mattresses hung in trees and were strewn about the housing lots. Teams hunting for victims and survivors left spray-painted symbols on walls that remained standing.
Families bearing bruises and scrapes from Friday night walked among the wreckage, looking through the rubble for medicine, insurance information and food stamps.
Lacy Duke and her family were searching for two missing cats. Between calling out names, they described 22 seconds of deafening horror Friday night as they huddled in a storm cellar, and an aftermath that was almost apocalyptic. Their house had folded like an accordion. A mobile home had disappeared. A teenage boy had injured his arm so badly that it had to be amputated. The boy’s grandmother had been stuck under a car.
“This year’s been rough,” Duke said. She had been in a car accident, her son had been sick with COVID-19 and, at the auto parts supplier where she had worked, everyone in her department had been laid off. “And then this happened.”
The storm system’s devastation exposed all along its path a late-night world of warehouses and factories on the outskirts of towns and cities, where people worked handling the seasonal traffic of packages or making scented candles for $8 to $12 an hour.
A current of anger ran through the communities that were hit badly in the storm, as people demanded to know why so many were still on the job after alarms had sounded about the approaching danger.
At a Sunday morning church service in Granite City, Ill., when the pastor asked for prayers for the loved ones of the six who died in the Amazon warehouse, Paul Reagan, a retired steelworker, raised his hand.
“There is no reason for us to lose family members,” Reagan said, “because corporate America wants a dollar.”
In Kentucky, frustration was growing about what transpired at the candle factory, which, in the initial estimates of the toll, accounted for a majority of the estimated deaths statewide.
Although officials said that many if not most workers at the factory had been sheltering in a designated place in the building when the tornado hit, some people asked why the factory stayed open well after warnings were raised about the severity of the storms.
The Mayfield Consumer Products factory was one of the largest employers in the county, although employment waxed and waned with layoffs in some years and labor shortages in others.
The factory was recently advertising 10- and 12-hour shifts, starting at $8 an hour, with mandatory overtime “required frequently.”
Several inmates from the Graves County jail were working there Friday night as part of an inmate-to-work program. All survived the storm, according to the jail; a deputy from the jail did not.
Asked why the factory had not shut down Friday night, Propes said the company had made the best decisions under the circumstances, insisting that having employees hunker down inside the factory was safer than sending them home on the roads.
“Looking through the lens of hindsight, I think, is not the right lens,” he said. “The lens to look through is to say with the same facts, would you make the same decisions? And I think that answer is yes because our team did exactly what they were supposed to do.”
Isaiah Holt, 32, was on his shift in the wax and fragrance department when he heard the tornado sirens. On Sunday, he was in a hospital bed in Nashville, Tenn., aching from a bruised lung and broken ribs and worrying about his brother, who also worked at the factory and who was showered with bricks when the building collapsed. Holt had liked his job, he said.
But he questioned whether he the factory should have stayed open after tornado warnings were issued. “They should have just canceled,” he said.
( NEW YORK TIMES)
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The tornadoes tore through at least six states Friday night — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee — said Bill Bunting, operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service. They crumbled metal like paper, swatted down concrete buildings and threw a freight train off its track.
The tornado outbreak killed people who were working the Friday night shifts at a candle factory in Kentucky, where scores are believed to have died, and at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, where at least six people were killed and where recovery operations were continuing. Officials said Saturday that they did not know how many workers at the warehouse were unaccounted for but that they expected recovery efforts to continue for three more days.
Hundreds of thousands of people were without power Saturday, according to reports compiled by PowerOutage.us. Many of them were customers in states at the heart of the outbreak, but close to a half-million customers in other states, including Michigan and Ohio, also lost power in the sprawling weather system.
In a speech Saturday afternoon in Delaware, where he was spending the weekend, President Joe Biden said his administration would do “everything it can possibly do to help” the states that had sustained serious damage in the tornado outbreak.
“This is likely to be one of the largest tornado outbreaks in our history,” he said, adding that he had approved the emergency declaration that was requested by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Biden said he planned to travel to the affected area, once he had been assured that his visit was “not going to get in the way of the rescue and recovery.”
In remarks to the news media after touring some of the hardest-hit places, Beshear paused at times, unable to describe the sheer scale of damage. “The level of devastation is unlike anything I have ever seen,” he said. He called it the most devastating tornado event in Kentucky’s history.
Several tornadoes touched down in Kentucky, one of them traveling for more than 200 ruinous miles. At least 70 people had been killed in the state, a toll that was likely to rise.
Although the destruction was spread throughout western Kentucky, much of the estimated death toll came from a single building, the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, just southwest of the small city of Mayfield. Officials described an almost unfathomable level of destruction there, a knot of concrete and metal strewn with cars and 55-gallon drums leaking corrosive fluids into the wreckage.
“We had to at times crawl over casualties to get to live victims to get them out and mark those casualties as we worked our way through the rubble,” said Jeremy Creason, chief of the Mayfield Fire Department and director of the city’s emergency medical services.
Beshear said the death toll at the candle factory “may end up being the largest loss of life of any tornado event in a single location” in Kentucky history. There were 110 people in the factory when the storm hit. Forty were rescued.
Mayfield, a town of around 10,000 people in a western corner of the state known as the Jackson Purchase, was the site of some of the worst destruction of the outbreak. On Saturday, the city’s grid of narrow streets was a perilous maze of downed power lines and rubble, with the insides of buildings spilling out over the sidewalks. The main fire station was hit, as was the police station, many of the police cars destroyed along with it.
The First United Methodist Church, which had a cavernous sanctuary with a stone facade, had almost entirely collapsed. Along the two-lane highways snaking into town, the tornado had left displays of its wrath, with homes missing brick exteriors, churches without roofs and seemingly sturdy trees that had been snapped like twigs.
But the destruction ranged well beyond Mayfield, tearing up much of Dawson Springs, a little town where the governor’s family is from, and ripping through the college town of Bowling Green. The governor said he believed one victim of the storm was as young as 3 years old.
In Arkansas, one person died at a Dollar General store in Leachville, and a 94-year-old man was killed when the tornado slammed into the Monette Manor nursing home in the city of Monette.
At least three people were confirmed dead in Tennessee on Saturday morning. In Missouri, at least one person died and two others were injured when a tornado slammed down in the community of Defiance.
Researchers say that in recent years, tornadoes seem to be occurring in greater “clusters” and that a so-called tornado alley in the Great Plains — where most tornadoes occur — appears to be shifting eastward.
“This is what we would call a tornado outbreak, where you have a storm system which produces a number of tornadoes over a large geographical area,” Dan Pydynowski, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said Friday.
But although a large and powerful system such as the one that tore through Friday night would be expected in May or April, it is unusual 11 days before the start of winter. Arkansas and Kansas had “spring weather” on Friday, Pydynowski said, with highs in the 70s and 80s.
Officials in Edwardsville, Ill., a small city across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, said at least six people had been killed at an Amazon delivery hub warehouse when a direct hit from a tornado around 8:30 p.m. Friday caused two of the building’s 40-foot-tall concrete walls to collapse.
Maurice Scott, an Amazon delivery service partner manager, was in St. Louis speaking with a dispatcher in Edwardsville when he saw the potentially dangerous weather on the radar. The dispatcher told him that most employees were in a tornado shelter, while a few were still in the bathroom.
“About a minute and half into the conversation with him, I heard a real loud vffffff, a real loud noise, and that’s when he said the garage door got snatched off, got peeled off, and it was kind of chaotic from there,” Scott said.
In a news conference Saturday evening, officials said that a mission focused on search and rescue over the course of the day had transitioned to one focused on recovery.
“We don’t expect that anyone could be surviving,” said James Whiteford, chief of the Edwardsville Fire Department. The chief said that the tornado had come at the time of a shift change and that it was unclear how many people would have been in the building.
“The warehouse doesn’t have a specific count of how many employees were in the building at the time that the storm hit,” he said, “so we’re unable to determine how many may be missing.”
Ingrid Barahona, 37, had been working as a delivery driver at the warehouse for two months; like many of her co-workers, she is a single mother, and she depends on the job to support her daughter. On Friday night, she called her dispatcher asking if someone else could finish her route because she was experiencing knee pain. He told her to take her time and try to finish. The delay in her returning to the building may have saved her life.
Barahona was back in the parking lot Saturday morning, watching tow trucks take wrecked cars from the disaster site. She did not know whether she had a job to go to anymore or whether her co-workers were still alive.
(Rick Rojas, Jamie McGee, Laura Faith Kebede&Campbell Robertson, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Craighead County Judge Marvin Day told KAIT-TV that at least five others were injured and 20 people were trapped after the tornado struck the Monette Manor area in northeast Arkansas. A call by The Associated Press to the county office wasn’t immediately returned.
“We know there are other people there; we just don’t know the extent of their injuries,” Day said, adding that other residential buildings in the area had also been damaged. “It’s just really heartbreaking,” he said.
The TV station reported that emergency crews from Trumann and police and firefighters from Jonesboro were headed to the area to assist. The nursing home has about 90 beds.
Footage from St. Louis TV stations showed dozens of emergency vehicles at the Amazon center near Edwardsville, Ill., about 25 miles west of St. Louis. It wasn’t immediately clear if or how many people were hurt, but the Collinsville, Ill., Emergency Management Agency on Facebook called it a “mass casualty incident.” One official told KTVI-TV that up to 100 people were believed to be in the building, working the night shift, at the time of the collapse.
The collapse came as a strong thunderstorm, and possibly a tornado, ripped through the St. Louis area. Winds of up to 70 mph were reported in parts of St. Charles and St. Louis counties in Missouri. At least three St. Charles County residents were hospitalized and several homes in the area near Augusta, Mo., were damaged.
The storms in Illinois and Arkansas were among several places in the Midwest that reported tornadoes spotted or on the ground.
Weather forecasters warned Friday that a powerful cold front colliding with record warmth over the central and eastern part of the Lower 48 states was expected to ignite dangerous thunderstorms in the Midwest and Tennessee Valley overnight. The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center forecast “a few strong tornadoes, damaging gusts, and large hail.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Mount Semeru erupted on Saturday, killing at least 39 people with searing ash and gas that blanketed several villages around it. Twelve others remain missing.
The conditions were not suitable for heavy equipment, officials said. There had been no survivors found under the debris since Saturday.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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David Scott Smith, 66, and his son, Travis Shane Smith, 32, are accused of reckless arson in a warrant issued before formal charges are filed, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s office said.
Mark Reichel, the attorney for both men, said they were arrested Wednesday afternoon and that reckless arson means starting a blaze by accident but “to such a degree that it was considered reckless.”
Reichel said he did not know details of the accusation, such as how authorities allege the fire was set.
Authorities allege they caused homes to burn and people to be seriously injured in the fire that began in August. The Caldor fire scorched more than 346 square miles from east of Sacramento to the Nevada border, threatening ski resorts and other prominent recreational areas.
The fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes and other buildings while crossing a mostly remote forested area of seasonal cabins. The fire destroyed much of the small community of Grizzly Flats and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate South Lake Tahoe. Five people were injured.
The pair have a scheduled court appearance on Friday, Reichel said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service said the storm brings the threat of “catastrophic flooding” in the coming days as a low pressure system slowly moves from east to west and lingered on the edge of the archipelago.
“Now is the time to make sure you have an emergency plan in place and supplies ready should you need to move away from rising water,” said Gov. David Ige, who issued a state of emergency for all of the state’s islands Monday night.
On Oahu, where four shelters had been opened, most of the beaches in Waikiki were empty Monday as only a few people walked with umbrellas during passing heavy showers.
Roadways were flooding in the area and cars crept through downtown as water gushed out of manhole covers.
On Maui, power outages and flooding already have been reported, with more than a foot of rain falling in some areas.
The relentless rain forced three couples from the U.S. mainland to postpone their Maui elopements, said Nicole Bonanno, owner of Bella Bloom Floral, a wedding florist and boutique in Wailea.
The weather also led to delayed flower deliveries, a lei company with no power and employees braving flooded roads littered with debris, Bonanno said.
“The roads, everything are a mess,” she said. “There are lots of trees down.”
Maui resident Jimmy Gomes was waiting for the lights to come back at his home on Monday after losing power at 6 p.m. Sunday. His rain gauge measured 7 inches: “I haven’t seen this kind of rain in a long time,” he said.
“Last night the wind was howling,” he said. “But this morning, it came in really foggy and it rained, then it stopped.”
Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth declared a state of emergency Sunday for potentially heavy rainfall and strong winds.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Mount Semeru’s eruption in Lumajang district in East Java province left several villages blanketed with falling ash.
A thunderstorm and days of rain, which had eroded and finally collapsed the lava dome atop the 12,060-foot Semeru, triggered an eruption, said Eko Budi Lelono, who heads the geological survey center.
He said flows of searing gas and lava traveled up to 2,624 feet to a nearby river at least twice on Saturday. People were advised to stay more than 3 miles from the crater’s mouth, the agency said.
“Thick columns of ash have turned several villages to darkness,” said Lumajang district head Thoriqul Haq. Several hundred people were moved to temporary shelters or left for other safe areas, he said, adding that power blackouts hampered the evacuation.
The debris and lava mixed with the rainfall formed thick mud that destroyed the main bridge connecting Lumajang and the neighboring district of Malang, as well as a smaller bridge, Haq said.
Despite an increase in activity since Wednesday, Semeru’s alert status has remained at the third highest of four levels since it began erupting last year, and Indonesia’s Volcanology Center for Geological Hazard Mitigation did not raise it this week, Lelono said.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said at least 13 villagers died from severe burns and 57 were hospitalized, including 16 in critical condition with burn injuries. He said rescuers were still searching for seven residents and sand miners along a river in Curah Kobokan village who were reported missing.
Television reports showed people screaming and running under a huge ash cloud, their faces wet from rain mixed with volcanic dust. The last time Semeru erupted in January, there were no casualties.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.
(Agues Baoseki, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Storm Arwen delivered wind gusts of almost 100 miles per hour to northern and western parts of the U.K. on Friday and over the weekend.
The weather disrupted transportation and caused residential power outages, especially in rural and hard-to-reach areas. Officials have said three people died in storm-related incidents.
U.K. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Parliament that while almost 1 million people, or about 95 percent of those affected, have had their power restored, some 30,000 remained without electricity as of Wednesday.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The nearest lava flow to the Los Llanos de Aridane church has slowed down since it started over the weekend but it is still only 0.6 mile away.
Molten rock from the Sept. 19 eruption on La Palma, part of Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago, has consumed more than 1,500 buildings and covered more than 2,800 acres, including banana farms, the island’s main source of revenue along with tourism.
The volcano is going strong and seismic activity in the area has increased in recent days. Spain’s National Geographic Institute registered 341 earthquakes in 24 hours Tuesday and Wednesday. Thousands of residents have been displaced by the eruption.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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the National Weather Service warned that flooding was possible through Monday afternoon in places like Bellingham and the greater Seattle area. Heavy rains and rising rivers were expected over the weekend in the Cascade and Olympic mountains.
the moisture is from atmospheric rivers - huge plumes of moisture extending over the Pacific and into the Northwest - and could bring up to 3 inches of rain in some areas hit by the recent flooding, forecasters said.
The state is still assessing millions of dollars in damage from the last atmospheric rivers.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Skies were sunny Wednesday morning in the area around Sumas, Wash., where about 500 rescues and evacuations were reported.
“We’re looking at going door-to-door, as waters go down in different parts of town,” Sumas Mayor Kevin Christensen told The Seattle Times. “Half is on dry ground, half has water.”
By Wednesday afternoon, only one river in Washington had an active flood warning.
The soaking fueled by a so-called atmospheric river dumped torrents rain on the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia from Saturday through Monday.
While the weather was improving, the situation remained dire in British Columbia, where the Canadian government was sending in the military to help with floods and mudslides that destroyed parts of several major highways. One death was reported and officials said Wednesday that more deaths were expected.
Immediately across the border from Sumas, police using helicopters and boats had evacuated about 180 residents of a low-lying area of Abbotsford, British Columbia, after they were warned Tuesday of a significant risk to life because of rising water levels. Evacuations continued Wednesday.
Mayor Henry Braun said Wednesday that conditions were bad overnight because a key pumping station was in danger of being overwhelmed. He said crews spent Tuesday night sandbagging around the station and things were “holding steady.”
“I’m feeling much better today than last night,” Braun said, although he cautioned the danger had not passed.
Those evacuated in Abbotsford joined thousands of others in the province who were forced from their homes by floods or landslides starting Sunday night.
On Facebook, the city of Sumas said Wednesday that water levels were continuing to drop and it looked like the community wouldn’t be affected by additional potential flooding in Abbotsford. It said crews were working hard to clear roads and return power to some parts of town.
“These families and businesses need our prayers and support as we start the process of cleanup and rebuilding over the next few days,” the city said in another Facebook post.
To the south, a flood warning for Washington’s Skagit River will remain in effect until today because it will take time for the floodwaters to drain, the National Weather Service said. Officials recommended that residents of several nearby islands evacuate in the meantime.
Across the border, the body of a woman was recovered from a landslide near the small community of Lillooet, British Columbia. Royal Canadian Mounted Police said at least two other people were reported missing.
British Columbia Premier John Horgan declared a state of emergency Wednesday following the unprecedented flooding.
In Washington’s Whatcom County, home to Sumas, the county sheriff’s office said on Facebook that authorities and search crews on Wednesday had located a body believed to be a 59-year-old man who had last been seen clinging to a tree after his truck was swept into a flooded field in the town of Everson.
Transportation officials on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula — where the Coast Guard earlier in the week rescued 10 people stranded by floodwaters — on Wednesday were also assessing conditions and clearing debris from closed roads. Officials there said people on the Makah Reservation have been prevented from leaving or entering because of landslides on nearby highways.
(Lisa Baumann & Elaine Thompson, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials in the small city of Sumas, Wash., near the Canada border, called the flood damage there devastating. Officials said on Facebook Tuesday that hundreds of people had been evacuated and estimated that 75 percent of homes had water damage.
The soaking reminded people of western Washington’s record, severe flooding in November 1990 when two people died and there were more than 2,000 evacuations, officials said.
“These families and businesses need our prayers and support as we start the process of cleanup and rebuilding over the next few days,” the Facebook post said.
Across the border, the body of a woman was recovered from a landslide northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, near Lillooet that was triggered by record rainfall. Royal Canadian Mounted Police said at least two other people were reported missing.
Fast-rising water levels from the Sumas River in Washington overwhelmed rescuers in Abbotsford, British Columbia, on Tuesday, where 1,100 homes were evacuated. Those residents joined thousands of others in the province who were forced from their homes by floods or landslides starting Sunday night.
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said Tuesday that impassable highways were creating havoc as authorities tried to get people to evacuation sites.
Southwest of Sumas, a 59-year-old man from Everson identified by police Tuesday as Jose Garcia remained missing after his truck was swept into a flooded field and he had been clinging to a tree.
Crews partially reopened the West Coast’s main north-south highway, Interstate 5, near Bellingham, Wash., following its complete closure overnight because of mudslide debris. The northbound lanes remained closed Tuesday evening as crews continued working.
Additionally, six railroad cars that had been sitting on tracks in a BNSF rail yard in Sumas derailed in the flooding Tuesday, according to Lena Kent, BNSF general director of public affairs. Trains in that location and others in western Washington won’t be running until water recedes and tracks are inspected and repaired if necessary, she said.
Canada’s two largest railways expect it will take several days to clear track outages in southern British Columbia that are hindering the movement of goods to the port in Vancouver.
At the height of the storm, more than 158,000 electrical customers in western Washington on Monday had no power as wind speeds reached 60 mph, including one gust of 58 mph at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. More than 31,000 Washington state electrical customers remained without power on Tuesday.
(Lisa Baumann, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Downed power lines caused a fire near the northern Wyoming community of Clark on Monday night that burned at least two homes and seven outbuildings, said Jerry Parker, the Park County Fire District administrator. Wind gusts topped 100 mph in the area Monday night.
Kristie Hoffert, medical chief for the Clark Fire District, said the person who died was a family member of a firefighter.
“It hits incredibly close to home for our department,” she told The Cody Enterprise on Tuesday. “We are struggling.”
In south-central Montana, a fire reported about 11:30 p.m. Monday led the Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office to order evacuations southwest of the town of Absarokee, including an area between the communities of Ingersoll and Roscoe.
Thirty-five evacuation notices were issued and deputies also went door-to-door, but it’s not clear how many people left their residences, the sheriff’s office said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The fire had burned an estimated 3,840 acres in timber and rough terrain by Tuesday afternoon.
And in north-central Colorado, a fire southeast of Estes Park forced evacuations in a forested region of Larimer County while sending plumes of smoke toward the eastern plains. The cause of the blaze, which grew to 115 acres, was unknown.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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State TV quoted Azizolah Konari, the Bandar Abbas governor, as saying a 22-year-old man died when an electric pole fell on his head as a result of the earthquake. Iran's Seismological Center said that the quakes struck Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz in mid afternoon, about 640 miles south of the Iranian capital of Tehran.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Authorities issued flood watches along Oregon's coast and warned of the possibility of dangerous mudslides in areas that burned in last summer's devastating wildfires. At the RV park about 90 miles southwest of Portland, Coast Guard teams said they had rescued 12 people and three dogs and were continuing their efforts with a rescue swimmer to reach a total of about 50 people.
Forecasters said the storms are being caused by an atmospheric river, known as the Pineapple Express. Rain was expected to remain heavy in Oregon and Washington through Friday night. Precipitation may ease some today but more rain is expected tonight through next week.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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the National Weather Service says the daytime high in San Diego will hit 84 today, 86 Friday and 80 Saturday. The seasonal average is 73.
Ramona will reach 87 today, 88 on Friday and 86 on Saturday.
the Santa Ana will begin blowing before dawn today and peak during the morning before slowly fading. the strongest winds will occur across inland valleys and foothills, where some gusts could hit 45 mph.
The relative humidity will drop to 15 percent to 20 percent in some inland areas. but forecasters say a fire weather advisory won't be needed, largely because San Diego and many other communities have received an inch or more of rain since early October, tamping down the wildfire risk.
There's no significant change in the forecast for at least the next week.
(Gary Robbins S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Increases in dangerously high temperatures and humidity were responsible for roughly a third of the global boost in exposure, while increased population accounted for the rest.
The study adds vivid context to the threats posed by a human-warmed planet, and to the challenges facing delegates at the United Nations climate summit taking place in Glasgow, Scotland.
Led by Cascade Tuholske, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, the study used new fine-grained data sets to analyze the geographic overlap between urban growth and dangerous combinations of temperature and humidity.
“Many of the fastest-warming cities are in the humid tropics,” said Tuholske in an email.
The study analyzed 13,115 urban areas over the period from 1983 to 2016. Collective heat exposure was assessed in terms of person-days, or the number of days above a particular threshold in each city multiplied by the number of people affected.
The extreme heat was assessed by using day-to-day peaks in wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT (max), a metric that takes into account humidity, sunlight and wind, in addition to temperature. The measure is considered particularly dangerous when it exceeds 86 degrees.
Using the 86-degree WBGT (max) threshold, the authors found that collective exposure to extreme heat and humidity across the cities studied soared from around 40 billion person-days in 1983 to 119 billion in 2016.
Close to half of the cities studied showed increases in exposure that were statistically significant.
Higher WBGT (max) readings were the main culprit behind the exposure increase in many areas, including much of India. In a few other parts of the world, including East Africa, exposure climbed mainly due to population.
The new study by Tuholske and colleagues joins a rapidly growing body of work on the impact of extreme heat and how climate change will exacerbate the problem. The World Weather Attribution project concluded that this past summer’s deadly, record-smashing heat wave over the U.S. Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”
There is high confidence that heat waves over land have become more intense and frequent across most of the world, according to the latest Working Group I assessment, released in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Cities are at particular risk. “Compared to present day, large implications are expected from the combination of future urban development and more frequent occurrence of extreme climate events, such as heat waves, with more hot days and warm nights adding to heat stress in cities,” said the IPCC.
By late century, billions of people could be experiencing annual average temperatures now found only in the world’s hottest cities, such as Bangkok, and heat on some days could reach virtually unsurvivable levels in a growing number of locations.
A recent study led by Cassandra Rogers at Washington State University found that some of the world’s largest increases over the past four decades in “humid heat” — extreme heat coupled with relatively high humidity — have been in South and Southeast Asia and in the southeastern United States. “These increases are concentrated over densely populated regions in the tropics and subtropics, where humid-heat levels are already high,”
said Rogers and colleagues.
Across the planet’s cities, extreme heat is increasing because of global-scale warming from greenhouse gases together with the urban heat island effect, the tendency of built-up areas to absorb and retain heat. Tuholske and colleagues did not attempt to separate out the two effects in their analysis, but they acknowledged that both are involved.
(Bob Henson, WASHINGTON POST)
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The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said rivers on the slopes of Mount Arjuno overflowed their banks and inundated five hamlets in Kota Batu, a city in East Java province. It said 15 people were swept away and four were later rescued.
Relief efforts were hampered by power outages and blocked roads covered with thick mud and debris.
the agency chief, Ganip Warsito, said heavy rains are expected to continue and increase until February, partly because of a La Niñ weather pattern.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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As world leaders gathered in Scotland this week to discuss plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a study released on Monday said that global warming was essentially two-thirds to 88 percent responsible for the atmospheric conditions fueling increasingly destructive wildfires.
And that’s a conservative estimate, said study author Rong Fu, a climate researcher at UCLA.
“It’s happened so much faster than we previously anticipated,” she added.
The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at what’s known as the vapor pressure deficit, which basically describes how thirsty the atmosphere is, Fu said.
The researchers found this to be the leading meteorological variable that controls how much land burns in the western U.S. during a given fire season. The higher the deficit, the more moisture the atmosphere saps from soil and plants, priming the landscape to burn.
Such findings are driving the conversation this week as world leaders meet in Scotland to discuss how to fight global warming.
Previous studies have found the atmosphere in the western U.S. has grown thirstier over the last 40 years. Experts have theorized that is due to natural fluctuations in the weather and because carbon dioxide emissions have caused the planet to warm, and warmer air can hold more moisture.
This team of researchers, which included scientists from UCLA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, sought to explain exactly how much of each of those factors has driven the increase. They used a machine learning approach to compare recent vapor pressure deficit values with those observed in the past during similar weather patterns.
“Prior to 2000, we can explain this fire weather pretty well just using the weather patterns,” Fu said. “But now we can only explain like 30 percent of what we see with the fire weather.”
After ruling out other influences such as changes in vegetation and cloud cover, the researchers concluded the remaining 70 percent is due to greenhouse gases warming the planet, she said, a figure that some climate modeling suggested could be as high as 88 percent.
The findings have important implications for fire management. If natural weather cycles were driving the increase in fire danger, it could be expected to lessen again at some point. But the planet is expected to continue to warm, meaning the risk will probably only increase, Fu said.
“This new research, combined with what we’ve known before, means that we can be very confident that continued global warming will continue to intensify the conditions that create these record or near-record fuel aridity conditions on the landscape,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University who was not involved with the study. “And we know from recent years what that means for our fire preparation and response system. It means a higher risk of more severe fire conditions, simultaneously, in multiple areas of the region.”
That fits with what fire officials have been seeing on the ground, said Jon Heggie, a battalion chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“We look at temperatures and burn indexes and days where we’re in high fire danger,” he said. “And they definitely have increased — there’s no denying that.”
Over the last seven years or so, vegetation has become more combustible as summers have grown longer, hotter and drier, resulting in busier, more dangerous fire seasons marked by larger, more intense and faster-moving blazes, Heggie said. It’s no longer uncommon for a fire to burn 20,000 acres in a single day, a feat that in the past would have typically taken two weeks, he said.
“What was unprecedented before is now normal,” he said. “And we’re seeing that it wasn’t a one-off for a few years. It’s happening every year.”
Fire agencies have had to pivot to new ways of fighting and preventing fires in this changed environment. They include everything from adopting new technologies such as drones and night-flying helicopters to redoubling efforts to focus on fuels management and community outreach and education.
“We are at the dawn of this new era of firefighting, and we are still looking for opportunities to address this growing issue,” Heggie said.
Wildfires have burned nearly 2.5 million acres in California this year, choking the region with dismal air quality that has at times reached across the continent. This year’s total is second only to last year, when more than 4.1 million acres burned.
Nearly a quarter of that acreage was scorched by the August Complex fire, which was sparked by a siege of dry lightning strikes Aug. 16, 2020, and went on to become the largest fire in state history. The vapor pressure deficit over a large area of the western U.S. that day was the highest value measured over the last 40 years, Fu said.
When researchers compared that with similar weather patterns in the past, they could explain only about 60 percent of the above-normal value, she said.
Conditions were similarly extreme during last year’s Creek fire, which burned in the Sierra National Forest, and researchers could explain only about 40 percent of the departure from normal, Fu said.
“So when we consider the weather pattern that happened during those days, we only can explain about half of the above-normal vapor pressure deficit value,” she said. They attribute the other half to climate change, she added.
The researchers’ estimate on the effects of climate change is conservative because they did not take into account its role in shifting the weather patterns themselves, Fu said. For instance, some studies have suggested that global warming is altering the strength and frequency of certain high pressure ridging patterns that result in critical fire weather, but these researchers assumed that all changes in weather patterns were natural, she said.
They also found that the effects of climate change have been coming on more rapidly than some predicted. The researchers initially expected that human-caused warming would not outpace natural climate variability in driving fire weather until later in the 21st century, for example after 2080, Fu said.
“But now, we’re seeing even in the first 20 years of the 21st century, the greenhouse-gas-induced fire weather has already surpassed natural variability,” she said. “This is a lot faster than we were expecting, at least in the western U.S. for fire.”
While other researchers said that did not represent much of a departure from their past projections, they agreed that the effects of climate change are accelerating faster than society is equipped to deal with.
“What is very clear is that the gap between what is happening and what we’re prepared for is much larger than the gap between what is happening and what was predicted,” Diffenbaugh said.
California has had a front-row seat to this rapid shift. Just this year, the state reported its hottest summer on record, its driest water year in nearly a century and its second-largest wildfire: the Dixie fire, which scorched more than 960,000 acres in Northern California.
(Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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With the formation of Subtropical Storm Wanda on Saturday, there have been 21 named storms so far this year, starting with Tropical Storm Ana in May.
If more storms form, the National Weather Service will move on to a list of supplemental names, only the third time in history it has had to do that. The first was in 2005.
Wanda is not expected to pose any danger to land, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday.
It was located about 900 miles west of the Azores, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, forecasters said. The storm was moving east-southeast at 16 mph. The storm was moving west and was expected to make a slow, nearly 180-degree turn to the south, then east and then northeast through Tuesday before weakening, forecasters said.
Last year’s season saw a record-breaking 30 named storms, including six major hurricanes, forcing meteorologists to use Greek letters to identify the final nine storms.
But in March, citing confusion among the general public, the World Meteorological Organization said it would no longer use the Greek alphabet to label storms and would instead rely on a supplemental list of 21 names, beginning with Adria, Braylen and Caridad, and ending with Viviana and Will.
“Zeta, Eta, Theta — if you think about even me saying those — to have those storms at the same time was tough,” Kenneth Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center, said this year. “People were mixing the storms up.”
Like the main list of storm names, the supplemental list does not include names that begin with the letters Q, U, X, Y or Z, which officials said were not common enough or easily understood across English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, the languages frequently spoken throughout North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The winds, which gusted to 94 mph on Martha’s Vineyard in the predawn hours, picked up a small aircraft at the New Bedford Regional Airport, lifting it over a fence and onto a roadway, and peeled the roof off an apartment building in Quincy, Mass., snapping the 8-inch bolts that held it down.
“Something extreme happened in order to cause this much damage,” James Marathas, executive director of the Quincy Housing Authority, said.
Scores of Massachusetts communities canceled school for the day, and subway and commuter rail service was delayed while employees removed debris and fallen trees from the tracks. At 7 p.m., more than 400,000 customers in Massachusetts, nearly 50,000 in Rhode Island and about 3,000 in Connecticut were without power.
The Weather Service in Boston warned coastal residents, “For your safety indoors, stay away from windows!” It said the Nantucket area had experienced a bomb cyclone, an explosive deepening of pressure that can lead to powerful wind gusts.
National Grid, an energy provider for New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, dispatched 2,400 field personnel to repair damaged wires, poles and transmission lines, the company said in a statement, describing “significant impact to our system” that could last days in some places.
The same storm struck the New York City area Tuesday with heavy rain, strong winds and the threat of flash floods, although the region was largely spared the type of deadly extreme weather brought by the remnants of Hurricane Ida last month.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The hazard trees could potentially fall onto people and cars on the section of state Route 180 known as Generals Highway, or they could create barriers for emergency and fire response, the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks said Friday.
The highway is closed due to the KNP Complex blaze, which was 60 percent contained after burning 138 square miles — about 88,320 acres — of forest, and will remain blocked off to visitors after the fire is out while saw crews cut down trees and trim branches. Cooler weather has helped slow the flames and the area was expected to see rain starting today.
The highway connects Giant Forest, home to the General Sherman tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume, and Grant Grove, home to the General Grant tree, the second-largest tree in the world. The trees along the highway include sequoias, pine and conifers, said fire spokeswoman Kimberly Caschalk.
The KNP Complex has been burning since Sept. 9, when lightning ignited two fires that later merged.
Forest officials said earlier this month the fires may have killed hundreds of giant sequoias, but the full extent of the damage has not been determined.
The fire’s impact on giant sequoia groves was mixed. Most saw low- to medium-intensity fire behavior that the sequoias have evolved to survive, and the most notable trees survived.
Firefighters took extraordinary measures to protect the sequoias by wrapping fire-resistant material around the bases of some giants, raking and clearing vegetation around them, installing sprinklers and dousing some with water or fire retardant gel.
On Friday, forest staff unwrapped the base of the General Sherman tree after danger from the fire had passed.
“We’re confident that tree is relatively safe,” Caschalk said.
Drought in the West tied to climate change is making wildfires harder to fight. Scientists say climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years — meaning the rain and snow that does fall is likely to evaporate or absorb into the soil — and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Recent storms have helped contain some of the nation’s largest wildfires this year, including one that threatened the popular Lake Tahoe resort region this summer and is now 100 percent contained after snow blanketed the western side of the blaze and rain dropped on the eastern side. But the storms last week and this weekend won’t end drought that’s plaguing California and the western United States.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A flood warning was posted in part of Siskiyou County bordering Oregon, where “local law enforcement reported debris flow [s] and flooding on (a) roadway from excessive runoff,” according to the National Weather Service’s office in Medford, Ore.
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The NWS said elevations above 9,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada could get 18 inches of snow or more from Sunday until Monday morning and warned of possible power outages and road closures. The service also issued a flood watch for much of Northern California from tonight to 5 p.m. Monday.
Mike Pierre, owner of Mission Ace Hardware and Lumber in Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, said they sold out of tarps this week and expect to do so again in advance of Sunday’s big storm.
But there is a feeling of relief that the area could escape wildfire this year, unlike last year when the Glass fire broke out in late September and destroyed nearly 1,600 homes and other buildings. Customers had been stocking up on generators and power cords to prepare, Pierre said.
“People were bracing for that and it never happened,” he said, “and hopefully, this rain will keep it from happening.”
But burn areas remain a concern, as land devoid of vegetation can’t soak up heavy rainfall as quickly, increasing the likelihood of mud or debris slides and flash flooding that could trap people.
Paul Lowenthal, an assistant fire marshal with the Santa Rosa Fire Department, said the city is providing free sand and bags for residents who need to control rain runoff. They’re also asking residents to clear gutters and on-site storm drains as the city prepares for up to 6 inches of rain.
“Given the volume of water we’re expecting, we want it to go where it needs to go,” he said.
Californians rejoiced when rain started falling this week for the first time in any measurable way since spring. NWS Bay Area tweeted that San Francisco International Airport set a record rainfall for Thursday, with 0.44 inch of rain tallied. The old record was 0.13 inch on the same day in 1970.
Rain and snow will continue soaking central and Northern California before spreading into Southern California on Monday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Rescuers worked through the night to retrieve bodies stuck in debris and to evacuate those in vulnerable areas, said S.A. Murugeshan, secretary of the state's disaster management.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“As the western U.S. faces a potential third year of drought, it’s critical that Californians across the state redouble our efforts to save water in every way possible,” Newsom said.
While most of California’s 58 counties have been in a state of drought emergency since July, Newsom’s proclamation added the last eight remaining counties — including San Diego — and further bolstered his call for everyone to voluntary reduce water use by 15 percent.
The proclamation notes that the State Water Resources Control Board may adopt emergency regulations to prohibit wasting water, such as hosing down sidewalks or driveways, allowing drinking water to flood gutters or streets, or washing a car without a shut-off nozzle.
The declaration comes as state water officials announced Tuesday that Californians had cut their water usage by 5 percent in August, a modest improvement over July, when the state cut usage by 1.8 percent.
The proclamation orders local water suppliers to implement their water shortage contingency plans at “a level appropriate to local conditions that takes into account the possibility of a third consecutive dry year.”
The eight counties added to the emergency declaration include Los Angeles and Orange counties, as well as the rest of Southern California, and San Francisco.
The monthly water conservation figures, which were released during a meeting of the State Water Resources Control Board, showed parts of the state already meeting or approaching Newsom’s call for Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 15 percent.
Water use decreased 18.3 percent in August in the North Coast region, and was down 9.9 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In the South Coast region of Southern California, which is home to more than half the state’s population, people used 3.1 percent less water in August than they did in the same month in 2020. While still far from Newsom’s target, that was significantly better than in July, when the region’s water use was down a minuscule 0.1 percent.
“It is encouraging and heartening to see an over-doubling of the conservation effort from July to August, really demonstrating that it does take time for the message to spread, and for really the response to be seen,” said Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the state water board. “We’re seeing good signs, but we need to continue to ensure we’re conserving.”
A series of storms are forecast to bring rain and high-elevation snow to northern and central parts of California in late October. But those storms alone won’t be nearly enough to pull the state out of drought.
The state Department of Water Resources has said because the past year has been so extremely hot and dry, an estimated 140 percent of average statewide precipitation would be needed in the coming year to achieve average statewide runoff. The agency said in a report that this reflects the “moisture deficit” across the state.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California responded to the governor’s statewide drought declaration calling for all communities to help conserve limited water resources.
Adel Hagekhalil, MWD’s general manager, said people in Southern California have done a great job using water more efficiently in recent years.
“Metropolitan has worked alongside them to adjust our operations and increase our calls for conservation to ensure the region has water to get through this drought,” Hagekhalil said in a statement. “But given the increasing severity of conditions, we all need to step up and immediately cut back our water use even more.”
He said the MWD board of directors will consider next month whether to urge member water agencies across Southern California “to implement mandatory conservation in their communities, as outlined in their water shortage contingency plans.”
Hagekhalil said that these community-specific plans will help promote conservation, and that Metropolitan plans to expand its programs offering rebates that encourage customers to make water-saving changes.
The past year ranks among the most severe droughts in more than a century of records in California.
Based on statewide precipitation totals, the water year that ended Sept. 30 was the second driest on record, surpassed only by 1924. State officials say the past two water years have been the driest on record for a two-year period, surpassing the drought of 1976-77.
Scientific research has shown that the heating of the planet with the burning of fossil fuels is making droughts more intense in the West and reducing the flows of rivers beyond the decreases they would have seen without global warming.
Major reservoirs in Northern California, from Shasta Lake to Folsom Lake, have dropped to extremely low levels. The federal government has declared a shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, which is forcing substantial cuts in water supplies for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.
Because California faces the potential for another dry winter, Esquivel said, it will be especially important for people to do more to conserve.
For part of the last drought between 2012 and 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown ordered a mandatory 25 percent reduction in urban water use. Many Californians responded and took steps such as replacing lawns with drought-tolerant plants. Those changes in water habits have had a lasting effect in reducing water use.
Esquivel said he and others at the water board will be watching the conservation figures going into the winter months, a time when less water is used due to lower temperatures and less outdoor watering.
“Certainly 5 percent isn’t 15. And we’re really needing to see a double-down on conservation,” Esquivel said. He said state water regulators will continue to “work with communities to see that conservation way of life ethic really embraced.”
Water suppliers in different parts of the state have been taking different approaches to encouraging conservation based on their local circumstances. San Jose Water Company, for instance, is taking steps to implement a mandatory water conservation plan and is seeking approval from state regulators to begin charging customers drought surcharges if they don’t meet the 15 percent conservation requirement. The water company serves about 1 million people in much of San Jose and other surrounding communities.
(Ian James, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The Western Regional Climate Center added average precipitation reported at each of its stations and calculated that a total of 11.87 inches of rain and snow fell in California in the 2021 water year. That’s half of what experts deem average during a water year in California: about 23.58 inches.
The climate center tallies rainfall by averaging all of the measured precipitation in the state at the end of a water year, which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
Based on the diminished levels of both precipitation and runoff, the last water year was the second driest on record, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
The last time the state reported so little rain and snowfall was in 1924.
Climatologists have compared the drought conditions that spanned 2020 and 2021 to the 1976-77 drought, which included California’s lowest level of statewide runoff in a single water year.
The average rainfall in 1976-77 was 28.7 inches; in 2020-21, it was 28.2 inches.
A federal report placed the economic losses from the 1976-77 drought at more than $1 billion, and some feared that drought could cripple the state’s water system.
The current multiyear drought has revived the same fears, as reservoirs are depleted and emergency drought proclamations have been issued in 50 of California’s 58 counties. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 15 percent, and state officials say they may impose mandatory water restrictions if dryness continues this winter.
“The history of California has been written in long droughts,” said Bill Patzert, a retired climatologist who worked for decades at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory studying the effects of climate change. “There’s a lot of water, but it comes down to how it’s used.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor, a map updated weekly showing drought-related conditions in the United States, indicates that more than 87 percent of California is experiencing extreme or exceptional drought, with nearly half the state in the worst category.
Less rain has meant less water, especially in areas such as the Colorado River, an important source of imported water for Southern California.
Amid worsening drought in the West that threatens the region’s water and food supply, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Lake Mead on Monday to pitch the Biden administration’s infrastructure and Build Back Better plans, saying they would create jobs and respond to climate change.
“The bipartisan infrastructure deal — combined with the Build Back Better agenda is about what we need to do to invest in things like water recycling and reuse, what we can do in terms of water desalination, what we can do in terms of implementation of drought contingency plans,” said Harris, who stood at a podium with Lake Mead as her backdrop.
The Nevada reservoir, which provides water to 25 million people in California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, has seen its levels decline every year since 2000 and now is at its lowest level since its creation more than 86 years ago.
The reservoir has dropped 140 feet in the last 20 years. And prospects for recovery are grim, experts say. Even if a great water year was on the way, “you’re not even going to come close to refilling Lake Mead,” said Daniel McEvoy, a climatologist with the Western Regional Climate Center.
All but two of California’s major reservoirs are below their average storage level. Lake Oroville, the second-largest reservoir in the state, is at a record low. And Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir, is critically low — although not as low as it was in 1977, McEvoy said.
But unlike in 1977, the drought effects have been worsened by accelerated climate change.
Increasingly warmer temperatures have evaporated precipitation and melted snowpack much faster than in previous years, according to a recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The warm temperatures that have helped make this drought so intense and widespread will continue (and increase) until stringent climate mitigation is pursued and regional warming trends are reversed,” the study says.
President Joe Biden has vowed aggressive action to curb global warming, and set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half compared with 2005 levels by 2030. But his signature efforts to do so remain in limbo while Congress considers both his bipartisan infrastructure plan and separate spending package to expand social services and combat climate change.
The second package will need the approval of all 50 Democratic senators and nearly all Democrats in the House, given their narrow margins in the chamber. But the legislation has been hobbled by disagreements within the party about its size and scope.
California recorded its hottest summer this year, and the extreme heat has parched the landscape.
And as the newest water year begins, the state could be in for more of the same. La Niña conditions that typically bring dry winters to California and the Southwest have emerged in the Pacific Ocean, NOAA reported last week.
“We’ve already had this dry year, we’re in a drought situation, and then trends are that it potentially could be below the low rainfall season again this winter,” said Jayme Laber, senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard. “All those things add up to not looking good.”
NOAA climatologists forecast the present drought to last into 2022 and potentially longer. And though California eventually will get wetter, experts say an extreme weather change is needed to get the state back to normal.
Jeanine Jones, the interstate resources manager for the Department of Water Resources, said the state would need about 140 percent of its average precipitation to reset the water table.
Precipitation varies across California, and the dry Southern California climate is much different from the wet and snowy Sierra Nevada. In an average year, three-quarters of the state’s precipitation falls in Northern and Central California, mostly in the Sierra, NASA experts say.
But Southern California has the highest annual variability of precipitation in the U.S., meaning that any year could swing wildly from wet to dry conditions.
“As scientists think about the long-term effects of climate change, one of the expectations is that this variability will be enhanced,” Jones said. Or, as she likes to put it, “the extremes become more extreme.”
(Laura Anaya-Morga & Melanie Mason, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The American Meteoroid Society received 87 reports about the streak of light from San Diego to Ventura to the Las Vegas area about 8:45 p.m. The nonprofit group said there was one reported sighting in Arizona.
“(It) was just a flying ball then it grew a bright long tail for a few second, then the tail disappeared and a few seconds later it was gone,” a witness in University City reported to the nonprofit.
Another observer, in University Heights, said, “This was the brightest shooting star-like object I’ve ever witnessed.”
The American Meteoroid Society received about 20 reports from San Diego County.
Many of the observations were documented along the coast, although some were reported in inland areas, including El Cajon, Rancho Bernardo, Valley Center and San Marcos. Many described the color of the bright light as blue, green and yellow.
Fireballs in Earth’s atmosphere are common, although many travel across uninhabited areas or are masked by daylight, according to the American Meteoroid Society.
(David Hernandez, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The Alisal fire has charred more than 16,640 acres of chaparral and grass in the Santa Ynez Mountains west of Santa Barbara since it erupted Monday amid high winds. It is only 5 percent contained.
Authorities have said the fire is a threat to about 100 ranches and isolated homes. Among the properties being protected is Rancho del Cielo, which was once owned by Ronald and Nancy Reagan and used as their western retreat during his presidency. The 688-acre ranch sits high atop the mountain range.
Winds when the fire broke out blasted flames down the mountain range toward the Pacific Ocean and the fire reached a beach after jumping the U.S. Highway 101 and a rail line. The winds since then have shifted but have been less intense.
Firefighters on Thursday were focusing on stopping the movement of the blaze to the west after winds pushed it that way late Wednesday, said fire information officer Kristen Allison.
Aircraft dropped a long line of fire retardant along a ridgetop road to help keep the fire from moving north and a wildfire burn scar slowed the blaze’s movement to the east. An older burn scar lay to the west.
“The further this fire moves both east and west it will move into some fire scars from previous wildfires, so those areas aren’t going to have nearly the amount of fuels for the fire to work with,” said Andrew Madsen, an information officer with Los Padres National Forest.
Elsewhere, gusty winds, low humidity and dry vegetation triggered red flag warnings of high fire danger in parts of Northern California’s interior.
Pacific Gas & Electric initially planned to cut power to thousands of customers in numerous counties on Thursday to prevent fires from being ignited by wind damage to power lines. But the utility said the wind event appeared to be weaker than expected. By midday, customers in parts of only one county faced a notice of a potential power shutoff.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm is the 16th of the 2021 eastern Pacific hurricane season, but could have effects on parts of the Lower 48. Pamela’s remnant moisture is expected to slide northeast, spurring heavy flooding rains in Texas and Oklahoma that could dump as much as 8 inches today.
Flash flood watches stretch from the Rio Grande through the Lone Star State and into southeast Oklahoma, with the bull’s eye of heaviest rains anticipated to fall in a corridor that includes the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
Thereafter, Pamela’s remnant moisture will become swept up in a cold front and enhance a line of brief heavy downpours that will trek toward the East Coast by Saturday.
Pockets of heavy rain were already rolling though Texas and parts of Oklahoma east of Interstate 35 on Wednesday morning, drenching the ground and setting the stage for flooding. Antecedent conditions have been comparatively dry, but the amount of rain and the rapidity with which it will fall is likely to become problematic.
Pamela made landfall in Sinaloa with a “life-threatening storm surge and dangerous hurricane-force winds” midmorning Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had sustained winds of 75 mph, just over the minimum threshold for a Category 1 hurricane. It was centered just northwest of Mazatlan, home to about a half-million people. That would have placed the city under the right side of the eyewall — usually the strongest part of the storm — which means Mazatlan likely saw winds gusting to at least 60 mph.
Scenes from social media showed downed trees and some structural damage in the city and very rough surf at the coast.
The wind threat was diminishing some, since Pamela had become a tropical storm as of 11 a.m. with 65 mph, but the flood threat was increasing in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, western Durango and northern Nayarit.
Reuters noted that Sinaloa is “the country’s top grower of corn, Mexico’s staple grain, as well as a major producer of tomatoes and other fruits that figure prominently in the country’s agricultural exports to the United States.”
So far, 16 named storms have formed in the eastern Pacific compared with 20 named storms in the Atlantic. Ordinarily the eastern Pacific should see about 50 percent more than the Atlantic.
(Matthew Cappucci, WASHINGTON POST)
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Island authorities ordered the evacuation of around 800 people from the coastal town of Los Llanos de Aridane on Tuesday after the lava took a new course on its way to Atlantic Ocean and put their homes in a probable path of destruction.
It was the first mass exit since around 6,000 people were told to leave immediately after the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on Sept. 19.
Residents of the La Laguna neighborhood had only a few hours to gather up their most precious belongings and leave. On Wednesday, police accompanied individual families who asked to go back into the exclusion zone to retrieve more belongings.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez traveled to the island on Wednesday, his fourth visit since the initial eruption.
“Unfortunately, the news we have from the scientific committee is that the volcano’s activity is not decreasing, so a reduction in its activity is not foreseeable in the coming days,” Sanchez said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The U.N. health agency said in a statement that people at high risk of catching the disease, including the young boy’s family members and health workers, would receive first doses of the vaccine made by Merck.
WHO said about a thousand doses of the vaccine arrived in Goma, the capital of Congo’s North Kivu province, and 200 doses were sent to Beni, a city near the area where the first case was identified last week.
The new Ebola outbreak that started Oct. 8 comes after a devastating epidemic that began in 2018, when the disease killed more than 2, 200 people in the conflict-ridden region.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The blaze — the first major wildfire in Southern California this season — arrived amid howling sundowner winds that pushed it over ridges, through canyons and down toward the coast. Drought-parched grasses and chaparral ignited with ease, and fire officials said some airborne embers were landing more than a mile away.
By Wednesday evening, the fire had grown to 15,442 acres and was 5 percent contained. Santa Barbara County officials declared a local emergency, and Gov. Gavin Newsom secured federal assistance for the blaze.
The area where the fire is burning, which spans from El Capitan State Beach to Gaviota along the coast and inland toward Solvang, is home to several sprawling ranch properties, many of which have been in the same families for generations.
There are other items of concern tucked among the quiet hillside homesteads, including the presidential ranch, a population of rare plants and a controversial oil processing facility. With more erratic winds expected soon, officials said the worst could be yet to come.
“We’ll be very, very busy out there,” Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said during a news conference Wednesday. “We expect that for weeks, if not months, you will see fire crews out there putting out hot spots on this fire.”
Among firefighters’ top priorities was Rancho del Cielo, the 688-acre ranch known as the “Western White House,” where former President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, played host to several world leaders.
The property’s manager, Flemming Bertelsen, said the fire had come within a quarter-mile of the ranch but that so far it had “dodged a bullet.”
Bertelsen, a former wildland firefighter, said he and four other workers were focused on fuel reduction and structure defense. It was far too soon to call the battle won, he said.
Also of concern is an ExxonMobil processing facility in nearby Las Flores Canyon, which has been out of commission since the 2015 Refugio oil spill. Infrared mapping appeared to show the fire burning into the canyon, but Exxon spokeswoman Julie King said no damage has been reported.
More erratic winds are forecast for the area, which could ground planes and continue to stymie firefighting efforts, Los Padres National Forest Fire Chief Jim Harris said Wednesday.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The death toll included 14 people who died after a commuter bus fell into a river on Monday from a flooded bridge near the northern city of Shijiazhuang, according to Chinese media reports. Video circulating online showed stranded passengers waiting to be rescued on the roof of the nearly submerged bus as it floated in the river. As of Monday night, 37 people had been rescued from the bus, according to CCTV, China’s state broadcaster.
The floods in northern China are the latest reminder of the challenge that global warming and extreme weather pose to the country’s leaders as they attempt to juice a slowing economy. The disaster comes months after powerful floods ravaged the central Chinese province of Henan in July, killing more than 300 people, including 14 who drowned in a subway tunnel after the heaviest hour of rainfall ever reliably recorded in China.
They have also exposed the vulnerability of China’s energy supply. Shanxi province, China’s coal country, was among the hardest-hit regions of last week’s floods, with torrential rains leaving at least 15 people dead. The flooding also caused operations in 60 coal mines in the province to be suspended, according to Chinese state news media. The disruption comes as the government has been struggling to overcome an electricity shortage and blackouts caused partly by rising energy prices and soaring demand.
The heaviest rains occurred last week, while many were traveling for China’s seven-day national holiday known as Golden Week. Chinese state news media emphasized that 600 mines in Shanxi province remained operational and that many workers had given up their holiday plans to make sure that they could continue producing coal.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The fearsome sundowner winds, which race down the slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains toward the sea, are exclusive to the area’s topography and have stoked some of its worst wildfires, including the 2016 Sherpa fire, which seared 7,500 acres in less than three days.
It looked as though history might repeat itself Tuesday, as the Alisal fire swelled to more than 13,000 acres, marking Southern California’s first major wildfire of the season.
The blaze was fueled by drought-parched terrain and 40-mph gusts, conditions that made for challenging firefighting efforts, officials said. After sunset Tuesday, the Alisal fire was 5 percent contained, and the winds had begun to strengthen once again.
The fire, the cause of which remains unknown, was sparked around 2:30 p.m. Monday. Within hours, winds had propelled the blaze south toward the Tajiguas Landfill and U.S. 101, officials said, where it jumped the asphalt barrier in multiple places.
The Sherpa fire “did the same thing,” said Tom Himmelrich, a battalion chief with the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, as he stood amid the Alisal fire’s swirling ash and smoke. “It started at the top of the mountain under sundowner winds, and it blew all the way down here.”
By Tuesday morning, authorities had evacuated hundreds of homes, canceled area Amtrak services and closed a stretch of the freeway as flames tore through the fine grasses and dense chaparral that dot the hillsides.
The winds and smoke were so heavy that some fixed-wing firefighting planes couldn’t fly, Himmelrich said — leaving hand crews and helicopters working rapidly to protect what they could.
At the top of one hillside property, about 15 firefighters — among roughly 600 who were battling the blaze — hacked at the hillside with hoes and chain saws as thick smoke billowed from just beyond the ridge.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Using machine learning to analyze and map more than 100,000 studies of events that could be linked to global warming, researchers paired the analysis with a well-established data set of temperature and precipitation shifts caused by fossil fuel use and other sources of carbon emissions.
These combined findings — which focused on events such as crop failures, floods and heat waves — allowed scientists to make a solid link between rising temperatures and human activities. They concluded that global warming had already affected 80 percent of the world’s land area.
“We have a huge evidence base now that documents how climate change is affecting our societies and our ecosystems,” said lead author Max Callaghan, researcher at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Germany.
The study provides hard numbers to back up the lived experiences of people from New York City to South Sudan. “Climate change,” Callaghan said, “is visible and noticeable almost everywhere in the world.”
The findings come amid a major push to get countries to commit to more ambitious climate goals ahead of a U.N. summit in Glasgow next month. Research shows that existing pledges will put the planet on track to heat up about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century — a level of warming that would lead to drastic food and water shortages, deadly weather disasters and catastrophic ecosystem collapse.
Some of the world’s top emitters, including China and India, have yet to formally commit to a new 2030 emissions reduction target. Activists worry that an emerging energy crisis, which has raised prices and triggered blackouts, could imperil efforts to get developing economies to phase out polluting fuels.
In the U.S., climate disasters have already caused at least 388 deaths and more than $100 billion in damage this year, according to analyses from The Washington Post and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“The nation and the world are in peril,” he said weeks ago in the New York City borough of Queens, where 11 people drowned in their basement apartments after floodwaters from Hurricane Ida devastated communities from Louisiana to New York. “And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact. They’ve been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we’re living in it real time now.”
Biden’s plan to try to fortify the United States against extreme weather — and cut the carbon dioxide emissions that are heating the Earth and fueling disasters — is embedded in two pieces of legislation pending on Capitol Hill. The future of both bills remains in question, with tension between moderate and progressive Democrats over the size and scope of many details.
Together, they contain what would be the most significant climate action ever taken by the United States. Because Democrats could lose control of Congress after 2022 and Republicans have shown little interest in climate legislation, it could be years before another opportunity arises — a delay that scientists say the planet cannot afford.
The climate provisions are designed to quickly transform energy and transportation, the country’s two largest sources of greenhouse gases, from systems that now mostly burn gas, oil and coal to sectors that run increasingly on clean energy from the sun, wind and nuclear power.
The impact will touch a broad cross section of American life, from the kinds of cars that Americans drive, to the types of crops grown by farmers, to the way homes are heated and buildings are constructed. One measure could shutter virtually all of the nation’s remaining coal plants, forcing sweeping change in communities dependent on mining but also, one study estimated, preventing as many as 50,000 premature deaths from pollution by 2030. And other measures would provide billions to replant in national forests, repair trails for hikers and clear brush to reduce the risk of wildfire.
The United States has contributed more to global warming than any other nation, and the action it takes will be felt well beyond its borders. Falling short would hamstring Biden next month, when he is expected to attend a major United Nations climate summit in Scotland to try to persuade other world leaders to take stronger climate action.
“The whole world is watching,” said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a climate adviser for the U.N. secretary-general. “If these bills don’t come to pass,” she said, “then the U.S. will be coming to Glasgow with some fine words” but “not much else. It won’t be enough.”
As part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, nearly 200 nations agreed to try to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, compared with temperatures before industrialization. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the dangers of global warming — such as deadly heat waves, water shortages, crop failures and ecosystem collapse — grow immensely.
But the world is way off track to meet that goal. As countries continue to pump carbon emissions into the atmosphere, the Earth has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Biden has pledged to reduce U.S. emissions at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but his ambitions are constrained by razor-thin Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and the fate of the twin bills.
The first piece of legislation, a $3.5 trillion budget package proposed by House Democrats, with no Republican backing, contains hundreds of billions in tax credits for companies that build wind and solar power or retrofit polluting facilities to capture and bury their carbon dioxide emissions before they enter the atmosphere. And it expands tax incentives for Americans to buy electric vehicles, giving consumers as much as $12,500. It would also penalize oil and gas companies if they leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
The second big bill in Congress, a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, has bipartisan support. It would provide the largest single infusion of money to prepare communities for extreme weather fueled by climate change that is already under way. Still, there is no guarantee that even the infrastructure bill will pass. Many House Democrats have said they will not vote for the legislation unless it passes in parallel with the reconciliation bill that aims to address the root causes of global warming.
(Brad Plumes & Winston Choi-Schagrin, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Authorities on Sunday monitored a new stream of molten rock that has added to the destruction of over 1,100 buildings. Anything in the path of the lava - homes, farms, pools and industrial buildings in the largely agricultural area - has been consumed.
The collapse Saturday of part of the volcanic cone sent a flood of bright red lava pouring down from the Cumbre Vieja ridge that initially cracked open on Sept. 19.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Officials said there was no danger of a tsunami but traffic disruptions continued this morning, with local trains delayed and commuters overflowing from stations.
The Meteorological Agency said the quake was centered in Chiba prefecture, just east of Tokyo, at a depth of about 48 miles.
It caused buildings to sway and hanging objects such as signs to swing violently.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said there were no abnormalities at nuclear power facilities in the area.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that 32 people were injured, three of them seriously, from the quake.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Dozens of people had to be rescued Wednesday night in central Alabama, where the National Weather Service said as much as 13 inches of rain fell, and a south Alabama town temporarily lost its main grocery store when a creek came through the doors of the Piggly Wiggly. Near the coast, heavy rains caused sewage to bubble out of underground pipes.
A 4-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman died in separate incidents when floods carried away vehicles in northeast Alabama, said Marshall County Coroner Cody Nugent. Searchers found the bodies of a boyfriend and girlfriend, both 23, inside a car that was swept away by a swollen stream in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, said Shelby County Coroner Lina Evans.
“Normally it’s just a trickle. It was raging,” she said.
The deluge produced wild scenes on social media: floodwaters flowing between Christmas trees inside a Lowe’s store in Hoover, refrigerator bins full of brown water in a home and dozens of cars with their headlights submerged. Rescue crews helped motorists escape as low visibility and standing water made travel life-threatening in some areas.
Some of the worst flooding happened in Pelham, outside Birmingham, where 82 people were rescued from homes and more than 15 were pulled from vehicles after creeks and streams overflowed, the Pelham Fire Department said Thursday. More than 100 rescuers with 16 boats were involved, the statement said.
Metro Birmingham remained under a flash flood watch much of the day. Rains were expected to end by late Thursday in Alabama as storms move eastward. Flash flood warnings were in effect through today along the weather front, stretching from the Florida Panhandle through northern Georgia and mountainous regions of eastern Tennessee and the western Carolinas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Since igniting Sept. 9, the lightning-sparked blaze has encroached on 15 groves of the colossal trees, with two that appear to have been at least partially subjected to high-severity fire, said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science for the parks.
The extent of the damage to those groves — Redwood Mountain and Castle Creek — won’t be known until officials can survey the area, either from the air or the ground, she said.
An enormous pyrocumulus formed Monday near the Redwood Mountain Grove, indicating the likelihood of extreme fire behavior.
Nate Stephenson, an emeritus scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the observations suggested severe fire effects in the grove. “But as always, we won’t know what really happened until the smoke clears,” he wrote in an email.
Park officials on Wednesday wrote on Facebook that they suspect some groves were hit by flames severe enough “to result in sequoia mortality, possibly for significant numbers of trees (hundreds).”
Crews in recent days have focused on protecting the well-known General Grant Tree; a photo published by the National Park Service showed a rigged sprinkler system spraying the colossal tree with water.
“It is not safe right now, nor is it our current priority to fully assess groves that have burned,” officials said, adding that a complete assessment might not arrive until 2022, when the fire is completely extinguished and conditions permit access.
The blaze has seared nearly 86,000 acres and is only 11 percent contained.
Garrett Dickman, a botanist assigned to the Windy fire, which is burning south of the KNP Complex, said he is steeling himself for extensive devastation as groves are surveyed in burn areas spanning the Sequoia National Forest and Tule River Indian Reservation.
At least 74 large sequoias have been been killed in that fire, said Dickman. The Windy fire has charred more than 97,500 acres and was 75 percent contained Thursday.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The death toll was expected to rise even further as crews searched in the remote mountainous area, said Suhail Anwar Shaheen, the local deputy commissioner.
At least four of the dead were killed when the coal mine in which they were working collapsed, said Shaheen, citing coal miners in the area. As many as 100 homes also collapsed, burying sleeping residents inside.
The epicenter of the 5.9 magnitude quake was about 8 miles north-northeast of Harnai in Baluchistan province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It struck about 12 miles below the Earth’s surface; shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
The area, about 60 miles from Quetta, the provincial capital, is dotted with coal mines, which has Shaheen worried the death toll could rise. It struck in the early morning while scores of miners were already at work, he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Malaria kills about 500,000 people each year, nearly all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — including 260,000 children younger than 5.
The new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, rouses a child’s immune system to thwart Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the vaccine, the first step in a process that should lead to wide distribution in poor countries. To have a malaria vaccine that is safe, moderately effective and ready for distribution is “a historic event,” said Dr. Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s global malaria program.
The vaccine, called Mosquirix, is not just a first for malaria; it is the first developed for any parasitic disease. Parasites are much more complex than viruses or bacteria, and the quest for a malaria vaccine has been under way for 100 years.
In clinical trials, the vaccine had an efficacy of about 50 percent against severe malaria in the first year, but the figure dropped close to zero by the fourth year. And the trials did not directly measure the vaccine’s impact on deaths.
A modeling study last year estimated that if the vaccine were rolled out to countries with the highest incidence of malaria, it could prevent 5.4 million cases and 23,000 deaths in children younger than 5 each year.
And a recent trial of the vaccine in combination with preventive drugs given to children during high-transmission seasons found that the dual approach was much more effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death than either method alone.
The malaria parasite, carried by mosquitoes, is a particularly insidious enemy because it can strike the same person over and over. Even when the disease is not fatal, the repeated assault on their bodies can permanently alter the immune system, leaving them weak and vulnerable to other pathogens.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The volcanic eruption started on Sept. 19 and has forced the evacuation of over 6,000 residents of the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa.
Some 946 houses have been completely destroyed and nearly 100 more affected, while farmers are struggling to keep the surviving banana plantations irrigated after lava flows destroyed roads and water pipes.
The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute, Involcan, said Tuesday that activity in the La Palma volcano had become “explosive, with falling pyroclasts and bombs.”
A video released by the institute the night before showed a block of molten rock that, according to the institute, had hit against a wall about a mile away from the vent, a sign of the explosive activity of the volcano.
According to Involcan’s calculations, the volcano has emitted at least 250,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 35 million cubic meters of magma.
Cameras captured with detail the thicker lava that emerged from the main vent in greater quantities after the surrounding cone collapsed again on Monday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Global water management is “fragmented and inadequate,” the report published Tuesday found, with nearly 60 percent of 101 countries surveyed needing improved forecasting systems that can help prevent devastation from severe weather.
As populations grow, the number of people with inadequate access to water is also expected to rise to more than 5 billion by 2050, up from 3.6 billion in 2018, the report said.
Among the actions recommended by the report were better warning systems for flood- and drought-prone areas that can identify, for example, when a river is expected to swell. Better financing and coordination among countries on water management is also needed, according to the report by the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization, development agencies and other groups.
“We need to wake up to the looming water crisis,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization.
The report found that since 2000, flood-related disasters globally rose 134 percent compared with the previous two decades. Most flood-related deaths and economic losses were in Asia.
The frequency of drought-related disasters rose 29 percent over the same period. African countries recorded the most drought-related deaths. The steepest economic losses from drought were in North America, Asia and the Caribbean, the report said.
Globally, the report found 25 percent of all cities are already experiencing regular water shortages. Over the past two decades, it said the planet’s combined supplies of surface water, ground water and water found in soil, snow and ice have declined by 0.4 inch per year.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Named Tropical Cyclone Shaheen, the tempest slammed ashore late Sunday, about 50 miles to the west of Muscat, Oman’s capital city, and very close to the coastal towns of Al Suwayq and Al Masnaah.
The storm has since departed, but not before leaving 11 dead in Oman, according to The Associated Press, mostly because of flash flooding and landslides. The storm was also blamed for two fatalities in Iran, where the bodies of two fishermen were found.
The Times of Oman reported that up to 14.5 inches fell in Al Khaburah, which is just to the west of where the storm came ashore. The city of about 40,000 people averages between three and four inches of rain per year.
Several nearby locations received more than 8 inches of rain. Al Suwayq registered about a foot, with 4.5 inches falling in just six hours.
Muscat’s Seeb International Airport received 3.7 inches in 24 hours Sunday, which is about its average annual rainfall. The airport clocked wind gusts up to 51 mph, but the most severe winds almost certainly occurred in areas to the west that were intercepted by Shaheen’s eyewall, the ring of intense thunderstorms surrounding the storm’s calm center, closer to Al Suwayq.
As the storm crossed the coast, its maximum sustained winds were around 75 mph, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane. Waves were predicted to be 30 to 40 feet high over the Gulf of Oman before Shaheen’s landfall along Oman’s central-northeast coast.
Scenes from social media showed floodwaters and landslides overwhelming the region. The Times of Oman’s live updates on the storm described blocked and flooded roads, people trapped in vehicles, building collapses and overflowing dams. The desert landscape and its infrastructure are unaccustomed to so much rain in a short duration.
Shaheen was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall along Oman’s northern coast since 1890 and only the third on record. None have been observed in the era of weather satellites (since the 1960s) or during the month of October. According to meteorologists Bob Henson and Jeff Masters, writing for Yale Climate Connections, it struck farther west in Oman than any previous tropical cyclone.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation orders for Mineral King Road from Highway 198 to the Oak Grove Bridge, and Mineral King Drive up to the Sequoia National Park boundary, directing residents to leave immediately.
The evacuations came just days after similar prompts on the fire’s northern and western perimeters, including orders and warnings spanning from Wilsonia to portions of Fresno.
Fire officials said a ridge of high pressure was trapping heat and smoke over the 67,708-acre blaze, which was 11 percent contained Monday as it continued to feed on drought-dried terrain and arid air.
“It’s just incredibly dry, incredibly dry,” said incident spokesperson Daniel Patterson. “Definitely the factors are in place for a very active fire day today.”
Patterson said downslope winds sent embers flying over containment lines overnight, creating new threats for residents and homes along the fire’s southern border and prompting the latest evacuation orders.
By Monday morning, the fire was about 4 miles from the edge of Mineral King Road, he said, where about 65 historic cabins in Mineral King, Cabin Cove and Silver City were in the potential path of flames.
For weeks, fire crews have been clearing vegetation, running sprinklers and wrapping some of the century-old structures in protective foil.
Many of the cabins are made of wood and are highly flammable.
“It’s a historic location that we’d like to preserve, not only for ourselves, but for posterity, for the public,” Mineral King District Association President John Crowe said recently.
But firefighters were facing challenging conditions as thick smoke limited visibility and kept some aerial operations grounded. A large pyrocumulus cloud was seen rising over the fire zone Monday.
“There is an active (cloud) right now,” said Dan Harty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. “It looks like it’s producing a pretty good column that pretty much produces its own weather.”
The clouds, which can form over hot, smoky fires, have been known to generate fire whirls and lightning, which can spark additional blazes.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District extended its air quality alert through today, warning residents in at least nine surrounding counties of the potential for hazardous particulate matter from the KNP Complex and the nearby Windy fire.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The National Weather Service said Sunday that the spill is not likely to spread to San Diego County waters because of unusually light winds off Orange and San Diego counties.
The sea surface currents at the offshore oil platform were moving to the southeast on Sunday afternoon, but they were only traveling at 0.4 knots, according to Eric Terrell, a researcher at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. That further suggests that the oil won’t rapidly move down the coast.
The spill, first reported Saturday morning, originated from a pipeline running from the Port of Long Beach to an oil platform known as Elly. The failure caused at least 130,000 gallons of oil to gush into the Catalina Channel, creating a slick that spanned about 8,320 acres — larger than the size of Santa Monica.
Officials said Sunday afternoon that it appeared the pipeline had stopped leaking, but it was unclear what caused the spill and how long oil had been flowing out of the system.
Currents in the area Sunday afternoon were moving southeast into the waters off Newport Beach. Officials expect the oil to continue washing up onshore over the next several days.
Lifeguards closed 5.5 miles of sand from Seapoint Street near the Bolsa Chica wetlands to the Newport Beach city line at the Santa Ana River jetty. Huntington Beach canceled the third and final day of the Pacific Airshow, which drew half a million visitors on Friday and Saturday.
“In a year that has been filled with incredibly challenging issues, this oil spill constitutes one of the most devastating situations that our community has dealt with in decades,” said Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr. “We are doing everything in our power to protect the health and safety of our residents, our visitors and our natural habitats.”
At the south edge of the city, chunks of oil floated into Talbert Marsh, a 25-acre ecological reserve for fish and shorebirds. Workers eventually stopped it by closing the tidal inlet with sand berms. They used floating booms to protect other wildlife areas such as the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.
“We can get this cleaned up sooner and better than in prior oil spills, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK that this happened,” said Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, whose district includes Huntington Beach. “Someone has to be held accountable for how this happened.”
Out on the beach early Sunday, Foley watched as softball-size clumps of oil washed up onto the sand.
“It’s a huge environmental impact and it’s an economic impact both in terms of the cleanup and shutting down a major tourist destination during a pandemic when we’ve all been struggling,” she said. “It’s a tragedy on all fronts.”
Foley urged people to stay away from the beach. She said she could “feel the vapor” in the air and her throat started to hurt as she walked along the beach to assess the damage.
Still, residents ventured out to see for themselves.
“It’s terrible,” said Jon Ely, a 58-year-old Huntington Beach resident. “This stuff is not going to come up. It’s goo, and it’s thick.”
As the tide was falling around noon, it left lines of oily residue across the concrete embankment of the Santa Ana River, where large fish hugged the river bottom and hundreds of juveniles swam just below the oil slick. The black globs that pushed their way into the inlet Sunday morning were now emptying back into the ocean.
“The smell is awful. I thought maybe they were paving my neighborhood this morning,” said Jessie Wilmoth, 24, who lives in nearby Newport Shores. Walking by the river, Wilmoth noticed the light refracting on its surface. “It looks like gas,” she said. “It’s insane. Really, really sad.”
At the river mouth, Mike Ruby, a Manhattan Beach resident, paddled out on his surfboard. When the waves lifted him, dark globs of oil were visible in the water column.
“It’s not too bad out there. There’s a light oil film on the water,” he said after coming out of the water. “But I’m not seeing too many chunks.”
He said he could taste the oil mixing with the salty ocean as he surfed, and he was worried more about the wildlife.
He hadn’t noticed the black flecks of oil on his chest and back until a reporter pointed them out.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife asked people not to approach or touch potentially affected wildlife, as “they can cause more harm than good to the animals.” The agency urged people instead to call the UC Davis Oiled Wildlife Care Network at (877) 823-6926, said spokesman Eric Laughlin. A crew from the network has been mobilized for any needed rescue and rehabilitation work.
The spill renewed perennial calls to end the offshore drilling along the Southern California coast, a contentious issue ever since a blowout of a drilling rig spilled 4.2 million gallons of crude off Santa Barbara in 1969. That spill helped spark the modern environmental movement and turned California into a leader in restricting oil operations in coastal waters.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., whose district includes Long Beach, Catalina Island and parts of Orange County, said the spill is “as tragic as it was preventable.”
“This environmental catastrophe highlights the simple fact that where you drill, you spill,” he said in a statement. “This will be devastating not only to our marine wildlife and ecosystem, but also to the livelihoods of our coastal communities which are built around fishing, tourism, and recreation.”
(Robin Estrie, Anh Do, Brittny Mejia & Joe Mozingo, LOS ANGELES TIMES; Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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A spot fire ignited Thursday across the North Fork Kaweah River, along the northwestern end of the blaze, growing to about 600 acres by Friday morning, fire officials said.
As crews focused on battling the spot fire, an evacuation order Friday morning was issued for the communities of Grant Grove, Wilsonia and Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon National Park — near where towering giant sequoias rise and park staffers live, said Cassie Adams, a spokesperson for the fire. Non-fire personnel are required to leave the areas by 2 p.m.
Around the same time, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office issued its own mandatory evacuation orders for the communities of Big Meadows, Weston Meadows and Quail Flat in the Giant Sequoia National Monument.
Additional orders and warnings went out Thursday as fire activity in the north picked up. Authorities placed the communities of Eshom and Hartland Camp in Tulare County under mandatory evacuation. Fresno County issued its first warnings — for the Miramonte/Pinehurst area.
It’s believed that flames from the KNP Complex are burning in — or passed through — 11 sequoia groves, though details about the extent of the damage remain scant, said Christy Brigham, head of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
One massive tree in the famed Giant Forest recently toppled after burning for several days, splaying across a road.
“Unfortunately we did lose one giant, but 99.9 percent of them look fine,” Mark Garrett, a spokesperson for the fire, said of the other trees in the grove.
The KNP Complex fire — one of two lightning-sparked blazes burning through the southern Sierra Nevada — had charred 51,596 acres and was 20 percent contained Friday morning. To the south, the Windy fire — which has destroyed more than a dozen homes — was at 90,149 acres and 42 percent containment. Both blazes erupted Sept. 9 amid a massive lightning storm.
Containment for the twin fires has risen significantly in recent days. Cooler temperatures and higher humidity dampened fire activity, allowing firefighters to wage more direct attacks and firm up containment lines.
But a drying trend already under way is forcing temperatures up and humidity down — conditions expected to spur more aggressive fire behavior.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The immediate area had been evacuated for several days as authorities waited for the lava that began spewing from the volcano Sept. 19 to traverse the four miles to the island’s edge. On the way down from the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, the lava flows have engulfed at least 656 buildings, mostly homes and farm buildings, in its unstoppable march to the sea.
The meeting of molten rock and sea water finally came at 11 p.m. on Tuesday. By daybreak, a widening promontory of newborn land could be seen forming under plumes of steam rising high into the area.
Even though initial air quality readings showed no danger in the area, experts had warned that the arrival of the lava at the ocean would likely produce small explosions and release toxic gases that could damage lungs. Authorities established a security perimeter of about two miles and asked residents in the wider area to remain indoors with windows shut to avoid breathing in any gases.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported from the island’s first eruption in 50 years, thanks to the prompt evacuations of more than 6,000 people after the ground cracked open following weeks of tremors.
The flattening of the terrain as it approached the coast had slowed down the flow of the lava, causing it to widen out and do more damage to villages and farms. The local economy is largely based on agriculture.
Just before it poured down a cliff into the sea at a local point known as Los Guirres, the lava rolled over the coastal highway, cutting off the last road in the area that connects the island to several villages.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In its annual World Oil Outlook, OPEC acknowledged that more electric vehicles on the road and the push for alternative and renewable energy will indeed usher in an era of declining demand for oil in rich countries.
But the energy needs of expanding economies in other parts of [the] world mean that oil will be the world’s No. 1 source of energy through 2045, OPEC said Tuesday.
The long-term report from OPEC arrives as economies emerge from the most severe economic shocks from the global pandemic, snarling supply lines and creating tight supplies of nearly everything, including oil. Brent crude touched $80 per barrel on Tuesday while the U.S. oil benchmark crude wasn’t far behind, both reaching three-year highs. Hurricane Ida slammed into a critical port that serves as the primary support hub for the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater offshore oil and gas industry in the U.S., worsening the supply situation, at least temporarily.
The average price for gasoline in the U.S. rose again over the weekend, according to the Lundberg Survey, and now costs $1 more per gallon than it did last year at this time.
After being stung by deep production cuts in 2020 during the depths of the pandemic, OPEC has increased production slowly.
“What is clear in this year’s WOO is that energy and oil demand have picked up significantly in 2021, after the massive drop in 2020, and continued expansion is forecast for the longer-term,” OPEC said. “Global primary energy demand is expected to increase by 28 percent in the period between 2020 and 2045, with all energies required, driven by an expected doubling in size of the global economy and the addition of around 1.7 billion people worldwide by 2045.”
Only coal will see less use, while other sources of energy will see increasing demand, though the share will shift to include a bigger proportion for renewables, nuclear and natural gas, according to the group.
The 340-page report sketches out a future of declining demand for oil in wealthier countries that belong to the 38-member Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, as efforts to fight climate change take hold in the form of renewables and alternative fuels in cars, airplanes and ships. It forecasts that the world’s vehicle fleet would grow by 1.1 billion to 2.6 billion by the end of the report’s time frame in 2045 — and that 500 million of those would be electric powered, or 20 percent of all vehicles.
But growing populations and expanding middle classes in the rest of the world including China and India will mean increased demand for oil between 2020 and 2045, although much of that increase will take place in the earlier part of that period, the report, produced by OPEC’s secretariat in Vienna, said.
Oil will satisfy 28.1 percent of the world’s energy demand by 2045, down from 30 percent in 2020 — but ahead of natural gas with 24.4 percent and coal with 17.4 percent. Hydroelectric, nuclear and biomass energy sources and other renewables such as wind and solar make up the rest.
A key reason cited for declining energy use in the more-developed world was demography: shrinking and aging populations that usher in lower economic growth.
The report noted that growing awareness of the need to accelerate actions to address climate change have resulted in ambitious new policy intentions to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The European Union, the United States, Japan, the U.K., Canada and Brazil have proposed roadmaps to meet new goals.
This month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order setting a target for zero-emissions vehicles to account for half of all automobiles sold in the U.S. by 2030.
OPEC, however, noted “considerable doubts as to whether all these ambitious climate-mitigation commitments will be met in the proposed timeframe.”
For example, the European Union in July spelled out its Fit for 55 package, in which the 27-country bloc vowed to reduce emissions by 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.
OPEC said that the plan “remains exactly that for the time being, a plan, which still needs to be negotiated and agreed by all EU Member States, leaving ample scope for exceptions and watering-down.”
(David McHugh, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Furious westerly winds — some gusting up to 40 mph — fanned the Windy fire’s growth by nearly 2,000 acres in a day. The fire, raging in the Sequoia National Forest and Tule River Indian Reservation, had ballooned to 87,318 acres Tuesday and was only 4 percent contained.
The KNP Complex fire, burning to the north in the Sequoia National Park, had burned through 48,344 acres and was 8 percent contained.
Both fires erupted Sept. 9 amid a massive lightning storm that sent dozens of bolts shooting into the dense forest, home to groves of giant sequoia trees, including the famed General Sherman tree. Since then, they have expanded rapidly through the drought-stricken vegetation.
Roughly 158 homes in the Sequoia National Park, the Lodgepole area and nearby communities of Three Rivers and Hartland are threatened by the KNP Complex. Personnel were prioritizing those structures Tuesday, officials said.
Meanwhile, crews from Tulare County were assessing potential damage to homes and other properties in the Sugarloaf and Pine Flat areas, along the south end of the Windy fire.
Despite fire officials’ optimism that indirect firefighting methods will pay off, there’s consensus that both the KNP Complex and Windy fires will continue to swell.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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No flights arrived or departed, despite emergency workers clearing the ash from the airport runway.
Islanders faced a mixed picture of good and bad news, with some evacuees allowed to return to their homes amid low seismic activity while authorities took stock of the damage caused. Around 430 buildings have so far been destroyed in the countryside.
The volcano on La Palma, which is part of the volcanic Canary Islands off northwest Africa and is home to about 85,000 people, erupted on Sept. 19. The prompt evacuations of more than 6,000 people helped avoid casualties.
Life on the rest of La Palma, which is roughly 22 miles long and 12 miles wide at its broadest point, has been largely unaffected.
“We’re not in a state of total alarm,” the technical director of the volcano emergency response unit, Miguel Angel Morcuende, told a news conference. “Life on the island is continuing, though those close to the eruption are facing difficulties.”
The volcano mouth was still ejecting fiery molten rock and belching black smoke. Its roar could be heard miles away. Scientists say the eruption could last for up to three months.
The sound of the volcanic explosions can break glass in the surrounding area, Morcuende said, urging people living within 3 miles to stay away from their windows.
Officials said the falling volcanic ash isn’t a threat to public health, but cleaning it up can be hazardous for people’s lungs and eyes. They urged people to wear a face mask, gloves and eye protection, as well as trousers and long-sleeve shirts, when removing ash.
Some 25,000 metric tons of sulfur dioxide are being emitted from the crater every day but don’t pose a health threat, officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Fawn fire in Shasta County ignited Wednesday and quickly became a priority as it fed on dry timber and steep terrain, growing to 6,820 acres by Friday evening and sending thousands of residents fleeing.
More than 9,000 structures are threatened by the fire and at least 25 have been destroyed, officials said. Evacuation orders and warnings remain in place.
The blaze prompted a local emergency declaration from Sheriff Michael Johnson as it spewed massive plumes of smoke into the sky near Redding.
Late Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state had secured federal assistance to help with the fire.
Unlike the lightning-sparked fires burning elsewhere in the state, the Fawn fire appears to have been deliberately set.
A Palo Alto woman, identified as Alexandra Souverneva, was arrested Wednesday on “fire-related charges,” Cal Fire officials said.
Firefighters first encountered Souverneva in the brush near the burgeoning fire about 8 p.m. Wednesday. A subsequent interview led officers to suspect she was responsible for the blaze.
The Shasta County district attorney’s office on Friday filed felony arson charges against Souverneva, as well as charges of committing arson during a state of emergency. The maximum penalty that she faces is nine years in state prison, District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said.
“The fire is obviously still burning and the investigation is still under way, and based on the final damages and outcome of that investigation, additional charges are likely,” Bridgett added, noting that Souverneva may be linked to additional fires in the county and state.
Cal Fire incident spokesman Scott Ross said the alleged arson was “discouraging,” but ultimately irrelevant to the crews on the front lines. “It’s a fire — we do our job,” he said.
Camera feeds near the Fawn fire showed sickly orange-gray smoke rolling across the sky. Ross said temperatures were expected to be in the mid-90s Friday, but that winds were dying down, and he was feeling optimistic about crews’ progress. The fire was 10 percent contained.
“We’re still not out of the woods yet and we want to make sure that we keep the progress we made, but it’s looking pretty good,” he said, noting that nearly 1,000 personnel were battling the blaze from the air and the ground.
Further south, the twin blazes of the Windy fire and the KNP Complex fire continued to threaten the state’s ancient sequoia trees and nearby communities as they seared through a combined 86,000 acres with almost no containment.
The 56,802-acre Windy fire burning in Sequoia National Forest and on the Tule River Reservation spurred new evacuation orders Friday for the communities of California Hot Springs, Pine Flat, Sugarloaf, Sugarloaf Mountain Park, Sugarloaf Saw Mill, White River, Idlewild, Posey, Panorama Heights, Poso, Balance Rock and Spear Creek.
(Hayley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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No tropical storm or hurricane alerts are in effect for any place yet, since the storm will likely avoid land. There is still plenty of uncertainty in the eventual track of Sam, however, and the northern Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico should keep close tabs on Sam's progress.
Sam is likely to join the ranks of Grace, Ida and Larry, which all attained Category 3 or greater status this year. Category 4 Ida brought devastation to southeast Louisiana with winds topping 150 mph upon landfall.
As of 11 a.m. Friday, Sam was a 75 mph Category 1 hurricane as it churned west at 14 mph. It was located roughly halfway between the west coast of Africa and the Lesser Antilles. The Hurricane Center noted it was taking a "momentary pause" in strengthening but would likely pick up its intensification soon.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Subtropical Storm Teresa formed Friday north of Bermuda. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Teresa had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph with little change in strength expected. The storm moving northwest about 14 mph.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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One giant river of lava 2,000 feet wide slowed to 13 feet per hour after reaching a plain on Wednesday, officials said. On Monday, a day after the eruption on La Palma, it was moving at 2,300 feet per hour. A second stream of lava has virtually ground to a halt, the head of the National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands, Maria Jose Blanco, told a news conference.
It won’t reach the Atlantic Ocean before the weekend, she said, with some scientists saying it might never reach the sea.
As it slowed, the lava grew thicker. In places, it rose up to 50 feet high, authorities said. It now covers 410 acres and has swallowed up around 350 homes.
The uncertainty left many residents on the western side of the island of 85,000 people in limbo. Scientists say the lava flows could last for weeks or months.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The Fawn fire emerged in the Mountain Gate area near Redding on Wednesday afternoon. By midday Thursday, it had exploded to 1,200 acres, with Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson declaring a local emergency.
The sheriff’s office has issued evacuation orders for several areas near the fire.
By Thursday night, about 4,000 residents had evacuated with “30,000 residents affected,” according to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.
“There have been structures lost but there is no estimate on what type or number at this time,” the sheriff’s office said.
The fire was 5 percent contained Thursday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Cal Fire Shasta-Trinity spokeswoman Cheryl Buliavak said the cause of the fire was under investigation, but she confirmed that a woman was arrested Wednesday night on “fire-related charges.”
Meanwhile, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office ordered the evacuation just before 8 p.m. Wednesday of several areas near the Windy fire, which is burning in Sequoia National Forest and on the Tule River Reservation.
Newly evacuated areas include Camp Nelson, Pierpoint, Coy Flat, Mountain Aire, Cedar Slope, Alpine Village, Rogers Camp and Sequoia Crest. All earlier evacuation orders remain in effect.
“You’re going to be able to smell smoke,” operations section chief Seth Mitchell said during an evening update. “You’re going to be able to see flame.”
The fire had swelled to 43,745 acres and was 6 percent contained Thursday morning, officials said.
Incident spokesman Steve Rasmussen attributed the fire’s latest run — a substantial 12,000 acres — to a dry air mass that brought low humidity and winds to the area, which helped fan the flames as they fed on critically dry vegetation.
For days, the Windy fire has threatened the Trail of 100 Giants inside Long Meadow Grove, where at least one giant sequoia was damaged by fire atop its crown.
Just north of the Windy fire in Sequoia National Park, the KNP Complex grew to 33,046 acres Thursday with no containment.
The towering trees inside Giant Forest remained relatively unscathed Thursday, officials said, and the nearby historic cabin communities of Mineral King, Cabin Cove and Silver City are still a top priority as the fire pushes east.
The fires have marred air quality across the state as smoke and ash was blown hundreds of miles from the fires. On Wednesday, officials issued air quality alerts for the Bay Area and Central California that extended into Thursday.
On Thursday, smoke began spreading as far south as San Diego County. The National Weather Service said it will likely linger in the air through today. But air quality is expected to remain be good to moderate, according to the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Researchers in Uganda analyzed blood samples from patients treated with artemesinin, the primary medicine used for malaria in Africa in combination with other drugs. They found that by 2019, nearly 20 percent of the samples had genetic mutations suggesting the treatment was ineffective.
Drug-resistant forms of malaria were previously detected in Asia, and health officials have been nervously watching for any signs in Africa, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the world’s malaria cases. Some isolated drug-resistant strains of malaria have previously been seen in Rwanda.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Several small earthquakes shook the island of La Palma in the Atlantic Ocean off northwest Africa on Tuesday, keeping nerves on edge after a volcanic eruption on Sunday. The island, with a population of 85,000, is part of the Canary Islands archipelago, a tourist destination for Europeans.
Authorities said the new fissure demonstrated that the area was unstable and unsafe, and kept people at least 1.25 miles away.
The rivers of lava, up to nearly 20 feet deep, rolled down hillsides, burning and crushing everything in their path, as they gradually closed in on the island’s more densely populated coast. The lava’s advance has slowed to about 400 feet an hour, and could reach the Atlantic Ocean today.
So far, the eruption has destroyed about 190 houses and forced the evacuation of 6,000 people.
The meeting of the lava with a body of water could cause explosions and produce clouds of toxic gas. Officials asked locals to remember the island’s last eruption in 1971, when one person died after inhaling the gas emitted as lava met the water.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“As of right now we don’t have any damage to any of our trees,” said fire information officer Mark Garrett.
The KNP Complex, two lightning-sparked fires that merged, has spread over more than 25,142 acres, feeding on other types of trees that also live on the high-elevation slopes of the mountain range.
Giant Forest is home to about 2,000 sequoias, including the General Sherman Tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume.
The fire recently entered the perimeter of Giant Forest near a cluster of huge trees called the Four Guardsmen but their bases had been wrapped in fire-resistant material and crews had raked and cleared vegetation that could help spread the fire, Garrett said.
Firefighting crews monitored as what was described as a “low-intensity fire” passed through and made sure it did not affect the sequoias, he said.
But other areas have not been so lucky. The Windy fire, which is burning to the south of the KNP, moved into Long Meadow Grove, home of the famed Trail of 100 Giants, and at least one sequoia known as the Bench Tree was significantly damaged. More remote stands like the Peyrone Grove also have been “completely surrounded” by wildfire, officials said, though it was too soon to tell whether any trees had been killed.
Meanwhile, firefighters Tuesday were turning their attention toward the historic communities of Cabin Cove, Silver City and Mineral King, where some of the hundred-year-old cabins were about 3 miles from the edge of the KNP Complex.
“We have a structure group up in Mineral King that is either wrapping structures, enhancing their defensible space or setting up sprinklers around some of these cabins just in case,” Garrett said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Long fingers of fiery red lava slid down hillsides with white smoke billowing from their leading edges as they swallowed up houses, gardens and swimming pools in a trail of destruction across the verdant countryside.
An incessant rumble, like that of an airplane passing overhead, came from the nearby Cumbre Vieja ridge where the eruption occurred Sunday afternoon when two fissures started belching bright red lava into the air and set the glowing rivers in motion.
Scientists had been monitoring the area on the island of Palma, in the volcanic Canary Islands, in recent days amid thousands of mostly small earthquakes, and authorities quickly evacuated around 5,500 people.
The lava destroyed more than 100 homes on the hillsides. One of them belonged to German couple Matthias and Anette Fuchs, 65 and 64 respectively.
They said they fell in love with the house the moment they first saw it. Built in the islands’ traditional architectural style using volcanic materials from previous eruptions, the couple had been improving it over nearly four decades.
“It was a special place, we saw it once and we fell in love,” Anette Fuchs told The Associated Press, recounting how the couple hosted large dinners for friends and visiting relatives. “It was a paradise.”
The lava was moving at 2,300 feet per hour, according to the Canary Islands Volcanology Institute. Officials said they expected it to reach the Atlantic Ocean around sunset, where it could cause explosions and produce clouds of acidic steam. Scientists monitoring the lava measured it at more than 1,800° F.
Authorities on La Palma, where people largely live from farming, told people in the wide areas where volcanic ash was falling to stay indoors with their doors and windows closed.
Scientists say the lava flows could last for weeks or months, but the immediate danger to local people appeared to be over.
Daniel Alvarez, a bar owner in Las Manchas, one of the closest villages to the volcano, was evacuated with his family on Sunday and was staying at the El Fuerte military barracks with some other 300 evacuees. He didn’t know whether the lava had consumed his home.
“For now,” he said, “it seems like it’s safe, but the lava is opening many paths. We have all of our lives inside (our house). We would need to start over again.”
Canary Islands government chief Angel Victor Torres said officials weren’t expecting any more eruptions, adding that air traffic in the area wasn’t affected.
“There will be considerable material damage,” Torres told SER radio. “We hope there won’t be any personal injuries.”
Late Monday, lava began flowing from a new fissure that opened on the volcano, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of another neighborhood and close some roads. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected.
(Aritz Parra&Barry Hatton, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Canary Islands Volcanology Institute reported the initial eruption shortly after 3 p.m. near the southern end of the island, which saw its last eruption in 1971. Huge red plumes topped with black-and-white smoke shot out along the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, which scientists had been closely watching following the accumulation of molten lava below the surface and days of small earthquakes.
Victor Torres, president of the Canary Islands, said that by 11 p.m. some 5,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. Most, he said, had found family or friends to take them in. The rest were in shelters.
La Palma, population 85,000, is one of eight volcanic islands in Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago off Africa’s western coast. At their nearest point, the islands are 60 miles from Morocco.
A 4.2-magnitude quake was recorded before the eruption.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Fire officials warned that hot, dry weather and stronger winds were contributing to “critical fire conditions” in the area of the KNP Complex, two lightning-sparked blazes that merged on the western side of Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada.
The fire reached Long Meadow Grove, where the Trail of 100 Giant Sequoias is a national monument. Fire officials haven’t yet been able to determine how much damage was done to the groves, which are in remote and hard-to-reach areas. However, an Associated Press photographer saw active flames burning up a trunk, with the forest floor ablaze below.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning through Sunday, saying gusts and lower humidity could create conditions for rapid wildfire spread.
The fires forced the evacuation of the park last week, along with parts of Three Rivers, a foothill town of about 2,500 people. Firefighters using bulldozers expanded a line between the fire and the community, fire spokesperson Rebecca Paterson said Sunday.
More than 21,760 acres of forest land have been blackened.
The National Park Service said Friday that fire had reached the westernmost tip of the Giant Forest, where it scorched a grouping of sequoias known as the “Four Guardsmen” that mark the entrance to the grove of 2,000 sequoias.
Since then crews have managed to keep the flames from encroaching further into the area.
“The fire perimeter kind of wraps around the Giant Forest at this point,” Paterson said.
Firefighters swaddled the base of the General Sherman Tree, along with other trees in the Giant Forest, in a type of aluminum that can withstand high heat.
The General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume, at 52,508 cubic feet, according to the National Park Service.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fires lapped into the groves with trees that can be up to 200 feet tall and 2,000 years old, including Oriole Lake Grove in Sequoia National Park and Peyrone North and South groves in the neighboring Sequoia National Forest.
The fire also had reached the forest’s Long Meadow Grove, where then-President Bill Clinton signed a proclamation two decades ago establishing a national monument. Fire officials haven’t yet been able to determine how much damage was done to the groves, which are in remote, hard-to-reach areas.
“These groves are just as impressive and just as ecologically important to the forest. They just aren’t as well-known,” Tim Borden, sequoia restoration and stewardship manager for the Save the Redwoods League, told the Bay Area News Group. “My heart sinks when I think about it.”
Flames were still about a mile from the famed Giant Forest, where some 2,000 massive sequoias grow on a plateau high in the mountains of the national park.
Firefighters have placed special aluminum wrapping around the base of the General Sherman Tree, the world’s largest by volume at 52,508 cubic feet, as well as some other sequoias and buildings.
The material can withstand intensive heat for short periods and has been used in national parks and forests for several years throughout the West to protect sensitive structures from flames.
Lower temperatures and a layer of smoke blanketing the area have been a benefit by helping suppress the flames. “It’s been slow growth,” fire information officer Katy Hooper said.
Lightning ignited two fires in the park on Sept. 9, officials said. The Colony fire, closest to the Giant Forest, has grown to nearly 3,200 acres. The Paradise fire has scorched nearly 8,320 acres.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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That level of warming (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit), measured against preindustrial levels, is likely to increase the frequency of deadly heat waves and threaten coastal cities with rising sea levels, the country-by-country analysis concluded.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said it shows that “the world is on a catastrophic pathway.”
Perhaps most starkly, the new report displayed the large gap between what the scientific consensus urges world leaders to do and what those leaders have been willing to do so far. Emissions of planet-warming gases are poised to grow by 16 percent during this decade compared with 2010 levels, even as the latest scientific research indicates that they need to decrease by at least a quarter by 2030 to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
Guterres is likely to drive home the sense of urgency next week when the world’s presidents and prime ministers gather for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. It will continue to loom over the meeting of the 20 largest economies, known as the Group of 20, at their gathering in Rome in late October, and then be the focus of the United Nations-led international climate talks in November in Scotland.
Altogether, nearly 200 countries have made voluntary pledges to reduce or slow down emissions of planet-warming gases under the Paris Agreement, reached in 2015 with the aim of averting the worst climate impacts. Some countries have since strengthened their pledges, including some of the world’s biggest emitters, such as the United States, Britain and the European Union.
But still missing are new pledges from 70 countries, including: China, which currently produces the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions; Saudi Arabia; and India.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The colossal General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest, some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum and other buildings were wrapped as protection against the possibility of intense flames, fire spokeswoman Rebecca Paterson said.
The aluminum wrapping can withstand intensive heat for short periods. Federal officials say they have been using the material for several years throughout the West to protect sensitive structures from flames.
Near Lake Tahoe, some homes that were wrapped in protective material survived a recent wildfire while others nearby were destroyed.
The Colony fire, one of two burning in Sequoia National Park, was expected to reach the Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias, at some point within days.
It was unclear Thursday night whether that had happened.
The fire didn’t grow significantly as a layer of smoke reduced its spread, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said.
It comes after a wildfire killed thousands of sequoias, some as tall as high-rises and thousands of years old, in the region last year.
The General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume, at 52,508 cubic feet, according to the National Park Service. It towers 275 feet high and has a circumference of 103 feet at ground level.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks Superintendent Clay Jordan stressed the importance of protecting the massive trees from high-intensity fire during a briefing for firefighters.
A 50-year history of using prescribed burns — fires set on purpose to remove other types of trees and vegetation that would otherwise feed wildfires — in the parks’ sequoia groves was expected to help the giant trees survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them.
A “robust fire history of prescribed fire in that area is reason for optimism,” Paterson said. “Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed.”
Giant sequoias are adapted to fire, which can help them thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow.
But the extraordinary intensity of fires — fueled by climate change — can overwhelm the trees.
That happened last year when the Castle fire killed what studies estimate were 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias, according to the National Park Service.
A historic drought and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West.
Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
A national interagency fire management team took command of efforts to fight the 11.5-square-mile Paradise fire and the 3-square-mile Colony fire, which was closest to the grove.
Operations to burn away vegetation and other fuel that could feed the flames were done in that area.
The fires forced the evacuation of the park this week, and parts of the town of Three Rivers outside the main entrance remained evacuated Thursday. A bulldozer was cutting a line between the fire and the community.
To the south, a fire on the Tule River Indian Reservation and in Giant Sequoia National Monument grew significantly overnight to more than 6 square miles and crews had no containment of it, a Sequoia National Forest statement said.
The Windy fire, also started by lightning, has burned into part of the Peyrone Sequoia Grove in the national monument, and other groves were threatened.
“Due to inaccessible terrain, a preliminary assessment of the fire’s effects on giant sequoia trees within the grove will be difficult and may take days to complete,” the statement said.
The fire led the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office to warn the community of Johnsondale and Camp Whitsett, a Boy Scouts camp, to be ready to evacuate if necessary.
The wildfires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched nearly 3,550 square miles in California, destroying hundreds of homes.
Crews had limited ground access to the Colony fire and the extreme steepness of the terrain around the Paradise fire prevented it completely, requiring extensive aerial water and flame-retardant drops on both fires.
The two fires were being managed collectively as the KNP Complex.
(Noah Berger&John Antczak, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Rescue work was under way following the magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
It struck at 4:33 a.m. in Luxian country at a depth of 6 miles, the official Xinhua News Agency said. State broadcaster CCTV said that 60 people were injured and 35 houses had collapsed.
The epicenter was about 120 miles southeast of Chengdu, the provincial capital.
Western China is regularly hit by earthquakes. A magnitude 7.9 quake in May 2008 left nearly 90,000 people dead in Sichuan.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The Colony and Paradise fires, ignited by lightning strikes last week, covered about 8,960 acres in California’s steep Sierra Nevada on Wednesday night.
The Colony fire was a threat to Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 sequoias, but not imminently, said Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
The fires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched more than 2,240,000 acres in California, destroying hundreds of homes.
Sequoia National Park has been closed and its headquarters and resident employees have been evacuated, along with a portion of the community of Three Rivers outside the entrance.
The park’s historic wooden entrance sign dating to 1935 was covered in fire-resistant wrapping, and hoses were in place at the headquarters area for structure protection.
More than 300 firefighters were on the lines, aided by helicopters and air tankers when smoke conditions allowed. Today, a national interagency management team will take over the fires, being managed collectively as the KNP Complex, and even more resources are expected, Ruggiero said.
A 50-year history of using prescribed burns to remove other types of trees and vegetation in the park’s sequoia groves was expected to help the giants survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them, Ruggiero said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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This year's cholera outbreak, with a higher case fatality rate than the previous four years, is worsened by what many consider to be a bigger priority for state governments: the COVID-19 pandemic. Nigeria faces a resurgence of cases driven by the Delta variant, and less than 1 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.
At least 69,925 suspected cholera cases were recorded as of Sept. 5 in 25 of Nigeria's 36 states and in the capital, Abuja, according to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control. Children between 5 and 14 are the most affected age group. At least 2323 people have died from suspected cholera this year and the overall case fatality rate is 3.3 percent, but there are concerns that might by an undercount given that many affected communities are in hard to reach areas.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The Paradise and Colony fires — collectively called the KNP Complex — exploded to 5,861 acres by Tuesday afternoon, a leap of more than 4,800 acres from the day prior. Flames from the blaze, which has no containment, were lapping a little bit closer to dense areas of towering giant sequoia trees, according to Mark Ruggiero, a spokesperson for the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
An inversion layer over the fire lifted, causing it to pick up and tear through intense fuels, including drought-stricken trees further destroyed by bark beetles, and into drainage areas in the rugged terrain, said Ruggiero, who added that “the fire has intensified tremendously.”
As the Paradise fire — now 4,821 acres — made a downhill run, crossing the middle fork of the Kaweah River and the Generals Highway, employees were evacuated Tuesday from the Ash Mountain Headquarters Complex and nearby housing areas, including the community of Sycamore within the park, officials said.
Parts of the picturesque foothills community of Three Rivers were also under evacuation orders, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. The Paradise fire is burning about 3 to 4 miles east, Ruggiero said.
Evacuation orders are in place for the Silver City and Cabin Cove area on Mineral King Road, while other areas of Three Rivers are under evacuation warnings. There were 110 structures in the mandatory evacuation zone and 1,189 in areas under evacuation warnings, officials said at a community meeting Tuesday evening in Three Rivers.
Flames were lapping about a mile from the famed Giant Forest, the largest concentration of towering giant sequoias in the park and home to the 275-foot General Sherman tree — considered the world’s largest tree by volume, Ruggiero said.
The fires were nearer to the grove, but not yet an “imminent threat,” he said.
The fires, which began Thursday as storms rolled into the southern Sierra Nevada region, have been upgraded to a “type one” incident management category, which Ruggiero said is the highest level, bringing more resources to the blaze.
Nearby, a separate blaze — the Windy fire, which was burning to the south in the adjoining Sequoia National Forest — had moved into a grove of the enormous trees as it continued to grow at a moderate rate.
By Tuesday morning, that blaze, which ignited Thursday in the Tule River Indian Reservation before pushing into the forest, had seared 1,454 acres with no containment, fire officials said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The downgrade came the same day Nicholas blew ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, knocking out power to a half-million homes and businesses and dumping more than a foot of rain along the same area swamped by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Nicholas could potentially stall over storm-battered Louisiana and bring life-threatening floods across the Deep South over the coming days, forecasters said.
Nicholas made landfall early Tuesday on the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm. As night approached Tuesday, its center was 60 miles east-northeast of Houston, with maximum winds of 35 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. However, weather radar showed the heaviest rain was over southwestern Louisiana, well east of the storm center.
The storm is moving east-northeast at 6 mph. The National Hurricane Center said the storm may continue to slow and even stall, and although its winds will gradually subside, heavy rainfall and a significant flash flood risk will continue along the Gulf Coast for the next couple days.
Galveston, Texas, saw nearly 14 inches of rain from Nicholas, the 14th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, while Houston reported more than 6 inches of rain. That’s a fraction of what fell during Harvey, which dumped more than 60 inches of rain in southeast Texas over a four-day period.
In the small coastal town of Surfside Beach about 65 miles south of Houston, Kirk Klaus, 59, and his wife, Monica Klaus, 62, rode out the storm in their two-bedroom home, which sits about 6 to 8 feet above the ground on stilts.
“It was bad. I won’t ever do it again,” Kirk Klaus said.
He said it rained all day on Monday and, as the night progressed, the rainfall and winds got worse.
Sometime around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, the strong winds blew out two of his home’s windows, letting in rain and forcing the couple to continually mop their floors. Klaus said the rainfall and winds created a storm surge of about 2 feet in front of his home.
“It looked like a river out here,” he said.
Nicholas is moving so slowly it will dump several inches of rain as it crawls over Texas and southern Louisiana, meteorologists said. This includes areas already struck by Hurricane Ida and devastated last year by Hurricane Laura. Parts of Louisiana are saturated with nowhere for the extra water to go, so it will flood, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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All three fires ignited Thursday after a series of thunderstorms rolled in, sending more than 130 lighting strikes into the southern Sierra Nevada and sparking the Paradise and Colony fires in the two parks. Collectively called the KNP Complex, the fires have since seared 1,037 acres with no containment, forcing the closure of the Sequoia National Park while the Kings Canyon side remained open, according to Mark Ruggiero, a public information officer for the national parks.
A separate blaze, dubbed the Windy fire, had seared 974 acres in the Sequoia National Forest. It had burned into the Peyrone Sequoia grove, part of the Giant Sequoia National Monument, according to Kate Kramer, a spokesperson for the fire.
To tamp down fire risk, all national forests in California — including Sequoia — were closed last month, with closures scheduled to last at least through Friday.
Flames were on the perimeter of the towering trees — which can rise more than 250 feet and live for 3,000 years — but it wasn’t immediately known whether the fire had felled any, Kramer said.
The national parks also contain groves of giant sequoias, including the 275-foot tall General Sherman tree. Although the fires are not near the General Sherman tree or any of the other groves of giant redwoods, they are considered a “threat” to the sequoias, Ruggiero said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said top sustained winds reached 75 mph. It was traveling north-northeast at 10 mph on a forecast track to pass near Matagorda Bay in the upper Texas Gulf Coast later Monday, then move onshore along the Southeast Texas coast into today.
Nicholas was centered roughly 45 miles southwest of Freeport, Texas, as of late Monday.
The hurricane could bring up to 20 inches of rain to parts of the Gulf Coast, including the same area hit by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and storm-battered Louisiana.
Although the system was expected to generate only a fraction as much rain as Harvey, nearly all of the state’s coastline was under a tropical storm warning that included potential flash floods and urban flooding. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said authorities placed rescue teams and resources in the Houston area and along the coast.
In Houston, officials worried that heavy rain could inundate streets and flood homes. Authorities deployed high-water rescue vehicles throughout the city and erected barricades at more than 40 locations that tend to flood, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
“This city is very resilient. We know what we need to do. We know about preparing,” said Turner, referencing four major flood events that have hit the Houston area in recent years, including devastating damage from Harvey, which flooded more than 150,000 homes in the Houston area.
Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo asked residents to stay off the roads Monday evening to avoid risking their lives or the lives of first responders who might be called to rescue them from flooded roadways.
“What I need each resident to do is get where you need to be by 6 p.m. and stay there,” said Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which includes Houston.
The Houston school district, the state’s largest, announced that classes would be canceled today because of the incoming storm. The weather threat also closed multiple COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites in the Houston and Corpus Christi areas.
Nicholas was headed toward the same area of Texas that was hit hard by Harvey. That storm made landfall, then stalled for four days, dropping more than 60 inches of rain in parts of southeast Texas. Harvey was blamed for at least 68 deaths, including 36 in the Houston area.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The blaze in Malaga province has destroyed nearly 17,300 acres of forest and prompted fresh evacuations, bringing the total number of residents displaced to around 2,500.
Plan Infoca, the Andalusia region’s agency in charge of firefighting efforts, described Sunday as a key day for bringing the blaze under control.
Authorities on Sunday preventatively removed nearly 1,500 residents from the towns of Jubrique, Genalguacil and four other villages. Over 1,000 other people had been evacuated before the weekend from areas around the resort town of Estepona, which is popular among tourists and foreign expats.
An emergency brigade traveled from the military base of Moron, in southern Spain, to join more than 300 firefighters and 41 water-dropping aircraft battling the flames.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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And as if Hurricane Ida didn’t take enough, it has also put the boys’ education on hold.
“They’re ready to get inside, go to school, get some air conditioning,” said 32-year-old Williams, who has twin 5-year-olds and a 7-year-old and is more pessimistic than officials about when they might be back in class. “The way it’s looking like now, it’s going to be next August.”
After a year and a half of pandemic disruptions that drove children from schools and pulled down test scores, at least 169,000 Louisiana children are out of class again, their studies derailed by the storm. The hurricane followed a rocky reopening in August that led to more COVID-19 infections and classroom closures, and now it will be weeks before some students go back again.
“How concerned am I? If you pick up a thesaurus, whatever’s the word for ‘most concerned,’” said Jarod Martin, superintendent of schools in hard-hit Lafourche Parish, southwest of New Orleans. “We were brimming with optimism and confident that we were going to defeat COVID, confident we were on a better path. And now we’ve got another setback.”
In the most devastated areas, returning to class requires not only schools be repaired or temporary classrooms set up, but for students and staff scattered around the country to come back. That means they must have homes with electricity and running water. Buses must run, cafeterias must be stocked with food and on and on.
After the storm destroyed their house in Dulac, a stretch of Cajun country swampland, 43-year-old Penny Verdin’s two children and a nephew she cares for began living in their car. After a year in which nearly the whole family fell sick with COVID-19 and Verdin’s disability checks were suddenly halted, she’s worried about them falling behind in their studies.
“It’s going to be a big catch-up,” she says.
Some children arrived back in class last month for the first time since the shutdowns began, but the return led to nearly 7,000 infections of students and teachers in the opening weeks. More quarantines, shutdowns and disruptions resulted.
The latest state standardized test scores, released in August, showed a 5 percent drop in proficiency among students across Louisiana.
The state’s education superintendent, Cade Brumley, acknowledged that students “did lose a little bit” and that Ida dealt another blow, but he said all students would likely be back in a matter of weeks.
“We need to get those kids back with us as soon as we possibly can,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire broke out Saturday afternoon near Castaic in northern Los Angeles County. Pushed by 10 to 15 mph winds, the blaze chewed through tinder-dry brush and jumped across the busy freeway, spread across more than a half of a square mile.
The California Highway Patrol closed a stretch of the interstate for several hours as air tankers dropped bright-orange retardant on the flames. A large flareup sent heavy smoke drifting toward freeway lanes Sunday afternoon, the CHP reported.
Two firefighters were taken to the hospital to treat burn injuries, said Andrew Mitchell, a spokesman for the Angeles National Forest.
The fire remained uncontained due to the mountainous terrain, but firefighters made progress overnight with the help of water-dropping aircraft and an aggressive ground attack, Mitchell said.
He said crews will take advantage of the beginning of a cooling trend Sunday to build containment lines.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Meanwhile, a fire that erupted Sunday afternoon prompted Mendocino County authorities to evacuate parts of Calpella, a community on the Russian River about 6 miles north of Ukiah. Video footage posted on Twitter shows the fire pushing in the direction of Lake Mendocino.
Further north, residents of a mountain town devastated by the huge Caldor fire south of Lake Tahoe were allowed back Sunday to inspect the damage. Most of Grizzly Flat’s homes, as well as the school, post office, church and fire station, were destroyed in the first days of the month-old fire. Evacuation orders were also lifted for homes along State Route 50 as containment of the 342-square-mile wildfire increased to 65 percent.
Firefighters were diverted from battling blaze to fight multiple overnight lightning fires when thunderstorms swept across the state Thursday night into Friday.
The thunderstorms dropped light rain to slightly dampen the drought-stricken north, fire officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Forecasters say that 80 strikes happened along the coast or just offshore and 21 happened in the local mountains through 10 p.m.
There were 153 strikes in the Inland Empire.
The thunderstorms first came ashore in the Chula Vista area early Thursday evening and spread up and along the coast, producing dozens of lightning flashes in San Diego, National City, Mission Valley, UTC, Del Mar, Carmel Valley, Solana Beach and Encinitas.
The lightning was bright enough to be seen up the coast in San Clemente and off to the east, in places like Vista and El Cajon.
The thunderstorms also produced brief showers in some areas. They did nothing to alleviate the region’s dry conditions. San Diego could finish the current rainy season on September 30 with less than 5 inches of rain, or less than half of its average rainfall.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Larry made landfall as a Category 1 storm just after midnight Friday along the southern coast of the island, bringing sheets of rain and sustained winds of 80 miles per hour across the Avalon Peninsula, which includes the provincial capital of St. John’s.
The city’s streets were lined with fallen branches Saturday morning, and trees were uprooted and overturned on many lawns. The City of St. John’s asked residents to stay home so crews could clean up the torn branches, downed power lines and scattered debris.
“Hurricane Larry caused a significant amount of tree and property damage throughout our city,” said St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen at a news conference Saturday.
Still, he said, “it could have been a lot worse.”
A small crowd gathered around Mary Queen of Peace elementary school Saturday, shaking their heads slowly as fragments of the school’s shredded roof whipped around in the remaining winds. A large part of the roof was blown clear off the building and lay in a heap of siding and nail-riddled boards on the ground some distance away.
Nearly 10,000 people in St. John’s were still without power on Saturday evening, Newfoundland Power’s website said. Earlier in the day, more than 30,000 in the metro region were in the dark.
Lights and coffee makers were on at a Tim Horton’s near the Rooms provincial art gallery, and the lineup to get a morning coffee snaked through the restaurant and out the door.
Brandon Snook was outside the coffee shop with his infant son, Myles, as his wife grabbed a few cups inside. They didn’t have any power to make their own, he said.
Myles slept through the entire night, Snook said, clearly impressed. “My sister, her little little one lost her playhouse,” he said. “It got smashed up against the house in about 2 million pieces.”
His own house made it through OK, he said — just a bit of siding peeled loose.
An empty building nearby in the Rawlins Cross intersection wasn’t so lucky; several of its traffic-facing windows were shattered in their frames, leaving the inside of the building completely exposed.
Up the street, parts of the green iron fencing surrounding the Basilica Cathedral had fallen down and several of the massive structure’s windows were missing.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary urged pedestrians and drivers across the peninsula to stay home as officers swept the area to report fallen trees and power lines.
Newfoundland Power, meanwhile, assured those in the dark that crews had been out since daybreak to work on the power lines.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm came ashore near San Jose del Cabo late Thursday as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. but winds had dropped to 45 mph by Friday afternoon.
Officials say they had received no reports of lives lost.
The national electrical company reported the storm knocked out power to most customers in the state, but it was gradually being restored. Some hotels reported minor damage.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Firefighters were diverted from the huge Caldor fire south of Lake Tahoe to fight multiple overnight lightning fires throughout El Dorado County, according to the local unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The largest of those fires erupted in heavy brush in the steep terrain of Kanaka Valley. Rain from the storm cell helped firefighters, and the fire’s spread was stopped at less than 7 acres, Cal Fire said.
Another fire believed to have been sparked by lightning was burning in Mendocino County, north of San Francisco Bay. The Press Democrat reported it covered 8 acres Friday morning.
Lightning blitzes can have disastrous outcomes in parched California. Last year’s record amount of land burned included huge Northern California fires that were ignited when remnants of a tropical storm unleashed thousands of bolts.
A cluster of 2020 lightning fires known as the August Complex burned more than 1,615 square miles (4,182 square kilometers[; 1,035,000 acres) and is considered the largest California wildfire on record.
The National Weather Service said there were more than 1,100 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in California between Thursday evening and Friday morning, including 110 in the Bay Area. Cloud-to-cloud flashes were too numerous to count.
The threat of new lightning-sparked fires came as more than 13,000 firefighters were working to rein in 13 major fires and more than 12,700 residents were still waiting to return to evacuated homes, according to state agencies.
The Caldor fire, the 15th-largest in state history, was 53 percent contained after burning more than 218,240 acres and destroying more than 1,000 structures, including hundreds of homes.
In the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, the Dixie fire covered more than 950,000 acres. Second in size to the August Complex, it has destroyed more than 1,300 structures.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Wildfire spending in California has more than tripled since 2005, surpassing $3 billion last year. But most of that money is spent on putting out fires, not preventing them.
That strategy hasn’t been working in an era of climate change that is making fires larger than ever and more difficult to put out. Fifteen of the state’s most destructive wildfires have occurred in the last 10 years. Five of the largest wildfires in state history happened just last year, and a fire that’s still burning this year is the second largest ever.
New spending approved Thursday brings California’s wildfire prevention budget to more than $1.5 billion. The money will pay for things like the strategic clearing of brush and trees that could fuel massive fires in the future. It will also pay for a bevy of inspectors to review homes in wildfire prone areas before they are sold.
Lawmakers also approved an additional $1.2 billion to pay for things like grants to plan for climate change, water recycling projects and cleaning up contaminated water sources. Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Kevin Mullin, a Democrat from South San Francisco, called it “the largest state-level investment in climate resilience, ever.”
But some lawmakers from both parties were disappointed with the final spending package. State Sen. Bob Wieckowski, a Democrat from Fremont, said Newsom got everything he wanted in the budget while lawmakers had to sacrifice some of their priorities, including hundreds of millions of dollars in additional spending for various sate conservancies that promote and protect undeveloped landscapes.
The drought in the western United States has drained California’s complex system of 1,500 reservoirs that store water for drinking, agriculture, energy and fish habitat throughout the year. One of the biggest, Lake Oroville in Northern California, has so little water that state officials were forced to shut down a large hydroelectric power plant for the first time ever.
Yet California’s spending plan does not have any money for water storage projects. The Newsom administration noted about $2.7 billion is set aside for seven water storage projects, including a plan to build the largest new reservoir in California in more than 40 years. But Assemblymember Vince Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield and vice chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, said voters approved that money seven years ago and so far nothing has been built.
“This budget is a missed opportunity,” Fong said. “We have the resources, we have the projects, but we apparently lack the political will.”
The bills approved Thursday represent agreements reached between Newsom and Democratic leadership in the Legislature. But they couldn’t agree on everything, leaving about $3.3 billion in transportation money unspent. That means about $1 billion for infrastructure projects to prepare for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will be delayed while negotiations continue into next year.
Other items caught some lawmakers by surprise, including raises for commissioners on the Public Utilities Commission of 5 percent per year for the next three years. The commission regulates utility companies in the state, and lawmakers have been furious with them for not coming down hard enough on large investor-owned utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric, which owns equipment that has started numerous deadly and destructive wildfires.
The five commissioners earned between $207,000 and $283,000 in salary and benefits last year, according to data compiled by Transparent California. The Newsom administration requested the raises “in order to ensure we continue to be competitive with salaries,” according to Assemblymember Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco and chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.
Thursday’s votes marked the end of a budget year that saw large swings in revenue as lawmakers tried and failed to accurately predict the pandemic’s impact on the economy.
Last year, Newsom and the Democratic-dominated Legislature cut spending, raised taxes and delayed funding across state government because they thought the state was headed toward a devastating $54.3 billion deficit after the coronavirus forced a statewide shutdown of schools and many businesses.
Instead, revenues soared as most office workers kept their jobs — and kept paying taxes — while they transitioned to working from home. Meanwhile, the super-wealthy saw their net worth skyrocket on the back of a strong stock market, pouring billions of dollars in capital gains taxes into the state treasury. The result was a $47 billion surplus for California.
Adding in other new money including aid from the federal government and new revenue for schools means California had more than $100 billion in new money to spend.
(Adam Beam, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The effects have been devastating. A heat wave that blanketed the Pacific Northwest in July claimed the lives of hundreds, including immigrant farmworkers and the elderly. An estimated 1 billion sea creatures died of heat off the coast, and the Sacramento River is facing a “near-complete loss” of young Chinook salmon because of abnormally warm waters.
And there was so much fire. Searing heat dried the state’s landscape and helped pave the way for more than 2 million acres to burn, with officials fearing the worst is yet to come. The blazes sent scores of residents fleeing from their homes and choked countless others with lung-burning smoke.
“All these records are being broken, and broken in quick succession,” said Karen McKinnon, an assistant professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, “and that’s basically indicative of this trend that is largely due to climate change.”
Sixteen other states also saw a top-five warmest summer on record, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which issued its findings Thursday. Nationwide, the stretch from June to August tied the 1936 Dust Bowl summer as the hottest on record, with temperatures across the country averaging 2.6 degrees above average.
Alan Barreca, an environmental economist at UCLA, said the record summer months were not surprising given the “fairly steady increase in temperatures in California and throughout the world” — but they are concerning.
Extreme heat is among the deadliest of natural disasters, he said, and soaring temperatures often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including pregnant women and infants, elderly people, homeless people, and residents of low-income neighborhoods.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Meanwhile, the manager of the state’s power grid extended a statewide Flex Alert until at least tonight, calling for voluntary electricity conservation.
It’s possible that the monsoon will spark lightning in the mountains, which will increase the wildfire danger if the thunderstorms don’t produce rain. There’s also a slight chance the storms could travel as far as El Cajon and the San Pasqual Valley.
The National Weather Service says the monsoon will ease by Friday. But temperatures across inland valleys will be in the low- to mid-90s today through Sunday.
The California Independent System Operator’s initial Flex Alert was in effect from 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday “due to predicted high energy demand and tight supplies on the power grid.”
“The power grid operator is predicting an increase in electricity demand, primarily from air conditioning use,” Cal-ISO said. “The increased demand can make electricity supplies tight and strain the power grid, making conservation essential.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Cal-ISO extended the alert from 4 to 9 p.m. today.
During the Flex Alert time period, consumers are asked to lower their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, if health permits, and take other voluntary measures, including avoiding the use of major appliances and unnecessary lights.
To take full advantage of all available supply, the ISO has also issued a restricted maintenance operation for noon to 9 p.m. today, notifying ISO participants to avoid taking grid assets offline for routine maintenance until the restricted maintenance operation is lifted.
“Conserving electricity during the late afternoon and early evening is crucial because that is when the grid is most stressed due to higher demand and declining solar energy production,” ISO said. “In the past, reducing energy use during a Flex Alert has helped operators keep the power grid stable during tight supply conditions and prevented further emergency measures, including rotating power outages.”
The daytime high in San Diego today is expected to reach 79, 80 on Friday and 82 on Saturday. Forecasters say temperatures will be in the upper 70s at 7:30 p.m. Saturday when a large crowd gathers at the Rady Shell on San Diego Bay to watch Classic Albums Live perform the Pink Floyd album “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Sea surface temperatures have warmed up a bit in recent days and are now in the upper 60s, which is still several degrees below average. The surf will remain comparatively small into the weekend. But the weather service says a south swell will arrive on Sunday and could produce waves up to 7 feet in the favored spots of northern San Diego County and southern Orange County by Tuesday.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The magnitude 7 quake, which struck outside Acapulco at 8:47 p.m. local time Tuesday, killed at least two people, authorities said. One was a 19-year-old motorcyclist in Coyuca de Benitez, about 30 miles northwest of Acapulco. The other was an elderly woman who died when a fence toppled onto her home in an outlying district of the resort city, Mayor Adela Rom&aacyte;n Ocampo said.
In Acapulco, nervous residents and tourists slept on benches or in parked cars Tuesday night as aftershocks jolted the city.
“People are afraid to go back into their homes,” the mayor said in a phone interview. The city government opened up sports facilities so residents would have a safe place to rest, she said.
Most damage was minor: Shattered windows, roof tiles that clattered to the ground, gas leaks at a few hotels. But the Acapulco airport was closed to commercial flights after problems were detected in the control tower, the mayor said. “They are rushing to do the repair work,” she said.
Highway crews labored Wednesday to open roads blocked by rocks and landslides, including the Carretera Escénica, the curving coastal highway linking Acapulco to the nearby tourist hub of Punta Diamante.
The National Seismological Service reported more than 200 aftershocks, including one that reached 5.2 magnitude.
Cracked walls and other minor damage was reported at buildings throughout Guerrero state, including two hospitals where patients had to be evacuated.
Electricity was restored by Wednesday morning to most of the 1.9 million people in central Mexico who lost power, according to the Federal Electricity Commission.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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While New Orleans was generally rebounding from the storm, hundreds of thousands of people outside the city remained without electricity and some of the hardest-hit areas still had no water. Across southeastern Louisiana, 250,000 students were unable to return to classrooms 10 days after Ida roared ashore with 150 mph winds.
The latest deaths attributed to Ida happened between Aug. 30 and Monday, but were just confirmed as storm-related by the Orleans Parish coroner, the Louisiana Department of Health said in a statement. Nine of the New Orleans deaths — of people ages 64 to 79 — came from “excessive heat during an extended power outage,” while the two others were from carbon monoxide poisoning, the department said.
More than a million people were left without power, including the entire city of New Orleans, when Ida struck on Aug. 29. The state’s largest power company, Entergy, said it expected to have electricity in the city restored to 90 percent by Wednesday evening.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Typhoon Conson carried sustained winds of 74 miles per hour with gusts of up to 93 mph, first making landfall at the coastal town of Hernani in Eastern Samar province before hitting nearby Samar province, the state weather service said.
“We only have minor damage here, thank God,”
Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone said in a text message.
He said work had been suspended in government offices.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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A video posted on the agency’s social media feed said about 40 other patients survived as waters rose swiftly in downtown Tula, about 60 miles north of Mexico City, and flooded the public hospital around 6 a.m.
Video recorded inside the hospital showed knee-deep water as staff frantically tried to move patients.
Later Tuesday, emergency personnel evacuated the hospital, loading patients into ambulances to be taken to other health centers.
IMSS Director Zoe Robledo said the water knocked out power to the area as well as the hospital’s generators.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles northeast of Acapulco. The U.S. tsunami warning system issued a tsunami threat for Mexico. It said no U.S. states were at risk.
“We heard loud noise from the building, noise from the windows, things fell inside the house, the power went out,” said Sergio Flores, an Acapulco resident reached by phone. “We heard leaking water, the water went out of the pool and you heard people screaming, very nervous people.”
All he could do when it started shaking was hug his wife, Flores said. He saw people leaving hotels around the bay and some running into parking decks to remove their cars, fearing a collapse.
The mayor of Acapulco, Adela Roman, said in statement to the television news outlet Milenio that “there is no really serious situation” so far and no reports of casualties.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said via Twitter that authorities in the four states that most felt the earthquake told him there were no victims or serious damage beyond some collapsed walls and falling rocks.
“Fortunately there is not serious damage,” he said. “Fortunately, so far we don’t have information about the loss of any lives.”
Mexico’s National Civil Defense said it was conducting reviews in 10 states, but had not received reports of victims nor serious damage.
In Mexico City, the ground shook for nearly a minute in some parts of the capital, but the quake was less evident in other parts. Some people evacuated their buildings briefly, but most quickly went back inside on a rainy night.
Mexico City authorities said there were no early reports of significant damage in the city, though they said electricity was knocked out in some neighborhoods.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire ignited 54 days ago in the dense forest of Plumas County. In the days and weeks that followed, it garnered several ominous designations — including the second-largest wildfire in California history, and the first of two to burn from one side of the Sierra to the other.
Now it is on the brink of joining 2020’s August Complex in infamy: That fire was the first in California to surpass 1 million acres, and the Dixie may soon join it. As of Tuesday, the fire had burned 917,579 acres and was 59 percent contained.
Officials said conditions are primed for the Dixie fire to continue to burn.
“For the next seven days, we expect no precipitation at all, which is what this fire really needs,” incident meteorologist Jack Messick said. “It’s not there.”
Messick said sunny skies will meet with near-record heat in some areas of the fire this week, including temperatures in the high 90s around Milford and Herlong, where crews are scrambling to maintain containment lines along the Highway 395 corridor.
Additional property loss has been reported in the north end of Dixie Valley, bringing the total number of structures destroyed by the fire to 1,282, officials said. Nearly 6,000 structures remain threatened by the fire.
The Dixie fire is also still very active in the rugged wilderness of Lassen National Volcanic Park, where firefighters are contending with steep terrain as they work to battle the flames.
Officials said they may get a break later in the week as winds dissipate and firefighting conditions improve. Portions of the fire are also lapping at the perimeter of the recent Sugar fire, and tying the two blazes together could help slow the spread of flames due to a lack of unburned vegetation.
Meanwhile, the fight against the Caldor fire south of the Dixie fire is not yet finished. That fire on Tuesday grew to 216,645 acres and was 49 percent contained, officials said.
Portions of the blaze along the northeast and southern edges remained active overnight, and crews on Tuesday were focused on keeping spot fires in check and reinforcing containment lines.
But the battle to save South Lake Tahoe was by many accounts a success, as crews last week managed to keep the fire from taking hold in the popular resort town.
Officials credited aggressive firefighting, improved weather conditions and past forest management efforts with helping to prevent a worst-case scenario.
More than a dozen large fires are burning in California.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Biden spoke after walking streets in New Jersey and then Queens in New York City, meeting people whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged by flooding when Ida barreled through. The storm dumped record amounts of rain onto already saturated ground and was blamed for more than a dozen deaths in the city.
The president said he thinks the damage everyone is seeing, from wildfires in the West to hurricane havoc in the South and Northeast, is turning climate-change skeptics into believers, but that years of unheeded warnings from scientists, economists and others mean time for action is short.
“The threat is here. It is not getting any better,” Biden said in New York. “The question is can it get worse. We can stop it from getting worse.”
Biden sounded a similar theme before he toured Manville, N.J., also ravaged by severe flooding caused by Ida.
“Every part of the country, every part of the country is getting hit by extreme weather,” Biden said during a briefing with officials in Somerset County, including Gov. Phil Murphy.
He said the threat from wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and other extreme weather must be dealt with in ways that will lessen devastating effects of climate change.
“We can’t turn it back very much, but we can prevent it from getting worse,“ he said. “We don’t have any more time.”
The natural disasters have given Biden an opening to push Congress to approve his plan to spend $1 trillion to fortify infrastructure nationwide, including electrical grids, water and sewer systems, to better defend against extreme weather. The legislation has cleared the Senate and awaits a House vote.
Biden also talked up a side benefit of the plan, the “good-paying jobs” he said it will create.
In all, at least 50 people were killed in six Eastern states as record rainfall last week overwhelmed rivers and sewer systems. Some people were trapped in fast-filling basement apartments and cars, or were swept away as they tried to escape. The storm also spawned several tornadoes.
Biden’s visit followed his Friday trip to Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida first made landfall on Aug. 29, killing at least 15 people in the state. He also used the visit to argue for infrastructure spending.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The swell also will produce strong rip currents. Swimmers and novice surfers are encouraged to stay in front of lifeguard towers when they enter the ocean.
Forecasters say the strongest surf and rip currents will occur north of Carlsbad, and that the waves could hit 6 feet in parts of southern Orange County.
Sea surface temperatures are in the mid-60s, or about five to six degrees below average. The chill is caused by upwelling along the entire San Diego County coastline.
But while the water was cool, air temperatures around the region were not.
A heat advisory was in effect Sunday for San Diego County’s inland valleys and mountains, and was extended through tonight for the mountain areas, while inland valleys were expected to cool a bit heading into Tuesday, said James Brotherton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“It was a hot one. It is going to be hot for inland areas through tomorrow, and then we start to cool off Tuesday — although the desert areas will still be hot Tuesday,” Brotherton said Sunday.
A much stronger sea breeze and thicker marine layer are expected today, which should drop temperatures in inland valley areas 5 degrees cooler or maybe more, he said.
Valley Center recorded a high temperature of 101 on Sunday, while Escondido and Santee had a high of 96 and La Mesa hit 85. It was much cooler along the coast, with Oceanside Harbor reporting a high of 72, Del Mar was 76 and Encinitas had a high of 81.
Forecasters are predicting a return of monsoonal weather to the region mid-week, and say that could bring thunderstorms to mountain and desert areas from Wednesday through Friday.
(Gary Robbins, Karen Kutcher, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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In Jefferson Parish, the Rev. G. Amaldoss expected to celebrate Mass at St. Joachim Catholic Church in the parking lot, which was dotted with downed limbs. But when he swung open the doors of the church early Sunday, the sanctuary was bathed in light. That made an indoor service possible.
“Divine intervention,” Amaldoss said, pressing his hands together and looking toward the sky.
A week after Hurricane Ida struck, many in Louisiana continue to face food, water and gas shortages as well as power outages while battling heat and humidity. The storm was blamed for at least 16 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In the Northeast, Ida’s remnants dumped record-breaking rain and killed at least 50 people from Virginia to Connecticut.
As Mass began Sunday, Amaldoss walked down the aisle of the church in his green robe, with just eight people spread among the pews. Instead, the seats brimmed with boxes of donated toothpaste, shampoo and canned vegetables.
“For all the people whose lives are saved and all the people whose lives are lost, we pray for them,” he said. “Remember the brothers and sisters driven by the wind and the water.”
Through the wall of windows behind the altar, beyond the swamp abutting the church, the floodgates that saved the building could be seen. The Gospel was the story of Jesus bringing sight to a blind man, and throughout the tiny church, stories of miracles were repeated.
Wynonia Lazaro gave thanks for newly restored power in her home, where the only casualties of Ida were some downed trees and loosened shingles.
“We are extremely blessed,” she said.
Some parishioners suffered total losses of their homes, or devastating damage. Gina Caulfield, a 64-year-old retired teacher, has been hopping from relative to relative after her cousin’s trailer, where she’d been living, was left uninhabitable. Still, she was grateful to have survived the storm.
“It’s a comfort to know we have people praying for us,” she said.
Some parishes outside New Orleans were battered for hours by winds of 100 mph or more, and Ida damaged or destroyed more than 22,000 power poles, more than hurricanes Katrina, Zeta and Delta combined.
More than 630,000 homes and businesses remained without power Sunday across southeast Louisiana, according to the state Public Service Commission. At the peak, 902,000 customers had lost power.
Fully restoring electricity to some places in the state’s southeast could take until the end of the month, according Phillip May, president and CEO of Entergy, which provides power to New Orleans and other areas in the storm’s path.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Caldor Fire remained only a few miles from the city of South Lake Tahoe, which was emptied of 22,000 residents days ago, along with casinos and shops across the state line in Nevada, but no significant fire activity occurred since Thursday, officials said.
Tim Ernst, an operations section chief, said fire officials were cautiously optimistic thanks to “a lot of hard work” by firefighters over the past two weeks.
The nearly 333-square-mile (213,120-acre) fire was not making any significant advances and was not challenging containment lines in long sections of its perimeter, but Ernst said “the risk is still out there” with some areas that remained hot.
Residents on western and northern sides of the fires were allowed back home by Friday afternoon, but fire officials said they don’t have a specific timeline for repopulating South Lake Tahoe. Utility companies have to make sure power is restored, fire crews will have to remove hazardous trees and other threats to power lines, and roadways have to be cleared of debris.
Jake Cagle, another operations section chief, said fire and law enforcement officials are evaluating the issue in meetings several times a day to determine when to lift evacuation orders.
“It’s all based on fire behavior. For now, things are looking good. On that contingent, we’re getting close,” he said.
The fire had been driven northeast on a course leading to South Lake Tahoe for days by southwestern winds, but that pattern ended this week. Calmer winds and increased humidity Thursday and Friday helped crews increase containment of the blaze to 29 percent.
“Very positive trends with regards to weather,” said Dean Gould, a U.S. Forest Service administrator. “That’s huge for us. Let’s take full advantage of it while we have this window.”
With the fire growing at the smallest rate in two weeks, he said, “Things are clearly heading in the right direction for us.”
Amid the positive outlook, incident meteorologist Jim Dudley warned that “just because we don’t have red flag wind conditions across the fire, the wind threat is still there and it’s all localized.”
The fire — which began Aug. 14 — was still considered a threat to more than 30,000 homes, businesses and other buildings ranging from cabins to ski resorts.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The disaster underscored with heartbreaking clarity how vulnerable the U.S. is to the extreme weather that climate change is bringing. In its wake, officials weighed far-reaching new measures to save lives in future storms.
More than three days after the hurricane blew ashore in Louisiana, Ida’s rainy remains hit the Northeast with stunning fury on Wednesday and Thursday, submerging cars, swamping subway stations and basement apartments and drowning scores of people in five states.
Intense rain overwhelmed urban drainage systems never meant to handle so much water in such a short time — a record 3 inches in just an hour in New York. Seven rivers in the Northeast reached their highest levels on record, Dartmouth University researcher Evan Dethier said.
On Friday, communities labored to haul away ruined vehicles, pump out homes and highways, clear away muck and other debris and restore mass transit.
At least 25 people perished in New Jersey, the most of any state. Most drowned after their vehicles were caught in flash floods. A family of three and their neighbor were killed as 12 to 14 feet of water filled their apartments in Elizabeth, N.J.
While the storm ravaged homes and the electrical grid in Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving more than 800,000 people without power as of Friday, it seemingly proved more lethal more than 1,000 miles away, where the Northeast death toll outstripped the 13 lives reported lost so far in the Deep South.
Ida stands as the deadliest hurricane in the U.S. in four years.
President Joe Biden walked the streets of a hard-hit Louisiana neighborhood on Friday and told local residents, “I know you’re hurting, I know you’re hurting.”
Biden pledged robust federal assistance to get people back on their feet and said the government already had distributed $100 million directly to individuals in the state in $500 checks to give them a first slice of critical help.
Biden met with state and local officials in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered major wind and water damage and was left with sheared-off roofs and flooded homes.
“I promise we’re going to have your back,” Biden said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Strong winds and dry conditions that drove the Caldor fire east through high elevations of the Sierra Nevada for days faded, sparing for now the largest city of a recreational gem that straddles the California-Nevada state line. Thousands were forced to flee South Lake Tahoe earlier this week.
“I feel like we are truly the luckiest community in the entire world right now. I’m so incredibly happy,” said Mayor Tamara Wallace, who evacuated to Truckee.
But wind gusts were likely in some areas, and the forest was still extremely dry, officials warned. The fire is pushing on several fronts, threatening multiple communities.
Still, the mood was one of optimism, given the speed with which the fire grew earlier in the week. Flames raced so quickly toward the resort city that officials ordered a mass evacuation of all 22,000 residents on Monday before ordering those across the state line in Douglas County, Nev., to leave a day later.
“It’s finally a chance to take a breath,” said Clive Savacool, chief of South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue. “It’s a breath full of smoke. Nonetheless, I think we’re all breathing a little bit easier and we feel like we’re making some progress.”
Russ Crupi, who two days ago was arranging sprinklers around his mobile home park in South Lake Tahoe just miles from the fire line, had turned off the water for now, feeling confident his neighborhood was no longer under threat. The nearby mountains, cloaked in smoke for most of the week, had become visible.
“I’m just happy they stopped it. It looked close,” he said.
The Caldor fire spanned more than 328 square miles (209,920 acres) and was 25 percent contained Thursday. Its northeast tip was about 3 miles south of South Lake Tahoe and nearing the California-Nevada state line, where visitors like to hit the casinos in Stateline.
About 15 million people visit Lake Tahoe every year for hiking, snowboarding, water sports and gambling. The possibility that wildfire might rip through the international destination alarmed those who have vivid memories of vacationing at Tahoe.
California has experienced increasingly larger and deadlier wildfires in recent years as climate change has made the West much warmer and drier over the past 30 years. Scientists have said weather will continue to be more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable. No deaths have been reported so far this fire season.
Fire crews from around the country joined in the fight against the fire, which broke out Aug. 14 southwest of the Lake Tahoe area, chasing residents from more remote areas of El Dorado County. Officials said that at least 622 homes, 12 commercial properties and 177 minor structures have been destroyed, though the tally is incomplete because many areas are not safe to be surveyed.
The Caldor fire still threatens at least 33,000 more homes and structures. On Wednesday, firefighters were ferried by boat to protect cabins at nearby Echo Lake, while three of the region’s largest ski resorts, Heavenly, Kirkwood and Sierra at Tahoe, brought out snow-making devices to hose down buildings.
Jonathan Pierce, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said crews are chasing spot fires and trying to keep flames away from populated areas.
There was no timeline for when residents might return.
South Lake Tahoe can easily accommodate 100,000 people on a busy weekend, but on Thursday, just before the Labor Day weekend, it was eerily empty. Thick smoke made it difficult to see across the street, said Savacool, the fire chief.
“It’s really just a dead, dead town and it’s got an apocalyptic feel with garbage strewn about from the bears,” he said.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a federal emergency declaration and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local resources for firefighting efforts and relief for residents in four counties affected by the fire.
(Sam Metz&Janie Har, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The flash flooding, dangerous in some eastern parts of Spain since Wednesday, didn’t lead to any direct casualties.
But two young German women drowned overnight Wednesday when they went swimming in the sea on the tourist-magnet island of Mallorca.
In Spain’s northeastern town of Alcanar, one of the worst-hit areas by the sudden downpour, residents said Thursday that they were fortunate that no lives were lost when more than 45 gallons per square yard (8 inches) were dumped on the town between 12 a.m. and 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The flash flooding quickly turned streets into swift rivers that swept away all in their path. Several cars were carried away and around a dozen ended up tossed into the surf of the Mediterranean Sea. Homes and businesses were filled with mud, water and debris.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The last storm this deadly in the region, Sandy in 2012, did its damage mostly through tidal surges. But most of this storm’s toll — both in human life and property damage — reflected the extent to which the sheer volume of rain simply overwhelmed the infrastructure of a region built for a different meteorological era.
Officials warned that the unthinkable was quickly becoming the norm.
“There are no more cataclysmic ‘unforeseeable’ events,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday. “We need to foresee these in advance and be prepared.”
The rain was shocking in its intensity. More than 3 inches fell in a single hour in Central Park on Wednesday night, shattering a record that had been set just days before by Tropical Storm Henri. Across the region, more than half a foot of rain fell within a few hours and several places in New York and New Jersey reported more than 9 inches.
The deluge turned streets into rivers across the Northeast and trapped people in flooded basement apartments. Emergency workers in boats rescued people stranded on the roofs of their cars.
The storm spawned tornadoes that reduced houses in a southern New Jersey township to splinters, cut power to more than 200,000 homes and in Philadelphia sent the Schuylkill River to near-record levels and submerged part of a highway.
Twenty-three people died in New Jersey, including at least three people who were submerged in their cars and four in an apartment complex in Elizabeth, across from a flooded firehouse. Fifteen people died in New York state, most of them in basement apartments in New York City. Four people died in Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, at least three by drowning. And a state police sergeant in Connecticut died after his car was swept away by floodwaters.
The storm also crippled mass transit. Much of New York City’s subway system was partly or wholly suspended for most of Thursday; the storm shut down commuter rail lines, grounded planes and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from stalled trains.
And it left Americans wondering how a storm that had slammed Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane and left the power grid there in shambles had somehow grown to its most deadly after being downgraded to a tropical depression — 1,200 miles after breaching the Gulf Coast, where it left 16 people dead, including 12 in Louisiana.
In New York City, the storm’s toll reflected not just an ancient and inadequate drainage system but entrenched inequality: At least 11 of the 13 people who died in the city perished in basement apartments, most of them in Queens, in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods that had weathered the worst of the city’s coronavirus outbreak.
As night fell Wednesday and the skies split open, New Yorkers’ phones lit up with a series of increasingly urgent advisories — warnings of flash floods and tornadoes, culminating in a “flash-flood emergency,” something the National Weather Service had never issued for New York City, warning of imminent “severe threat to human life.” The imperatives were potentially confusing: Do not leave your home. Get to higher ground.
By then, the streets and basements were filling up.
In Woodside, Queens, Choi Sledge received a frantic call at 9:30 p.m. It came from inside the house, from a woman who lives in the basement apartment.
“She said, ‘The water is coming in right now,’ and I say, ‘Get out! Get to the third floor!’” Sledge said.
The bodies of the woman, her husband and her toddler son were found in the basement. The building’s certificate of occupancy showed that the basement had not been approved for residential use.
Those who survived were shaken. In Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, Ricardo Garcia, 50, was awakened by a surge of water that he said exploded through the door of his basement apartment and in moments was up to his knees, then his waist, then his chest. He banged on the door and woke a roommate, Oliver De La Cruz, 22, who trembled as he examined the water stains that reached to the ceiling of his ruined room.
“I almost died inside here, I almost died, man,” De La Cruz said.
At least three people died inside their vehicles in New York and New Jersey: two people in Hillsborough, New Jersey, who officials said drove into floodwaters; and a rabbi who was driving home from Rockland County to Mount Kisco, N.Y.
Heavier downpours are a signature feature of global warming, because warmer air can hold more moisture. Climate scientists say that the Northeast has seen 50 percent more rainfall during the heaviest storms, compared with the first half of the 20th century.
Yet the severe loss of life nonetheless raised questions of what could have been done to prevent it.
Hochul said that officials were caught off guard by the ferocity of the rainfall. “We did not know that between 8:50 p.m. and 9:50 p.m. last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls-level water to the streets of New York,” she said at a briefing in Queens with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Chuck Schumer. “Could that have been anticipated? I want to find out.”
De Blasio said the city had been misled by the forecast. “The report was 3 to 6 inches over the course of a whole day, which was not a particularly problematic amount,” de Blasio said during the briefing Thursday. “That turned into the biggest single hour of rainfall in New York City history.”
Part of the reason more people died in New York than in the South is that residents of coastal Louisiana have grown used to evacuation orders and have shown willingness to abandon their threatened homes, however reluctantly. Evacuation is an unfamiliar phenomenon in New York, and in any case, unlike during Superstorm Sandy, when people in low-lying neighborhoods were ordered to leave, no formal evacuation orders were issued Wednesday.
A further complication is that evacuation is more difficult when it’s not clear where to go. With this storm, inland, elevated areas that had been immune to serious flooding suddenly weren’t.
“There’s no other way to put it,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said as he stood before the wreckage of homes in Mullica Hill, an exurb of Philadelphia, that were flattened by a tornado. “The world is changing.”
Late into Wednesday night, the scene was surreal and haunting. Walls of water cascaded unimpeded down subway stairwells. City buses turned into amphibious vehicles, plowing through feet of water. Apartment buildings in Philadelphia sat like islands in newly formed lakes.
By Thursday morning, the rain was gone and skies were incongruously sunny. Receding waters revealed a landscape scattered with abandoned vehicles. In New York City alone, the police towed around 500 cars whose owners were nowhere in sight.
But some rivers kept rising. The Raritan River in New Jersey crested at 12 feet above flood stage in Manville. Along the swollen Passaic River, where fish flopped in the streets, a National Weather Service meteorologist, Sarah Johnson, said the waters were expecting to remain at flood stage “for at least the next couple of days if not longer.”
(Andy Newman, NEW YORK TIMES)
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“Finally some good news on the weather side of things here on this fire,” Jim Dudley, a meteorologist assigned to the fire, said at an evening briefing. Winds were expected to calm significantly over the next several days, he said, but risks remain with extremely low humidity levels.
The Caldor fire remained roughly 3 miles south of the recently evacuated city of South Lake Tahoe, moving northeast toward the California-Nevada state line, said Henry Herrera, a Cal Fire battalion chief.
Crews tried desperately to keep flames away from urban communities, where houses are close together and shopping centers, hotels and other structures would provide even more fuel for a fire that so far has been feeding on trees, grasses and scattered homes and cabins.
The blaze has been burning toward Lake Tahoe from the southwest along California Highway 50, climbing over a Sierra Nevada summit and descending into the Tahoe Basin.
Thick smoke has enveloped the city of South Lake Tahoe, which is all but deserted at a time when it would normally be swarming with tourists. On Monday, roughly 22,000 residents and thousands of others from neighboring communities jammed the city’s main artery for hours after they were ordered to leave.
South Lake Tahoe city officials said only a handful of residents defied the evacuation order.
Meanwhile, officials prepared for the next possible phase of the firefight.
As evacuation holdouts and private firefighters draw from fire hydrants around the city, the South Tahoe Public Utility District asked people to turn off hoses, irrigation systems and sprinklers to ensure that wells can pump at full capacity. That means “the minute a firefighter hooks into a hydrant that they are getting full pressure, and as much water as possible is coming out,” said Shelly Thomsen, spokeswoman for the utility.
In the city, white pickup rentals dropped off private firefighters dispatched by insurance companies to water around homes and clean decks using water from public hydrants. Gas stations advertised prices at $5 per gallon.
As flames moved toward the Heavenly ski resort, officials turned on the mountain’s snow-making machines to increase humidity and slow down any flames.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday asked President Joe Biden for a federal disaster declaration, which would supplement state and local resources for firefighting efforts and relief for residents affected by the fire.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Social media posts showed homes reduced to rubble in a southern New Jersey county just outside Philadelphia, not far from where the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado Wednesday evening. Authorities did not have any immediate information on injuries.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty International Airport, tweeted at 10:30 p.m. that all flights were suspended and all parking lots were closed due to severe flooding. All train service to the airport also was suspended.
The National Weather Service recorded 3.15 inches of rain in New York’s Central Park in one hour, far surpassing the 1.94 inches that fell in one hour during Tropical Storm Henri on the night of Aug. 21, which was believed at the time to be the most ever recorded in the park.
Few parts of the region were untouched, and residents huddled inside and endured the anxiety brought on by tornado warnings.
To the storm-battered south, lights came back on for a fortunate few, some corner stores opened their doors and crews cleared fallen trees and debris from a growing number of roads Wednesday.
Still, suffering remained widespread three days after Ida battered Louisiana and parts of Mississippi. Some low-lying communities remained largely underwater. Roughly a million homes and businesses still had no electricity, and health officials said more than 600,000 people lacked running water. The death toll rose to at least six as the scope of the disaster began to come into focus, with a private firm estimating damage could exceed $50 billion.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Long lines that wrapped around the block formed at the few gas stations that had fuel and generator power to pump it. People cleared rotting food out of refrigerators. Neighbors shared generators and borrowed buckets of swimming pool water to bathe or to flush toilets.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us and no one is under the illusion that this is going to be a short process,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said as the cleanup and rebuilding began across the soggy region in the oppressive late-summer heat.
New Orleans officials announced seven places around the city where people could get a meal and sit in air conditioning. The city was also using 70 transit buses as cooling sites and will have drive-thru food, water and ice distribution locations set up on Wednesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said. Edwards said state officials also were working to set up distribution locations in other areas.
Cantrell ordered a nighttime curfew Tuesday, calling it an effort to prevent crime after Hurricane Ida devastated the power system and left the city in darkness. Police Chief Shaun Ferguson said there had been some arrests for stealing.
The mayor also said she expects the main power company Entergy to be able to provide some electricity to the city by Wednesday evening, but stressed that doesn’t mean a quick citywide restoration.
Entergy was looking at two options to “begin powering critical infrastructure in the area such as hospitals, nursing homes and first responders,” the company said in a news release.
Cantrell acknowledged frustration in the days ahead.
“We know it’s hot. We know we do not have any power, and that continues to be a priority,” she told a news conference.
More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power when Ida slammed the electric grid on Sunday with its 150 mph winds, toppling a major transmission tower and knocking out thousands of miles of lines and hundreds of substations.
An estimated 25,000-plus utility workers labored to restore electricity, but officials said it could take weeks.
With water treatment plants overwhelmed by floodwaters or crippled by power outages, some places were also facing shortages of drinking water. About 441,000 people in 17 parishes had no water, and an additional 319,000 were under boil-water advisories, federal officials said.
The number of deaths climbed to at least four in Louisiana and Mississippi, including two people killed Monday night when seven vehicles plunged into a 20-foot-deep hole near Lucedale, Mississippi, where a highway had collapsed after torrential rains.
Among the crash victims was Kent Brown, a “well-liked,” 49-year-old father of two, his brother Keith Brown said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. Keith Brown said his brother was in construction but had been out of work for a while. He didn’t know where his brother was headed when the crash happened.
Edwards said he expects the death toll to rise.
In Slidell, crews searched for a 71-year-old man who was attacked by an alligator that tore off his arm as he walked through Ida’s floodwaters. His wife pulled him to the steps of the home and paddled away to get help, but when she returned, he was gone, authorities said.
On Grand Isle, the barrier island that bore the full force of Ida’s winds, Police Chief Scooter Resweber said he was “amazed that no one was killed or even seriously injured.”
About half of the properties on the island of about 1,400 people were heavily damaged or destroyed, and the main roadway was nearly completely covered in sand brought in from the tidal surge.
“I’ve ridden out other hurricanes: Hurricane Isaac, Katrina, Gustav, Ike. This is the worst,” Resweber said.
In New Orleans, drivers lined up for roughly a quarter-mile, waiting to get into a Costco that was one of the few spots in the city with gasoline.
At other gas stations, motorists occasionally pulled up to the pumps, saw the handles covered in plastic bags and drove off.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The erratic winds and complicated topography kept fire officials guessing where the fire would go next. By late afternoon, the front appeared to have bypassed — for the moment — the more densely populated areas on the south shore and was moving northeast to the Nevada side of the lake.
Firefighters managed to save homes in Meyers and Christmas Valley and were amassing along Pioneer Trail and farther south in the ski town of Kirkwood, where another finger of the fire was pointed.
“We knew this was coming,” said Dave Lauchner, spokesman for the incident management team and a battalion chief with the Sacramento Fire Department. “The problem is it’s not one direction. It comes from the canyons in all directions.”
Like many here, he expected the fire to peter out in the high reaches of the mountains where vegetation is sparser. He said his parents own a cabin two miles from the command post, and that just a few days ago he assured his mother that the fire could never reach this far.
“This fire does stuff I’ve never seen before,” he said.
Cal Fire chief Thom Porter noted that the Caldor fire and the nearby Dixie fire are the first in modern history to burn from one side of the Sierra to the other. The Dixie fire is the second largest in California history, having torn through 807,000 acres since July. The Caldor fire started Aug. 14 and has covered 191,000 acres.
On Tuesday, much of the focus was within that perimeter along Highway 50, where structures had survived but were still threatened. “There’s a lot of pockets of unburned islands that are burning (now) that are still closing in on cabins in there,” said Eric Schwab, Cal Fire’s operation sections chief, in a community meeting Tuesday evening.
Jim Dudley, the incident meteorologist, said red-flag conditions of high winds and low humidity will continue through today. “We got to get through tonight and tomorrow,” he said. “Things look better Thursday.”
That felt like a long way off in places where the gusts bore down and embers raked through bone-dry trees — places like Echo Lake.
The Alpine hideaway is a beloved destination for generations of hikers, fishers, backpackers and a tight knit century-old community of seasonal cabins. Most are accessed only by boat, with the general store running a water taxi for visitors and hikers. There is no electricity for most and no running water.
The fire whipped through on Monday night, jumping through the crowns of the pine trees and becoming so intense firefighters pulled out, said Lauchner. Tuesday morning, trees were still aflame and a flank of the fire was moving largely unchecked into the Desolation Wilderness.
With the fire moving on so many fronts, crews had to prioritize structures that could be accessed by road.
That left the work of saving the Echo Lake cabins to two locals: Loren Sperber and Josh Birnbaum. Both men grew up there and can name the owners of nearly every cabin. Sperber is an off-duty fire captain. Birnbaum is a retired fire captain from Santa Cruz. They worked at the chalet as kids. On Sunday night, they came in alone and took a boat out to the cabins, defending them with all they had — shovels, rakes, saws.
So far, Sperber said Tuesday afternoon, none of those cabins ringing the lake had been lost. But the fire still threatened structures from the ridge above. The men were headed back out — dirty, weary and determined. “We’ve seen a lot more intense and threatening situations,” said Sperber of his time as a firefighter. “But having this be the most special place to many of us makes it unreal.”
Birnbaum shook his head. “Surreal,” he said, looking at the layer of smoke that obscured the lake’s famously clear waters.
Just down the windy road, South Lake Tahoe was evacuated on Monday and was quiet as ash whorled through smoke like snowflakes. Jason Pope was one of the few holdouts, stuck behind because of a balky car and a cat and dog he was house-sitting.
“My little car won’t make it down the hill” he said, gesturing at a 2006 Subaru. He had just reached the friend whose house he was watching. The owner offered him use of their newer Subaru wagon to get the pets out, but Pope wasn’t too worried. He had turned his sprinklers on and figured, in the rare event the fire reached his property, it would hit a “mud puddle.”
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak urged residents to be prepared, saying there was no timeline for when evacuations might be ordered. At a news conference in Carson City, he noted that ash was falling on him even though the fire was about 20 miles away.
“I’m standing here and I’m getting all ash particulates on my jacket, even,” the governor said. “This is serious, folks.”
Hours later, Douglas County sheriff’s deputies were knocking on doors telling people to get out.
Ryan Guest was filling his vehicle with clothes packed in garbage bags and bins as he prepared to leave a three-story wood apartment complex. He had only returned from Cabo San Lucas a few weeks ago but was now heading back on the road to San Diego where he has family.
“It’s not worth it,” he said of the risk of staying. Next to him, loading up his Jeep Cherokee, Jason Kingsbury agreed. He was headed to Reno to see if he could find a room, though the convention center there has been opened as a shelter because there are so many evacuees.
He knew of people ignoring the evacuation orders, but he was leaving for his own peace of mind. “It just makes sense. If it burns, it’s gone. I’ve got insurance.”
Down the mountain at the Douglas County Community Center in Gardnerville, Nev., Rick and Lee Wright watched the ash float down from a yellow sky.
They had been taking care of their 2-year-old granddaughter Sunday night at their home south of Lake Tahoe when they decided it was time to go, the first time they’d ever had to evacuate.
“I didn’t think it could happen,” said Rick Wright, 60. “I thought they would throw an army in there to stop it from getting to Tahoe, but it became real Sunday night, you know?”
They set up tents they bought just months ago to go camping.
“We’re doing it now,” he said, chuckling. “We’re camping.”
Phoenix Hunter, 53, a ski instructor, said she began to worry about the fire when she learned that the ski resort where she works, Sierra-at-Tahoe resort, had called in a hotshot crew to protect the property.
“I had my antenna up,” she said. She said the resort used snow-blowing guns to spray water on the property. She left her home late Monday morning with her 15-year-old daughter, two dogs and a rabbit named Butterscotch.
“I try to look at the bright side that I’m alive and not in the bull’s-eye of the fire,” she said.
The National Weather Service warned that weather conditions through today would include low humidity, dry fuel and wind gusts up to 30 mph.
“That’s definitely not going to help the firefighting efforts,” said Courtney Coats, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said that of the 15 large active wildfires burning in California, the Caldor fire is among the most worrisome.
“It’s our number-one priority to put everything we’ve got on it,” Newsom said, including fire retardant being dropped by aircraft, helicopters making water drops, and the National Guard deployed to battle the blaze.
More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 33,000 more were threatened.
The threat of fire is so widespread that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.
(Anita Chabria, Ruben Vives, Hayley Smith & Joe Mozingo, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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(Haley Smith&Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Residents living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them.
More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday.
The damage was so extensive that officials warned it could be weeks before the power grid was repaired.
President Joe Biden met virtually on Monday with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves along with mayors from cities and parishes most affected by Hurricane Ida to receive an update on the storm’s impacts, and to discuss how the federal government can provide assistance.
“We are closely coordinating with state and local officials every step of the way,” Biden said.
The administration said 3,600 FEMA employees are deployed to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. FEMA staged more than 3.4 million meals, millions of liters of water, more than 35,700 tarps, and roughly 200 generators in the region in advance of the storm.
As the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression Monday afternoon and continued to make its way inland with torrential rain, it was blamed for at least two deaths — a motorist who drowned in New Orleans and a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge.
But with many roads impassable and cellphone service out in places, the full extent of its fury was still coming into focus. Christina Stephens, a spokesperson for Edwards, said that given the level of destruction, “We’re going to have many more confirmed fatalities.”
The governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic” — dispiriting news for those without refrigeration or air conditioning with highs forecast in the mid-80s to near 90 by midweek.
“There are certainly more questions than answers. I can’t tell you when the power is going to be restored. I can’t tell you when all the debris is going to be cleaned up and repairs made,“ Edwards told a news conference. “But what I can tell you is we are going to work hard every day to deliver as much assistance as we can.”
Local, state and federal rescuers combined to save at least 671 people by Monday afternoon, Edwards said.
In hard-hit LaPlace, squeezed between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, rescuers saved people from flooded homes in a near-constant operation.
The hurricane blew ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina, the 2005 storm that breached New Orleans’ levees, devastated the city and was blamed for 1,800 deaths.
This time, New Orleans appeared to escape the catastrophic flooding city officials had feared.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The feature is intended to let users know if an earthquake has occurred nearby that is likely to cause shaking within seconds.
County officials were joined by a U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wednesday to roll out the change to the mobile app at the county’s Emergency Operations Center in Kearny Mesa.
This is the first time the ShakeAlert system has been integrated into an existing emergency app.
For the new feature to work, users who already have the app will need to update it and then configure the settings including selecting English or Spanish and allowing the app to always track the phone’s location so it can accurately alert the user.
(CITY NEWS SERVICE)
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As of 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the storm had moved away from the Isle of Youth, south of Cuba, and had made landfall in the Cuban province of Pinar Del Rio, with sustained wind speeds reaching 80 mph, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.
Life-threatening heavy rains, floods and mudslides were expected in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and western Cuba.
The center of the storm could reach Louisiana by Sunday as a hurricane, with maximum winds of 110 mph and gusts of up to 130 mph, according to the hurricane center’s tracking model.
“Ida is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the coast of Louisiana,” the center said on Twitter on Friday afternoon, adding that parts of Louisiana could expect “potentially catastrophic” hurricane-force winds on Sunday.
Parts of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts should be prepared for life-threatening storm surges of up to 15 feet on Sunday, the center said.
Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said in a statement on Friday that the next 24 hours were “critical” for the state.
“The time for the people of Louisiana to prepare for this strong storm is now, as portions of our state will begin seeing impacts of this storm early Sunday morning, or even late Saturday evening,” he said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans on Friday afternoon ordered all residents outside the city’s levee system to evacuate by today.
Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana was under a hurricane watch, along with the metropolitan New Orleans area. Along the Gulf Coast, a hurricane watch was issued from Cameron, Louisiana, to the border of Mississippi and Alabama.
Sunday is the 16th anniversary Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the state. That storm unleashed catastrophic floods and blistering winds, producing one of country’s costliest disasters ever.
Forecasters warned that Ida could cause life-threatening flash flooding, mudslides and rip currents. Ida is expected to bring up to 16 inches of rain, with isolated totals of up to 20 inches from southeast Louisiana to coastal Mississippi and Alabama through Monday morning.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Caldor fire has proved so difficult to fight that fire managers this week pushed back the projected date for full containment from early next week to Sept. 8. But even that estimate was tenuous.
“I think that’s going to be assessed on a day-by-day basis,” said Keith Wade, a spokesman for the incident management team.
A Northern California police officer who had been on his way to help with the fire died Thursday of his injuries, officials said Friday.
Galt police Officer Harminder Grewal, 27, was gravely injured in a head-on traffic collision that sent him and his partner to the hospital on Sunday.
“He made the ultimate sacrifice while responding to danger. Officer Grewal took pride in serving his community and his work ethic was contagious to all who worked with him,” the department said in a statement.
Burning since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada, the Caldor fire has scorched nearly 144,000 acres and remained only 12 percent contained Friday.
The fire’s eastern edge was about 7 or 8 miles from the city of South Lake Tahoe, said Robert Baird, a U.S. Forest Service director of fire and aviation management.
“That area has been a focus of intense resource and concern for all of us,” he said.
Primary and secondary fire lines cut by bulldozers, hand crews and burnout operations were in place to try to catch the fire before it reaches South Lake Tahoe, he said.
Evacuation planning was being done as a precaution, but there were no evacuations there as of Friday afternoon, he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Even as ash rained down under a cloud of heavy smoke, the couple wasn’t panicked because they had an early warning to leave their home near Echo Summit, about 10 miles south of the lake, and wanted to avoid last-minute pandemonium if the wildfire continued its march toward the tourist destination on the California and Nevada border.
“You don’t want everyone in the basin panicking and scrambling to try and leave at the same time,” McCauley said.
Firefighters were facing changing weather conditions that could push the fire closer to the Tahoe Basin, a home to thousands and recreational playground for millions of tourists who visit the alpine lake in summer, ski at the many resorts in winter and gamble at its casinos year-round.
Winds and temperatures were expected to pick up in coming days while humidity drops, said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of the state firefighting agency.
“That’s what’s closing the window of opportunity we’ve had to make progress and really get hold of the fire,” Berlant said.
Echo Summit, a mountain pass where cliff-hanging U.S. Route 50 begins its descent toward Lake Tahoe, is where firefighters plan to make their stand if the Caldor fire keeps burning through dense forest in the Sierra Nevada.
“Everything’s holding real good along Highway 50,” said Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Cody Bogan. “The fire has been backing down real slowly — we’ve just been allowing it to do it on its own speed. It’s working in our favor.”
The fire is one of nearly 90 large blazes in the U.S. There were more than a dozen big fires in California, including one that destroyed 18 homes in Southern California, which has so far escaped the scale of wildfires plaguing the north all summer.
A new fire broke out Thursday in the Sierra foothills, forcing evacuations near the historic Gold Rush town of Sonora, just dozens of miles from Yosemite National Park.
Fires in California have destroyed around 2,000 structures and forced thousands to evacuate while also blanketing large swaths of the West in unhealthy smoke.
The Caldor fire has been the nation’s top firefighting priority because of its proximity to Lake Tahoe, where its tourist economy should be in full swing this time of year.
“This is the week before Labor Day weekend — a busy weekend, normally,” South Lake Tahoe City Manager Joe Irvin said. “That is not going to be the case this year.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency noted in a report on the fire that “social, political, and economic concerns will increase as the fire progresses toward the Lake Tahoe Basin.” The agency did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate beyond that statement.
Visitors are still crowding the highway that loops the massive lake and riding bikes and walking the beaches, but many are wearing masks. The lake, known for its water clarity and the granite peaks that surround it, has been shrouded in dense smoke that has reached hazardous levels.
The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority reversed its advice from earlier in the week and recommended tourists postpone their travel. Previously the group that promotes tourism on the south side of the lake advised letting visitors decide whether to cancel their trips amid smoke and approaching fire.
Irvin issued an emergency proclamation Thursday so the city can be better prepared if evacuation orders come and be reimbursed for related expenses.
The last time the city declared a wildfire emergency was during the 2007 Angora fire, which destroyed nearly 250 homes in neighboring Meyers and was the last major fire in the basin.
The Caldor fire has burned over 136,000 acres — or 213 square miles — and was only 12 percent contained Thursday.
(Sam Metz&Brian Melley, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could bring dangerous flash floods and mudslides through the weekend as it parallels the coast, likely grazing the point below the Puerto Vallarta region on Saturday and then possibly the Los Cabos resort region on Monday.
The storm was centered about 320 miles south of the port city of Lazaro Cardenas on Thursday afternoon and it was heading to the west-northwest at 9 mph.
Nora had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), but it was expected to reach hurricane force on Saturday.
NB: not mentioned was Tropical Storm Ida in the Caribbean that likely becomes a hurricane today. It threatens western Cuba, will strengthen to a major hurricane (Category 3 or larger) while crossing the Gulf of Mexico and then make landfall Sunday evening on the central Louisiana coast, with the potential of major flooding along the coast, including New Orleans.
(U-T News Services)
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Saturday’s flooding took out houses, roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, with rainfall that more than tripled forecasts and shattered the state record for one-day rainfall. More than 270 homes were destroyed and 160 took major damage, according to the Humphreys County Emergency Management Agency.
Waverly Police Chief Grant Gillespie’s voice broke as he announced the discovery of the final victim during an afternoon news conference. Officials did not immediately release the victim’s identity.
“We had resumed the searching this morning in the areas that we thought were most likely to — where our victim was most likely to be found,” Gillespie said. “We’ve used dogs, heavy equipment. It’s just been very painstaking because it’s a tedious process to get in there and look for victims. Today was about our victim, and we found her.”
The death count stands at 20, according to county authorities, although the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency had put it at 17 at mid-day on Wednesday. That discrepancy is because TEMA’s detailed process in confirming deaths can take longer to complete, agency Director Patrick Sheehan said.
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee toured the area together on Wednesday. “The road to recovery is going to be long, but we are here to support the governor and his team and support you with what your needs are,” Criswell said.
Meanwhile, residents picked through their mud-caked possessions and searched bushes for belongings that were washed away.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Caldor fire spread to within 20 miles southwest of Lake Tahoe, eating its way through rugged timberlands and “knocking on the door” of the basin that straddles the California-Nevada state line, California’s state fire chief Thom Porter warned.
Ash rained down and tourists ducked into cafes, outdoor gear shops and casinos on Lake Tahoe Boulevard for a respite from the unhealthy air.
South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City on the west shore had the nation’s worst air pollution at midmorning Wednesday, reaching 334, in the “hazardous” category of the 0-500 Air Quality Index, according to AirNow, a partnership of federal, state and local air agencies.
South of Tahoe, Rick Nelson and his wife, Diane, had planned to host a weekend wedding at Fallen Leaf Lake, where his daughter and her fiancé had met. However, the smoke caused most of the community to leave. The sun was an eerie blood orange, and the floats and boats in the lake were obscured by haze Tuesday.
In the end, the Nelsons spent two days arranging to have the wedding moved from the glacial lake several hours southwest to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Although there were no evacuations ordered for Lake Tahoe, it was impossible to ignore a blanket of haze so thick and vast that it closed schools for two days in Reno, Nev., which is about 60 miles from the fire. The school district that includes Reno reopened most schools on Wednesday.
The Caldor fire has scorched more than 197 square miles [125,000 acres] and destroyed at least 461 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of the lake. It was 11 percent contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.
Meanwhile, California’s Dixie fire, the second-largest in state history at 1,148 square miles [735,000 acres], was burning only about 65 miles to the north. New evacuations were ordered after winds pushed the blaze to the northeast on Wednesday, as flames crossed State Route 44 and headed toward campgrounds near Eagle Lake.
The Dixie fire, which broke out July 13, was 43 percent contained. At least 682 homes were among more than 1,270 buildings that have been destroyed.
In Southern California, at least a dozen homes and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed after a fire broke out Wednesday afternoon and quickly ran through tinder-dry brush in mountains northeast of Los Angeles. Evacuations were ordered for about a thousand people, and crews mounted an air attack to keep the South fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland near the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The embassy wrote that “in 2021, an elevated number of U.S. citizens (and persons of other nationalities) have lost their lives due to rip currents and other dangerous conditions” at the beaches.
The warning says “strong undertows and currents make swimming at El Salvador’s Pacific Coast beaches extremely dangerous even for experienced swimmers.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The first broke out Monday morning in the southern part of Evia, Greece’s second-largest island, whose north was devastated earlier this month by a blaze that burned for more than 10 days. The second wildfire erupted in Kaza, in the Vilia area northwest of Athens where a blaze was brought under control Friday after burning for five days.
The fire service said late Monday the Kaza blaze was on the wane and the fire on Evia was contained.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Two days ago, she had been clinging for her life to the front door of her duplex in rural Tennessee as the water inched up to her neck. Her brother was hanging onto a tree.
Then Mays realized where she was: the gym at the Waverly Church of Christ, now her temporary home alongside other victims of record-breaking rain Saturday that sent floodwaters surging through the region, killing at least 22 people.
Her story has become a familiar one in Humphreys County, and particularly the small town of Waverly. Large swaths of the community are suddenly displaced, sorting through difficult decisions about what comes next even as they relive the horror of what just happened.
“This morning I was having a panic attack and thought I was in water, and I was trying to get that way and trying to get this way. I was just scared half to death,” said Mays, who doesn’t know how to swim. “I was just, something woke me up and I thought I was in the water, and — I never have seen — I’ve seen it on TV, but I’ve never have seen it like it in life, where cars was going by.”
Mays started gathering up a few belongings after a police officer came to the door of her duplex Saturday morning, telling her to evacuate. She and her brother could see the water rising quickly. Her brother was trying to keep it out of the house by shoving towels under the door, but they were soon overwhelmed. Minutes later, the flooded creek pushed open the door and water poured into the house.
Mays’ brother went outside to try to find a way onto the roof but ended up clinging to a tree. Mays held on to the front door until they were rescued by boat, escaping with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Mays said the neighbor on the other side of the duplex lost her daughter, who was about 7 or 8 years old.
While survivors grappled with their recollections in shelters, rescue workers continued their arduous searches for anyone else swept away.
Authorities rummaged through heaps of debris as search and rescue teams used dogs to try to sniff out any missing people, Waverly Police Chief Grant Gillespie said.
“There’s still a lot of debris in and along the creek that needs to be examined. That’s a painstaking process,” Gillespie said during a news conference. “We have to tear that apart, a lot of times, with equipment.”
The police chief said the number of people considered missing has fluctuated, as people have not been able to reach loved ones who are later confirmed to be safe.
“I’m reasonably sure that we are less than 10 right now that we are truly not sure about the whereabouts of, or that we don’t think we’ll resolve fairly easily,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The smell of sewage filled the air as residents of Rossmoor, a retirement community in central New Jersey’s Monroe Township, returned to soaked homes and ruined possessions after Henri turned their streets into rivers.
Roseann and John Kiernan said they’d have to likely toss their appliances, tear up walls and carpets and replace their car after their house filled with nearly 2 feet of water on Sunday.
“This is what we were left with. Nothing, nothing,” lamented Roseann Kiernan. “They told us that everything has to go.”
A few miles away from Monroe, the whirring of portable pumps split the air on the main street in Jamesburg, another hard-hit New Jersey community.
Luke Becker, co-owner of the Four Boys ice cream stand, said 4 feet of water rushed into the shop, dislodging a tall cooler and leaving 3 inches of mud behind.
“We were initially hoping to be back open by Labor Day, but now it looks like we’ve got to go through all the plumbing and rip out a ton of electrical because we don’t know how much of that was affected,” he said. “Right now, there’s really no timetable.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy toured the storm-ravaged towns Monday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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After an extensive review of fire damage, Gov. Gavin Newsom requested a presidential major disaster declaration for eight counties, Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, told a briefing near Sacramento.
If approved, the declaration would provide a wide range of assistance including housing, food aid, unemployment and governmental emergency costs, Ghilarducci said.
Nearly 43,000 Californians were under evacuation orders and more than 500 households were in shelters, he said.
New concerns were developing at the explosive Caldor fire southwest of Lake Tahoe, the famed alpine lake straddling the California-Nevada state line and surrounded by peaks of the Sierra Nevada and resort communities.
The Caldor fire, just 5 percent contained, has become the nation’s No. 1 priority for firefighting resources, said Chief Thom Porter, Cal Fire’s director.
“It is knocking on the door to the Lake Tahoe basin,” Porter said. “We have all efforts in place to keep it out of the basin, but we do need to also be aware that is a possibility based on the way the fires have been burning.”
Porter said that he personally did not believe the fire would get into the basin but that he could be proved wrong.
The Caldor fire has incinerated more than 106,000 acres of El Dorado National Forest, and continuing assessments showed 447 buildings destroyed. More than 17,000 structures were still under threat.
Two police officers from the Sacramento County city of Galt were in critical condition after a head-on traffic collision while they were headed to the Caldor fire under a law enforcement mutual aid deployment, Ghilarducci said.
To the north, containment increased to 40 percent at the Dixie fire, which has burned more than 723,000 acres in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. Ongoing assessments showed 1,259 buildings destroyed, including 678 single-family homes, Cal Fire said. Nearly 13,000 structures remained threatened.
In Nevada, public schools in the Reno and Sparks area and parts of Lake Tahoe were closed Monday due to wildfire smoke, affecting 67,000 students.
In Northern California, where most of the blazes are burning, there were no red flag warnings for critical conditions, but the seven-day outlook called for moderate fire danger.
In Southern California, meanwhile, moist ocean air has been keeping skies cloudy and temperatures cooler than normal well into each day.
Porter said that meant there was low potential for large new fires in Southern California, allowing firefighting resources to be moved from south to north.
Southern California’s high fire season is typically late in the year when dry, gusty Santa Ana winds blast out of the interior and flow toward the coast.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Henri made landfall Sunday on the coast of Rhode Island, and the National Hurricane Center warned that the slow-moving storm would continue dumping heavy rains on wide swaths of the region.
It was downgraded from a hurricane before reaching New England, leaving many to breathe a sigh of relief. There were few early reports of major damage due to wind or surf.
The storm was later downgraded to a tropical depression, but its heavy, sustained rains raised concerns about further flooding from the storm that threatened to stall over the region before pivoting to the East and moving out to the Atlantic Ocean on Monday night. Some of the highest rain totals were expected inland.
In Boston, officials were watching for a possible sea surge as high tide approached late Sunday night. A coastal flood warning was in effect into the early hours of today.
Businesses along the tourist-heavy Long Wharf were boarded up and a waterfront subway station was shuttered and its flood barriers raised ahead of the storm.
President Joe Biden on Sunday promised to provide federal help as quickly as possible to the residents of northeastern states affected by Henri. The president declared disasters in much of the region, opening the purse strings for federal recovery aid.
“We’re doing everything we can now to help those states prepare, respond and recover,” the president said.
Biden earlier had offered his condolences to the people of Tennessee, after severe flooding from an unrelated storm killed at least 22, including young children and elderly people, and left dozens of others missing.
By Sunday evening, Henri had sustained winds of about 35 mph as it moved across Connecticut and into Massachusetts, according to the National Hurricane Center. When it made landfall near Westerly, R.I., it had sustained winds of about 60 mph and gusts of up to 70 mph.
As New England communities braced for heavy rains, others further south awaited sunrise to survey the damage wrought by the storm.
In Helmetta, N.J., some 200 residents fled for higher ground, taking refuge in hotels or with friends and family, as flood waters inundated their homes.
“It came so quick — in the blink of an eye,” said the town’s mayor, Christopher Slavicek, whose parents were spending the night after fleeing their home.
“Now there’s cleanup. So this is far from over,” the mayor said.
Some communities in central New Jersey were inundated with as much as 8 inches of rain by midday Sunday. In Jamesburg, television video footage showed flooded downtown streets and cars almost completely submerged.
In Newark, Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara said police and firefighters rescued 86 people in 11 incidents related to the storm. He said “significant flooding” led to multiple vehicles submerged in flooded areas.
“This could have been a lot worse, particularly as it relates to wind,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Sunday evening.
Likewise, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said Henri was close to being in the “rearview mirror,” but said there’s still more work to do, even as mandatory evacuations were being lifted in some communities. About 250 residents from four nursing homes on the shoreline had to be relocated to other nursing homes.
The forecast had some fearing the worst effects of the rainfall were still to come in a region where the ground in many areas is saturated from recent rains.
Several major bridges in Rhode Island, which stitch together much of the state, were briefly shuttered Sunday, and some coastal roads were nearly impassable.
Rhode Island has been hit by hurricanes and tropical storms periodically — including Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Bob in 1991.
(David Klepper, Michael Kunzelman&David Porter, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There was zero containment Sunday of the Caldor fire, which had charred nearly 154 square miles of trees and brush in the northern Sierra Nevada after breaking out Aug. 14. The cause was under investigation.
Firefighters hoped to take advantage of calmer weather and cooler temperatures a day after gusts pushed the fire across U.S. Route 50, threatening more remote communities in El Dorado County.
Erratic winds sent embers flying into tinder-dry fuel beds, starting new ignition points and challenging crews trying to chase down the flames in rugged terrain.
“We know this fire has done things that nobody could have predicted, but that’s how firefighting has been in the state this year,” Eldorado National Forest Supervisor Chief Jeff Marsolais said.
Multiple large wildfires have incinerated at least 700 homes, many in and around the Sierra Nevada communities of Greenville and Grizzly Flats. About 13,000 residences remained under threat in communities tucked away in scenic forests.
The fires have burned roughly 2,300 square miles and have sent smoke as far as the East Coast. They were burning in grass, brush and forest that is exceptionally dry from two years of drought likely exacerbated by climate change.
Nine national forests in California have been closed because of the fire threat.
To the northwest of the Caldor fire, the massive Dixie fire also kept expanding. In five weeks, the blaze about 175 miles northeast of San Francisco became the second-largest in state history and blackened an area twice the size of Los Angeles. It was 37 percent contained.
In Southern California, evacuation orders remain in place for rural communities near the French fire northeast of Bakersfield in Kern County. That blaze grew to about 21 square miles and was 10 percent contained.
California is one of a dozen mostly Western states where 94 large, active fires were burning as of Sunday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Fires have intensified across the entire West, creating a nearly year-round season that has taxed firefighters. Fire patterns used to migrate in seasons from the Southwest to the Rockies, to the Pacific Northwest and then California, allowing fire crews to move from one place to the next, said Anthony Scardina, deputy regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Saturday’s flooding in rural areas took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving families uncertain about whether their loved ones survived the unprecedented deluge. Emergency workers were searching door to door, said Kristi Brown, a coordinator for health and safety supervisor with Humphreys County Schools.
Many of the missing live in the neighborhoods where the water rose the fastest, said Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, who confirmed the 22 fatalities in his county. The names of the missing were on a board in the county’s emergency center and listed on a city department’s Facebook page.
“I would expect, given the number of fatalities, that we’re going to see mostly recovery efforts at this point rather than rescue efforts,” Tennessee Emergency Management Director Patrick Sheehan said.
The dead included twin babies who were swept from their father’s arms, according to surviving family members, and a foreman at county music star Loretta Lynn’s ranch. The sheriff of the county of about 18,000 people some 60 miles west of Nashville said he lost one of his best friends.
Up to 17 inches of rain fell in Humphreys County in less than 24 hours Saturday, shattering the Tennessee record for one-day rainfall by more than 3 inches, the National Weather Service said.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee toured the area, calling it a “devastating picture of loss and heartache.” He stopped on Main Street in Waverly where some homes were washed off their foundations and people were sifting though their water-logged possessions. All around the county were debris from wrecked cars, demolished businesses and homes and a chaotic, tangled mix of the things inside.
Shirley Foster cried as the governor walked up. She said she just learned a friend from her church was dead.
“I thought I was over the shock of all this. I’m just tore up over my friend. My house is nothing, but my friend is gone,” Foster told the governor.
The hardest-hit areas saw double the rain that area of Middle Tennessee had in the previous worst-case scenario for flooding, meteorologists said. Lines of storms moved over the area for hours, wringing out a record amount of moisture — a scenario scientists have warned may be more common because of global warming.
The downpours rapidly turned the creeks that run behind backyards and through downtown Waverly into raging rapids. Business owner Kansas Klein stood on a bridge Saturday in the town of 4,500 people and saw two girls who were holding on to a puppy and clinging to a wooden board sweep past, the current too fast for anyone to grab them. He hadn’t found out what happened to them.
Not far from the bridge, Klein told The Associated Press by phone that dozens of buildings in a low-income housing area known as Brookside appeared to have borne the brunt of the flash flood from Trent Creek.
“It was devastating: buildings were knocked down, half of them were destroyed,” Klein said. “People were pulling out bodies of people who had drowned and didn’t make it out.”
The Humphreys County Sheriff Office Facebook page filled with people looking for missing friends and family. GoFundMe pages were made asking for help for funeral expenses for the dead, including 7-month-old twins yanked from their father’s arms as they tried to escape.
The foreman at Lynn’s ranch, Wayne Spears, also was killed.
“He’s out at his barn and next thing you know, he goes from checking animals in the barn to hanging on in the barn to people seeing him floating down the creek. And that’s how fast it had come up,” the sheriff said.
A photo taken by someone at the ranch showed Spears in a cowboy hat clinging to a pillar in brown, churning water up to his chest.
“Wayne’s just one of those guys, he just does everything for everybody, if there’s a job to do,” said his friend Michael Pate, who met Spears at the ranch 15 years ago.
At the Cash Saver grocery in in Waverly, employees stood on desks, registers and a flower rack as the waters from the creek that’s usually 400 feet from the store rushed in after devastating the low income housing next door. At one point, they tried to break through the ceiling into the attic and couldn’t, store co-owner David Hensley said.
The flood waters stopped rising as fast just as the situation was getting dire and a rescue boat came by. “We told him that if there’s somebody else out there you can get, go get them, we think we’re OK,” Hensley said.
President Joe Biden offered condolences to the people of Tennessee and directed federal disaster officials to talk with the governor and offer assistance.
Just to the east of Waverly, the town of McEwen was pummeled Saturday with 17.02 inches of rain, smashing the state’s 24-hour record of 13.6 inches from 1982, according to the National Weather Service in Nashville, though Saturday’s numbers would have to be confirmed.
(Jonathan Mattise&Jeffrey Collins, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The governor praised the resiliency of the people of Gila Bend and other hard-hit areas.
"It's tough to comprehend just how devastating it's been," Ducey said. "I want every resident of Gila Bend to know that we are with you, and we are going to overcome this."
Two additional deaths were reported this week, and several people were rescued, after a torrential downpour sent rainwater and debris rushing through a wash near Scottsdale.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The blaze, which ignited Saturday, has surged past 70,000 acres, and firefighters have yet to contain any of the spreading flames.
Roughly 24,965 residents have been evacuated, as winds threaten to push the fire north near the communities of Kyburz and Whitehall, fire officials said.
Of top concern Friday was keeping the blaze — now at 73,415 acres — south of Highway 50, where homes dot the long, remote stretch of road, said Capt. Keith Wade, a public information officer for the fire.
Resources were strategically placed there for structure protection, and there are no plans to close the highway, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Ash was falling “like snow” at the El Dorado County Fair & Event Center in Placerville, where base camp for the blaze has been set up, Wade said.
Smoke from several regional fires hung heavy over the area, clamped down like a wet blanket by a high-pressure zone.
“It almost feels like you’re at the beach with that — like an overcast,” Wade said. “That’s how it feels here, except we’re drenched in smoke.”
Winds from the south are expected to pick up today, sparking fears of spurring fire growth along the northern edge of the blaze.
Crews intend to work hard before that happens, Wade said, and anticipated there would be some containment of the growing fire by this morning.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Henri was expected to intensify into a hurricane by today, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Impacts could be felt in New England states by Sunday, including on Cape Cod, which is teeming with tens of thousands of tourists.
Henri’s track was imprecise, but as of 5 p.m. EDT Friday, the National Weather Service suggested it might make landfall first in eastern Long Island before careening further north. The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed on the storm’s track.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday urged people vacationing on the Cape to leave well before Henri hits, and those who planned to start vacations there to delay their plans. “We don’t want people to be stuck in traffic on the Cape Cod bridges when the storm is in full force on Sunday,” he said.
Baker said up to 1,000 National Guard troops were on standby to help with evacuations if needed.
“This storm is extremely worrisome,” said Michael Finkelstein, police chief and emergency management director in East Lyme, Conn. “We haven’t been down this road in quite a while, and there’s no doubt that we and the rest of New England would have some real difficulties with a direct hit from a hurricane.”
Finkelstein said he’s most concerned about low-lying areas of town that could become impossible to access because of flooding and a storm surge.
Thursday marked exactly 30 years since Hurricane Bob came ashore in Rhode Island as a Category 2 storm, killing at least 17 people and leaving behind more than $1.5 billion worth of damage. Bob, which left streets in coastal towns littered with boats blown free of their moorings, knocked out power and water to hundreds of thousands for days.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Despite calmer winds and cooler weather, the fire that has forced thousands to flee and ravaged woodlands raged for a fourth day Thursday, defying some 1,200 firefighters struggling to bring it under control.
The blaze, which has killed two people and injured 26, is the latest among numerous large wildfires to have scorched the Mediterranean region this summer.
The spokesman for the regional fire service, Florent Dossetti, called it one of the worst forest fires to hit southern France in centuries.
The fire has burned about 20,000 acres of forest since it started Monday.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The fire near the village of Vilia, about 35 miles from Athens, has already burned through thousands of hectares and led to evacuation orders being issued for several villages in the area. Across the country, the fire department said 55 new forest fires had broken out in the 24 hours between Wednesday evening and Thursday evening, with most tackled in their early stages.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others were arriving in the southwestern peninsula where the weekend quake struck, killing more than 2,100 people. But the need was extreme, made worse by the rain from Tropical Storm Grace, and people were growing frustrated with the slow pace.
Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where injured from the earthquake zone in the southwestern peninsula were being sent, was closed Thursday for a two-day shutdown to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons.
The abductions dealt a major blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency late Wednesday raised the number of deaths from the earthquake to 2,189 and said 12,268 people were injured. An estimated 300 people are still missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the hard-hit town of Les Cayes.
The magnitude 7.2 earthquake damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
The U.S. has deployed several heavy-lift helicopters and other aircraft to move relief supplies and personnel to the disaster zone and has dispatched the amphibious transport dock Arlington to provide additional transportation and medical capabilities, Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor told reporters at the Pentagon.
One of the U.S. helicopters landed Thursday in Les Cayes with equipment, medicine and volunteers, including some from the aid group Samaritan’s Purse.
Monte Oitker, a biomedical technician with the organization, said volunteers were prepared to operate a self-contained hospital unit, capable of handling a variety of orthopedic procedures.
Distributing aid to the thousands left homeless will be more challenging.
Chery said officials are hoping to start clearing sites where homes were destroyed to allow residents to build temporary shelters.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Category 1 storm had already soaked earthquake-damaged Haiti, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands en route to a direct hit on the Riviera Maya, the heart of Mexico’s tourism industry. Grace’s center struck south of Tulum early Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
As it moved over land, Grace weakened to a tropical storm Thursday afternoon with 50 mph sustained winds. But it was already on the verge of leaving the peninsula and heading into the Gulf of Mexico, where it was expected to regain force. It was centered about 50 miles north-northeast of Campeche and was moving west at 15 mph.
Forecasters said the storm was likely to again be at hurricane strength when it hits the Mexican mainland’s central Gulf coast tonight or early Saturday.
In Tulum, some families passed harrowing hours sheltering from cracking trees and flying debris.
Around 2 a.m. Thursday, as Grace’s eye churned just offshore, Carlos Gonzalez grabbed his 1 1/2-year-old son and ran from his home with his wife to a public school converted into a shelter for dozens of families. The light from his phone helped them find their way through the dark streets.
“The only thing I have left is what I’m wearing,” the construction worker said. “I knew my house wasn’t going to stand it because it’s made of cardboard. When the wind came I was really scared and decided to leave.”
Miguel Angel Garcia decided to stay. On Thursday, he used a machete to hack at a tree trunk that had fallen onto his home’s roof.
“We decided to stay and not go out into the street and leave it up to God,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities warned that the death toll could rise, as 20 people are still unaccounted for.
Nearly 100 others had to be rescued from flooded homes and cars, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety said in a news release.
The department described the flooding of the Pigeon River, which runs along the base of the Appalachian Mountains, as “historic.” Several towns, including Cruso and Bethel, were affected. “Cruso saw some of the worst destruction in Haywood County that I’ve seen in my life,” county Emergency Services Director Travis Donaldson said.
Even as the water receded, Haywood County residents were grappling with the destruction. Officials estimated that about 500 families had been displaced by the damage, and some lost their homes.
Rockslides closed roads, one college’s hallways flooded and at least 10 bridges were damaged or destroyed, officials said in a Facebook post.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke.
The monstrous Dixie fire, burning since July 13 in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, ballooned further to more than 678,000 acres and was only 35 percent contained, authorities said. It’s the second-largest wildfire in recorded state history.
The fire, which gutted the town of Greenville two weeks ago, has destroyed more than 1,200 buildings, including 649 homes, according to ongoing damage assessments.
About 100 miles to the south, there was still no official count of the number of homes destroyed when winds whipped the Caldor fire into an inferno that roared through the Sierra town of Grizzly Flats this week. Those who viewed the aftermath saw few homes still standing in the community of 1,200 residents.
Fire managers were rushing resources to the fire growing on steep slopes in a forested region southwest of Lake Tahoe.
More than 650 firefighters and 13 helicopters were assigned to the blaze, and air tankers from throughout the state were flying fire suppression missions there as conditions allowed, authorities said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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International aid workers on the ground said hospitals in the areas worst hit by Saturday’s quake are mostly incapacitated and that there is a desperate need for medical equipment. But the government told at least one foreign organization that has been operating in the country for nearly three decades that it did not need assistance from hundreds of its medical volunteers.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Henry said Wednesday that his administration will work to not “repeat history on the mismanagement and coordination of aid,” a reference to the chaos that followed the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, when the government was accused of not getting all of the money raised by donors to the people who needed it.
In a message on his Twitter account, Henry said that he “personally” will ensure that the aid gets to the victims this time around.
The Core Group, a coalition of key international diplomats from the United States and other nations that monitors Haiti, said in a statement Wednesday that its members are “resolutely committed to working alongside national and local authorities to ensure that impacted people and areas receive adequate assistance as soon as possible.”
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency raised the number of deaths from the quake to 2,189 from an earlier count of 1,941 and said more than 12,000 people were injured. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake destroyed more than 7,000 homes and damaged more than 12,000, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, officials said. Schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Grace was expected to make landfall early today between Tulum, known for its low-rise hotels and hip nightlife, and the island of Cozumel. Gov. Carlos Joaquín González said that authorities would be evacuating hotels there that were not made to withstand hurricanes and called for a halt to alcohol sales in the region at 5 p.m.
On Wednesday afternoon, Grace had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and was moving west-northwest at 16 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The storm’s center was located about 250 miles east of Tulum.
The center said more strengthening was possible before landfall.
On Tulum’s main drag, tourists in plastic ponchos splashed through puddles as the wind picked up. On the beach side, the surf grew and beachgoers took shelter from the blowing sand.
Soldiers and sailors patrolled Tulum’s streets in trucks.
Businesses began taping and boarding up windows and lines formed at stores as families bought essentials.
“We’re taking precautions, buying milk, sugar, water and cookies because we don’t know how long we’ll be shut in,” said 21-year-old homemaker Adamaris Garcia, standing in a line of dozens of people at a small store.
Meanwhile, some tourists fretted over a lost day at the beach during their vacations while others prepared for their first hurricane experience.
Johanna Geys, of Munich, Germany, was having a beer in Tulum Wednesday afternoon. It was her first time in Mexico and Grace will be her first hurricane.
“We don’t know how it is (in hurricanes), ” said Geys, a 28-year-old waitress. People have been telling her it won’t be bad.
Leaving a store with some supplies, 25-year-old California law student Sarah Lynch said she wasn’t too worried.
“We have extra water. We prepared for the hurricane and we’re just going to roll with the storm and see what happens,” Lynch said. “It’s a little scary because it’s unknown, but besides that we’re OK. We made it through COVID.”
Up the coast in Cancun, fishermen dragged their boats away from the water’s edge in preparation.
“Last year it caught us like that (unprepared) because the information we get sometimes is not correct and sometimes we can endure them (the storms.),” said fisherman Carlos Canche Gonzalez. “But I don’t think it will strengthen, and from the experience we have from last year, well, if it does or it doesn’t, we have to protect our equipment. That’s what we live off, we’ve been fishermen for years.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire started Monday evening 24 miles inland from the coastal resort of Saint-Tropez. Whipped up by powerful seasonal winds coming off the Mediterranean Sea, the fire had burned 17,300 acres of forest by Wednesday morning, local officials said.
The prefect of the Var region, Evence Richard, told reporters that two people were killed.
The local prosecutor said the bodies were found in a home that burned down near the town of Grimaud. An investigation has been opened to formally identify the victims.
At least 27 people, including five firefighters, have suffered smoke inhalation or minor injuries from the blaze, the prefecture of the Var region said. Authorities closed a highway north of the fire area on Wednesday afternoon due to the thick smoke.
In the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, huge water-bombing planes could be seen swooping down to fill their bellies with water to dump across the flaming Riviera backcountry.
The end of the day brought new risks, because the airborne battle against the blaze by nine water-dropping aircraft and two planes spreading fire retardant must stop at night. Reinforcements to give firefighters on the ground periodic rests were coming in from northern France and elsewhere.
The wildfire has forced about 10,000 people to flee homes, campgrounds and hotels, sending them to sleep in temporary shelters, the prefect tweeted. Among them were more than 1,000 people who stayed around a gym in the seaside resort of Bormes-Les-Mimosas where authorities supplied food and water.
Vassili Bartoletti and his family, who are from northeastern France, were evacuated early Tuesday from a campground where they had been vacationing.
“Around midnight, someone knocked at our door and told us to take our belongings and leave. At the end of the alley, we could see the red flames,” he told The Associated Press. “So we left hastily.”
Bartoletti said his 6-year-old son was “very anxious” about the fire.
“I showed him the map. I showed him we were far away, that we’ve been moved to a safe place” in Bormes-Les-Mimosas, he said.
Last month, while the family was on vacation on the Italian island of Sardinia, a major blaze there for three days threatened the town where they had rented a house.
They did not have to evacuate but endured smoke in the air and saw water-dumping planes and helicopters going back and forth repeatedly.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials have attributed warming temperatures and worsening drought to the explosive growth of fires, mostly in the mountains of Northern California, this summer.
And while the fire-prone state has seen gusty winds this season, many experts fear that the impending arrival of strong Santa Anas and Diablos — which typically move in around mid-September — could mark even more misery for weary residents and beleaguered fire crews.
“We’re coming into the high fire season, and right now we’re on our knees,” said climatologist Bill Patzert. “The weather is the wildcard, and the weather patterns have shifted. Looking ahead here, it’s hard to be optimistic.”
Already, strong winds caused a fire north of Sacramento to explode, burning through one town and spurring evacuations. A second fire raged in Lake County, destroying homes.
Then there is the monstrous Dixie fire — the second-largest in the state’s recorded history — now making a run toward Susanville.
Dixie has been burning for more than a month, and the danger zone now stretches across a wide swath of the region from Lassen to Butte.
Firefighters and climate experts are bracing for a challenging few months, with strong winds expected to move in soon. Winds have always fanned devastating fires, but it remains to be seen how they will combine with the dry terrain that has already created so much unpredictable fire behavior this year.
“To have fires of this magnitude so early is very unusual,” said Alex Hall, director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science. “And in much of California, historically, the heart of the fire season — especially for big fires — is the time of year when the Santa Ana and Diablo winds kick in.”
To Hall and others, the conditions this year underscore how the changing climate is fundamentally altering the dynamics of fighting and surviving fires in California. Many of the ingredients are in place for another flame-filled fall.
“The dices are loaded,” he said. “It’s very likely that we have much more of the fire season to come.”
The state passed the 1 million-acre mark Saturday, according to Cal Fire — the same day the Caldor fire ignited south of Grizzly Flats.
By Wednesday, the number had already grown to more than 1.3 million acres.
Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant said hitting the milestone in California is a rarity in any year, and even more so when it happens this early.
“It’s very concerning that we’ve already had over a million acres by August,” he said. “We are well ahead of the acreage in the same time period last year — and last year was a record-setting year.”
Not only have wildfires arrived earlier this year, but they have also been destructive. The multi-county, 635,000-acre Dixie fire already reduced the town of Greenville to ashes.
Strong winds also helped spur significant growth of the Caldor fire in El Dorado County, which exploded from 6,500 acres Tuesday to more than 50,000 acres by Wednesday. Red flag warnings have been issued across much of Central and Northern California.
Officials said it grew so rapidly at one point that they had trouble keeping an accurate perimeter on the map.
“This fire has done things that nobody could have predicted,” Eldorado National Forest supervisor Jeff Marsolais said during a community meeting Tuesday, “but that’s how firefighting has been in the state this year.”
Both of the fires have been driven by the heat and drought, which together have dried the state’s landscape to the point of extreme combustibility. Strong winds have fanned their flames and sent their embers aloft, and the seasonal Santa Anas and Diablos haven’t even arrived in full force.
“September and October is traditionally when the largest and the most destructive fires have occurred, and primarily that’s due to the fact that that’s the time period when, traditionally, we would see wind events like Santa Anas,” Berlant said.
“Plus it’s the point of the season when conditions have been dried out all summer long, and it’s the longest point we’ve gone without rainfall.”
In Susanville on Wednesday, interim City Administrator Dan Newton — who was evacuated from his home this week — worried that dwindling winds in the area might mean the fire is headed for another community.
“We are all kind of taking turns with the imminent danger,” he said. “It’s hit, obviously, a lot of communities already.”
The Santa Anas — and their Northern California counterpart, Diablos — are a recurrent weather phenomena in the state, explained Park Williams, a bioclimatologist and associate professor at UCLA.
Most years starting around September or October, the winds move in from the high deserts toward the oceans. They get pressurized and hotter as they travel, and when they hit the state’s mountain passes and canyons, they get faster.
“It’s the perfect recipe for fire as long as all the vegetation on the landscape is dry,” Williams said.
The landscape is undoubtedly dry this year. Rainfall and snowmelt have been scant, and the ongoing drought is shriveling the region’s lakes, reservoirs and vital water sources.
Like monsoons and other weather patterns, Santa Anas and Diablos are hard to predict more than a few days out, Williams said, so climate experts can’t say for sure whether or when they will happen in a given year.
If they don’t arrive, there is a chance that California could see some reprieve from fire. But there is a strong probability that they will show up.
“To have big fires in the fall really takes a convergence of a few pieces of bad luck,” Williams said. “Those pieces of bad luck are: You need a really big Santa Ana wind event ... and you need that to occur before the winter rainy season has really started up.”
Like the wind, rains are hard to predict too far in advance, but most experts said moisture probably isn’t in the forecast anytime soon.
“For years I talked about the race between the Santa Anas and the rains, which really determined the fire season,” Patzert said. “But the rainy season is coming later and it’s leaving earlier. It’s compressed.”
Patzert said there are other factors that could contribute to a bad fire season this fall, including dry lightning events like the ones that ignited so many terrible fires last year.
The August Complex — the state’s first million-acre fire — was composed of dozens of smaller fires sparked by an unusually fierce lightning storm that saw more than 12,000 strikes over 96 hours.
That record-breaking fire began this same week — mid-August — last year.
And although climate change is creating drier conditions on the ground, some scientists say it is also creating humidity higher in the atmosphere, Patzert said. That kind of instability could increase the likelihood of more lightning strike clusters moving forward.
What’s more, the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration is warning of a possible La Niña emergence, which usually means below normal rainfall for the region, Patzert said.
Also of concern is continued exposure to wildfire smoke, which is blanketing not only California but much of the continent.
Smoke from the Caldor and other fires on Wednesday prompted an air quality advisory in the Bay Area, while wildfire cameras captured fiery columns, billowing flames and eerie orange skies.
Studies have found that wildfire smoke can contain bacteria, heavy metals and other dangerous substances.
The conditions are difficult for both residents and firefighters working to extinguish the flames. Cal Fire said more than 10,000 personnel are now battling 12 active large fires across the state.
Berlant said the agency is doing its best to keep crews motivated and healthy, but weeks of fighting fire — with no finish line in sight — are taking a toll.
“We really have to pace [crews], and ourselves, because we have many more months before the winter season approaches,” he said. “We have to constantly prioritize our resources.”
So far, drought-related water restrictions across the state haven’t affected firefighters’ ability to fight flames, Berlant said, although he could envision a scenario in which aerial crews might have to fly a little farther to replenish supplies for water drops.
(Hayley Smith, Lila Seidman&Hailey Branson-Potts, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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At least 77 people were killed after torrential rains battered Turkey’s northwestern Black Sea provinces on Aug. 11, causing floods that demolished homes and bridges, swept away cars and blocked access to numerous roads.
The Turkish disaster management agency, AFAD, said 26 people were still unaccounted for in Kastamonu province and eight others were reported missing in Sinop province.
Private NTV television showed excavators removing debris from flood-devastated areas of the town of Bozkurt in Kastamonu province and from Ayancik in Sinop.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The blaze in dense forest in the Vilia area began Monday, shortly after another wildfire broke out southeast of the Greek capital in the Keratea area. The two were the most severe among dozens of wildfires to erupt that day, the fire department said.
Greece’s minister for public order, Michalis Chrysochoidis, said late Tuesday the situation at Vilia was improving despite a number of flareups and that the Keratea blaze had been contained.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Grace battered southwestern Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned some areas could get 15 inches of rain before the storm moved on. Intermittent rain fell in the earthquake-damaged city of Les Cayes and in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll to 1,941 and the number of injured to 9,900, many of whom have had to wait for medical help lying outside in wilting heat.
The devastation is centered in the country’s southwestern area, where health care has reached capacity and people have lost homes and loved ones.
Patience was running out in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Haitians already were struggling with the coronavirus and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise when the quake hit.
Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble, and the smell of death hung heavily over a pancaked, three-story apartment building. A bed sheet covered the body of a 3-year-old girl that firefighters had found an hour earlier.
Neighbor Joseph Boyer, 53, said he knew the girl’s family.
“The mother and father are in the hospital, but all three kids died,” he said. The bodies of the other two siblings were found earlier.
Illustrating the lack of government presence, volunteer firefighters from the nearby city of Cap-Haitien had left the body out in the rain because police have to be present before a body can be taken away.
A throng of angry men gathered in front of the collapsed building, a sign that patience was running out for people who have waited for help from the government.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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It was the latest blaze in a summer of wildfires that have swept across the Mediterranean region, leaving areas in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Algeria and Spain in smoldering ruins.
The wildfire started Monday evening, in the height of France’s summer vacation season, about 24 miles inland from the coastal resort of Saint-Tropez. Fueled by powerful seasonal winds coming off the Mediterranean, the fire had spread across 12,000 acres of forest by Tuesday morning, according to the Var regional administration.
Some 6,000 people were evacuated from homes and a dozen campgrounds while others were locked down in a holiday center for Air France employees. At least 22 people suffered from smoke inhalation or minor fire- related injuries and two firefighters were among the injured, officials said.
Macron, who has been vacationing in a nearby coastal fortress, visited the fire zone on Tuesday.
“The worst has been avoided,” Macron said, praising the efforts of over 900 firefighters and the deployment of 11 water-dumping planes.
The destroyed landscape is “absolutely terrible in terms of biodiversity and of natural heritage but lives have been protected,” he said.
Water-dumping planes and emergency helicopters zipped back and forth Tuesday over hills lined with chestnut, pine and oak trees. Images shared online by firefighters showed black plumes of smoke leaping across thickets of trees as the flames darted across dry brush.
Carlo Zaglia, spokesperson for the region’s firefighters, described “a violent fire” raging in the low mountain range of the Maures, making it “very difficult for firefighters to reach the trees and battle the fire.”
One evacuee told France-Bleu that smoke enveloped his car as he returned to his campsite and he barely had time to grab his baby daughter’s milk and basic belongings before fleeing. Another told BFM television about escaping as his hotel caught fire.
Local authorities closed roads, blocked access to forests and urged caution. Officials warned that the fire risk would remain very high through today because of hot, dry weather. Temperatures have reached 104 degrees in recent days.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Caldor fire in the northern Sierra Nevada had burned an estimated 50 homes in and around Grizzly Flats, a town of about 1,200 people, fire officials said at a community meeting.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for El Dorado County because of the blaze, which tripled in size between Monday and Tuesday afternoon to nearly 32,000 acres.
To the north the Dixie fire — the largest of about 100 active wildfires in more than a dozen Western states — was advancing toward Susanville, which has a population of about 18,000.
Meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric announced it had begun shutting off power to 51,000 customers in small portions of 18 northern counties to prevent winds from knocking down or fouling power lines and sparking new blazes.
The utility said the precautionary shutoffs were focused in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the North Coast, the North Valley and the North Bay mountains.
Very few homes were left standing in Grizzly Flats, where streets were littered with downed power lines and poles. Houses were reduced to smoldering ash and twisted metal with only chimneys rising above the ruins. A post office and elementary school were also destroyed.
Two people with serious or severe injuries were airlifted to hospitals from the Grizzly Flats area, fire officials said.
At the Dixie fire, numerous resources were put into the Susanville area, where residents were warned to be ready to evacuate, said Mark Brunton, an operations section chief.
“It’s not out of play, and the next 24 hours are going to be crucial to watch as to what the fire is going to do there,” he told an online briefing.
Susanville is the seat of Lassen County and the largest city that the Dixie fire has approached since it broke out last month.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The rumbling sound could be heard several miles away as Mount Merapi erupted, sending hot ash nearly 2,000 feet into the sky.
Ash blanketed nearby towns, but long-established evacuation orders are in place near the volcano, and no casualties were reported.
It was Merapi’s biggest lava flow since authorities raised its danger level last November, said Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.
She said the lava dome just below Merapi’s southwest rim and the lava dome in the crater both have been active since the end of July. The southwest rim dome volume was estimated at 66.9 million cubic feet and about 10 feet tall before partially collapsing Monday morning, sending pyroclastic flows traveled fast down the southwest flank at least twice.
Smaller pyroclastic flows of searing gas and lava traveled up to a mile southwest at least twice more during the day.
The 9,737-foot peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area on the island of Java.
The city is a center of Javanese culture and a seat of royal dynasties going back centuries.
Merapi’s alert status has been at the second highest of four levels since it began erupting last November, and Indonesia’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center has not raised it despite the past week’s increased volcanic activity. The four levels describe eruption activity as normal, minor, moderate or major.
People are advised to stay about 3 miles from the crater’s mouth and to beware of the peril of lava, the agency said.
Ash from the eruption blanketed several villages and nearby towns, Humaida said. Cloudy weather obscured views of the peak.
Mount Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently.
Authorities in November had evacuated nearly 2,000 people living on the fertile slopes of the mountain in Magelang and Sleman districts and about 550 more people in January, but most have since returned.
Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people and caused the evacuation of 20,000 villagers.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the ocean.
(Slamet Riyadi, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Water levels at Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white “bathtub ring” of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.
States, cities, farmers and others have diversified their water sources over the years, helping soften the blow of the upcoming cuts. But federal officials said Monday’s declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted in 2019, when some states in the Colorado River basin agreed to give up shares of water to maintain levels at Lake Mead.
“The announcement today is a recognition that the hydrology that was planned for years ago — but we hoped we would never see — is here,” said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton.
Lake Mead was formed by building the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. It is one of several human-made reservoirs that store water from the Colorado River, which supplies household water, irrigation for farms and hydropower to Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and parts of Mexico.
But water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river’s two largest reservoirs, have been falling for years and faster than experts predicted. Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles southwest and into the Gulf of California.
How is the water shared?
Water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is divvied up through legal agreements among the seven Colorado River basin states, the federal government, Mexico and others. The agreements determine how much water each gets, when cuts are triggered and the order in which the parties have to sacrifice some of their supply.
Under a 2019 drought contingency plan, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico agreed to give up shares of their water to maintain water levels at Lake Mead.
The voluntary measures weren’t enough to prevent the federal shortage declaration.
Who does Lake Mead serve?
Lake Mead supplies water to millions of people in Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico.
Cuts for 2022 are triggered when predicted water levels fall below a certain threshold — 1,075 feet above sea level, or 40 percent capacity. Hydrologists predict that by January, the reservoir will drop to 1,066 feet.
Further rounds of cuts are triggered when projected levels sink to 1,050, 1,045 and 1,025 feet.
Eventually, some city and industrial water users could be affected.
Lake Powell’s levels also are falling, threatening the roughly 5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity generated each year at the Glen Canyon Dam.
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming get water from tributaries and other reservoirs that feed into Lake Powell.
Water from three reservoirs in those states has been drained to maintain water levels at Lake Powell and protect the electric grid powered by the Glen Canyon Dam.
Which states will be affected by the cuts?
In the U.S., Arizona will be hardest hit and lose 18 percent of its share from the river next year, or 512,000 acre-feet of water. That’s around 8 percent of the state’s total water use.
An acre-foot is enough water to supply one to two households a year.
Nevada will lose about 7 percent of its allocation, or 21,000 acre-feet of water. But it will not feel the shortage largely because of conservation efforts.
California is spared from immediate cuts because it has more senior water rights than Arizona and Nevada.
Mexico will see a reduction of roughly 5 percent, or 80,000 acre-feet.
Who in those states will see their water supply cut?
Farmers in central Arizona, who are among the state’s largest producers of livestock, dairy, alfalfa, wheat and barley, will bear the brunt of the cuts.
Their allocation comes from water deemed “extra” by the agency that supplies water to much of the region, making them the first to lose it during a shortage.
As a result, the farmers will likely need to fallow land — as many already have in recent years because of persisting drought — and rely even more on groundwater, switch to water-efficient crops and find other ways to use less water.
(Suman Naishadham, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The new casualty figures for the Saturday quake were announced after Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry promised a “tenfold” increase in actions to help the quake-ravaged southern peninsula of his country. He also privately expressed frustration to the American ambassador at the slow rollout of help.
Henry’s public promise on Twitter and his private anger, conveyed in an internal State Department update shared with The New York Times, came as local and international aid agencies struggled to deploy medical help and search teams to the area about 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital.
The 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Saturday morning could not have come at a worse time for Haiti. The Caribbean nation is still traumatized over the unsolved July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and is still recovering from the calamitous quake that destroyed much of the Port-au-Prince area in 2010. Severe poverty, systematic gang violence, the pandemic and a history of dysfunctional government have only worsened the struggles of Haiti’s 11 million people.
The civil defense agency raised the number of confirmed deaths by more than 100 late Monday afternoon, with 6,900 injured in an area that is bereft of medical resources in normal times.
The homes of as many as 1.5 million Haitians across the southern peninsula are structurally damaged, according to another internal U.S. government assessment.
The need to expedite help intensified as Tropical Depression Grace threatened Haiti and other Caribbean countries. The storm, which made landfall in Haiti on Monday, could dump enough rain to cause mudslides and flooding in the quake zone, where hundreds of thousands of survivors are sleeping in the open.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Greece has been roiled by hundreds of wildfires this month, on the heels of its most severe heat wave in decades, which left its forests tinder dry. Other Mediterranean countries — Turkey, Italy, Algeria and Spain among them — have suffered similar problems.
Scientists say there is little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving more extreme weather events.
The worst of the two blazes that erupted Monday was in the Vilia area northwest of the Greek capital, which triggered an evacuation alert for eight villages. Greece’s minister for public order, Michalis Chrysochoidis, said the flames were coursing through a densely forested area with scattered villages, none of which were in direct danger.
“We are trying to stop the fire from spreading” toward the nearby large village of Vilia, he said.
That blaze was being fought by 240 firefighters — including 143 from Poland — supported by eight water-dropping planes and nine helicopters.
Another fire broke out earlier in the Keratea region southeast of Athens, burning shrubland and threatening a national park in the Sounion area. Three communities were ordered evacuated. Some residents desperately drenched their homes, while volunteers with hoses and branches helped fight the fires. More than 100 firefighters, eight water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters were striving to contain the blaze, which appeared to be on the wane by evening.
“Right now the situation there has improved, there are scattered active fires within the perimeter and efforts are continuing to contain them,” Chrysohoidis said.
Local Mayor Dimitris Loukas told Greek television that authorities were investigating reports of arson. He said residents had seen someone in a car setting a dumpster on fire.
The fire service said 45 wildfires erupted across the country between late Sunday and late Monday. Most were quickly contained.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Strong southwest winds were expected to arrive in the northern part of the state Monday, colliding with searing temperatures and parched vegetation — a cocktail of conditions known to stoke extreme fire behavior.
A red flag warning for the Dixie burn area is expected to last through 10 p.m. Tuesday, as gusts are expected to peak at 35 mph. Temperatures will hover in the mid-90s, potentially hitting triple digits in some areas.
PG&E began alerting customers about the possible shutoffs on Sunday through text, email and automated calls.
The utility has said its equipment may have sparked the massive Dixie fire, which broke out July 13 near where a tree fell into a power line. It took a worker about 10 hours to reach the remote site and observe flames, company officials said.
Nine days after the Dixie fire started, PG&E equipment may have ignited the Fly fire nearly 30 miles to the northeast, a blaze that eventually merged with Dixie.
As of Monday morning, Dixie covered a monstrous 569,707 acres, growing roughly 50,000 acres since Friday. After burning for more than a month, it is only 31 percent contained. It is the second-largest wildfire in California history.
PG&E said in a news release that the planned shutoffs are a preemptive step to tamp down risk amid the dangerous weather conditions.
Most of the residents in the potential shutoff area — about 27,000 — are in Butte and Shasta counties, PG&E said in a news release. However, residents in 14 other counties — Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Napa, Plumas, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba — may also be affected.
Temperatures could top 100 degrees Monday in parts of Butte and Shasta counties. A 48-hour smoke advisory of unhealthy air quality was issued Monday for the Antelope Valley — an area more than 400 miles south of the Dixie fire.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The storm came ashore near Cape San Blas, FL, southeast of Panama City, the hurricane center said Monday afternoon, and was moving north-northeast at 10 mph with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph.
Tropical storm warnings remained in effect along Florida’s Big Bend Coast to the Steinhatchee River, while parts of the Panhandle coastline were under a storm surge warning, meaning that rising water could bring the “danger of life-threatening” flooding in those areas.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” the hurricane center said. “Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water.”
Forecasters are also monitoring Tropical Depression Grace, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic season, which formed in the eastern Caribbean on Saturday morning.
Grace was expected to dump enough heavy rain over Haiti on Monday and early today to cause mudslides and flooding, just days after the country was struck by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, the hurricane center said.
Fred is forecast to bring 4 to 8 inches of rain to the Florida Panhandle, with isolated totals of up to 12 inches. The heavy rainfall could lead to flooding with possible rapid river rises, the center said.
Along parts of the Florida Panhandle coastline, the storm surge could reach 3 to 5 feet, the center said. Two feet of flowing water is enough to float a vehicle.
Video circulating on social media on Monday evening depicted heavy flooding in the Southport, Fla., area, about 10 miles north of Panama City. In the video, some vehicles appeared to be stuck on roadways, and a nearby gas station was also flooded.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Fred’s tropical storm-force winds extended 115 miles from the storm’s center.
Parts of southeast Alabama through western and northern Georgia could see rainfall totals between 4 to 8 inches, with isolated totals up to 10 inches.
Forecasters also noted that tornadoes could form across parts of the Florida Panhandle, southwestern Georgia and southeastern Alabama. The Carolinas and Virginia could face a tornado threat today.
Fred is the sixth named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Authorities said the damage from the flooding was unprecedented. At one point, more than 330 villages were without electricity, and more than 80 were still without power as of Sunday. Receding waters left vehicles toppled in the streets, and mud filled almost the entirety of the ground floor in some houses in the village of Babacay.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Saturday’s earthquake also left at least 5,700 people injured in the Caribbean nation, with thousands more displaced from their destroyed or damaged homes. Survivors in some areas were forced to wait out in the open amid oppressive heat for help from overloaded hospitals.
The devastation could soon worsen with the coming of Tropical Depression Grace, which is predicted to reach Haiti tonight. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned that although Grace had weakened from tropical storm strength Sunday, it still posed a threat to bring heavy rain, flooding and landslides.
The earthquake struck the southwestern part of the hemisphere’s poorest nation, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in a country already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination and a wave of gang violence.
The epicenter was about 78 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and aftershocks continued to jolt the area Sunday.
In scenes widespread across the region hit by the quake, families salvaged their few belongings and spent the night at an open-air football pitch. On Sunday, people lined up to buy what little was available: bananas, avocados and water at a local street market.
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said Sunday that humanitarian needs are acute, with many Haitians urgently needing health care, clean water and shelter. Children who have been separated from parents need protection, she said.
Medical workers from across the region were scrambling to help.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Thunderstorms that moved in starting Friday didn’t produce much rain but whipped up winds and generated lightning strikes across the northern Sierra where crews were battling the month-old Dixie fire. Extreme heat returned Sunday with temperatures expected to top 100 degrees.
“We’re definitely still dealing with the possibility of lightning. Winds are all over the place. Things are going to be pretty unstable for the next couple days,” said fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga.
Gusts of up to 50 mph on Saturday pushed flames closer to Janesville, a town of about 1,500 people just east of Greenville, the small gold rush-era community decimated by the fire 10 days ago.
The Dixie fire was the largest among more than 100 big blazes burning in more than a dozen states in the West, a region seared by drought and hot, bone-dry weather that turned forests, brushlands, meadows and pastures into tinder.
The U.S. Forest Service said Friday it is operating in crisis mode, fully deploying firefighters and maxing out its support system.
The roughly 21,000 federal firefighters working on the ground is more than double the number of firefighters sent to contain forest fires at this time a year ago, said Anthony Scardina, a deputy forester for the agency’s Pacific Southwest region.
More than 6,000 firefighters alone were battling the Dixie fire, which has ravaged nearly 867 square miles [555,000 acres] — an area the size of Tokyo. It was 31 percent contained on Sunday.
More than 1,000 homes and businesses have been destroyed and nearly 15,000 structures were still under threat.
The cause has not been determined. Pacific Gas and Electric has said the fire may have been sparked when a tree fell on its power line.
A few hundred miles to the south, evacuations were ordered Sunday after a blaze that broke out the night before churned through California forestland near the remote community of Omo Ranch. There was no containment of the Caldor fire burning in El Dorado County, about 60 miles east of Sacramento.
Meanwhile, a small wildfire that blew up Saturday east of Salt Lake City, temporarily shutting down Interstate 80 and leading to evacuation orders for some 8,000 residences, was caused by a vehicle with a malfunctioning catalytic converter, Utah Fire Info said.
The Parleys Canyon fire, estimated at just under a square mile, calmed significantly overnight and homes were no longer threatened, officials said Sunday.
In southeastern Montana, firefighters gained ground on a pair of blazes that chewed through vast rangelands and at one point threatened the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Tropical storm warnings have been issued for much of the Florida Panhandle ahead of Fred, which regained tropical-storm intensity early Sunday. It is expected to make landfall along the Florida Panhandle late today, producing heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding along the coast before pushing inland through the Southeast.
Meanwhile, Grace is sweeping westward south of Puerto Rico and is forecast to slam into the Dominican Republic Sunday night and cut across Haiti, reeling from Saturday’s magnitude-7.2 earthquake.
The National Hurricane Center predicts Haiti could see 4 to 8 inches of rain and isolated totals up to 15 inches between today and Tuesday. The beleaguered country could experience “flash and urban flooding and possible mudslides,” complicating rescue and recovery efforts and potentially causing more damage and human suffering.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, while Haiti is under a tropical storm watch as Grace traverses the Caribbean.
After barely holding together for the last 48 hours, Fred reorganized over the toasty waters of the eastern Gulf of Mexico early Sunday and is predicted to further strengthen.
Over the next 36 hours, the storm could see its peak winds increase from 40 to 50 mph or even higher.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The roughly 21,000 federal firefighters working on the ground is more than double the number of firefighters sent to contain forest fires at this time a year ago, and the agency is facing “critical resources limitations,” said Anthony Scardina, a deputy forester for the agency’s Pacific Southwest region.
An estimated 6,170 firefighters are battling the Dixie fire in Northern California, the largest of 100 large fires burning in 14 states, with dozens more burning in western Canada.
The fire began a month ago and has destroyed more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other structures, much of them in the small town of Greenville in the northern Sierra Nevada.
The fire had ravaged more than 512,000 acres (about 800 square miles) — an area larger than the city of London — and continued to threaten more than a dozen rural and forest communities.
Containment lines for the fire held overnight, but it was just 31 percent surrounded. Gusty and erratic winds were threatening to spread the fire to Westwood, a lumber town of 1,700. Lightning could spark new blazes even as crews try to surround a number of other forest fires ignited by lightning last month.
“Mother nature just kind of keeps throwing us obstacles our way,“ said Edwin Zuniga, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, working together with the Forest Service to tamp out the blaze.
Meanwhile, firefighters and residents were scrambling to save hundreds of homes as flames advance across the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana.
The blaze was still burning near the tribal headquarters town of Lame Deer, where a mandatory evacuation remained in place and a second fire was threatening from the opposite direction.
Smoke from the blazes grew so thick Friday morning that the health clinic in Lame Deer was shut down after its air filters could not keep up with the pollution, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said.
Smoke drove air pollution levels to unhealthy or very unhealthy levels in portions of Montana, Idaho, Oregon Washington and Northern California, according to Environmental Protection Agency air quality monitoring.
An air quality alert covering seven Montana counties warned of extremely high levels of small pollution particles found in smoke, which can cause lung issues and other health problems if inhaled.
The fires near Lame Deer combined have burned 176,000 acres this week, so far sparing homes but causing extensive damage to pasture lands that ranchers depend on to feed their cows and horses.
Gusts and low humidity were creating extremely dangerous conditions as flames devoured brush, short grass and timber, fire officials said.
Hot, dry weather with strong afternoon winds also propelled several fires in Washington state, and similar weather was expected into the weekend, fire officials said.
In southeastern Oregon, two new wildfires started by lightning Thursday near the California border were spreading through juniper trees, sagebrush and evergreen trees.
Gov. Kate Brown declared an emergency for one of the fires to mobilize crews and other resources to the area of ranches, rural subdivisions and RV parks about 14 miles from the small town of Lakeview.
The blaze grew from a lightning strike to 7,040 acres in less than 24 hours, said Tamara Schmidt, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
(Eugene Garcia&Daisy Nguyen, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As extreme heat waves struck parts of the United States and Europe, the globe averaged 62.07 degrees last month, beating out the previous record set in July 2016 and tied again in 2019 and 2020. the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday. The margin was just 0.02 degree.
The last seven Julys, from 2015 to 2021, have been the hottest seven Julys on record, said NOAA climatologist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo. Last month was 1.67 degrees warmer than the 20th-century average for the month.
“In this case first place is the worst place to be,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a news release. “This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.”
Earlier this week, a United Nations science panel warned of worsening climate change caused by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas and other human activity.
Warming on land in western North America and in parts of Europe and Asia really drove the record-setting heat, Sanchez-Lugo said. While the worldwide temperature was barely higher than the record, what shattered it was land temperature over the Northern Hemisphere, she said.
Northern Hemisphere temperatures were a third of a degree higher than the previous record set in July 2012, which for temperature records is “a wide margin,” Sanchez-Lugo said.
July is the hottest month of the year for the globe, so this is also the hottest month on record.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Torrential rains that pounded the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun on Wednesday caused the flooding that demolished homes and bridges and swept away cars. More than 1,700 people were evacuated across the region, some lifted from rooftops by helicopters, and many were being temporarily housed in student dormitories.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Twitter late Friday that 32 people died in Kastamonu and six in Sinop.
In Kastamonu, a stream burst its banks and inundated the town of Bozkurt. Raging floodwaters demolished one waterfront building and severely damaged two neighboring buildings. A number of bodies washed up on the Black Sea shore, Halk TV reported, airing footage of people carrying a body bag on a beach in an unidentified province.
The floods struck on the heels of wildfires in southern Turkey that devastated forest lands in the seaside provinces of Mugla and Antalya that are popular with tourists. At least eight people died and thousands of residents were forced to flee.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fires broke out as the country roasted during the most intense and protracted heat wave experienced since 1987. Hundreds of wildfires erupted across the country, stretching Greece’s firefighting capabilities to the limit and leading the government to appeal for help from abroad. Hundreds of firefighters, along with planes, helicopters and vehicles, arrived from 24 European and Middle Eastern countries to assist.
“We managed to save lives, but we lost forests and property,” Mitsotakis said, describing the wildfires as “the greatest ecological catastrophe of the last few decades.”
Speaking during a news conference in Athens, his first since the fires broke out, Mitsotakis said authorities had faced around 100 active blazes each day. By Thursday, the situation was much improved, with most large wildfires on the wane.
But the prime minister warned the danger of more blazes was still present.
“We are in the middle of August and it’s clear we will have difficult days ahead of us” until the main season during which fires break out is over, he said.
“The climate crisis — I’d like to use this term, and not climate change — the climate crisis is here, and it shows us everything needs to change” he said, adding he was ready to make the “bold changes” needed.
“This is a common crisis for all of us,” he said.
Several Mediterranean countries have suffered intense heat and quickly spreading wildfires in recent weeks, including Turkey, where at least eight people have died, and Italy. In Algeria, wildfires in the mountains have killed at least 69 people.
Worsening drought and heat — both linked to climate change — have also fueled wildfires this summer in the Western United States and in Russia’s northern Siberia region. Scientists say there is little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving more extreme events.
Greece’s largest fire broke out on the country’s second-largest island of Evia on Aug. 3 and was still smoldering on Thursday, after having destroyed most of the island’s north.
More than 125,777 acres were damaged in northern Evia, according to mapping from the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Entire mountains of mainly pine forest have been reduced to wastelands of blackened stumps, while olive and fig tree plantations and vineyards were also destroyed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The most intense heat is roasting the Pacific Northwest, which has already endured several blasts of abnormally high temperatures this summer, including an “unprecedented” event in late June when temperatures in Portland, Ore., soared to 116 degrees and Seattle hit 108, both all-time highs. Experts estimated the episode was made 150 times more likely because of human-induced climate change.
Portland and Seattle are again under an excessive-heat warning, which covers much of western Oregon and Washington state. It also extends into parts of Northern California, home to the Dixie fire, the state’s second-largest blaze on record. At half a million acres burned, the fire is still only 30 percent contained and growing.
In the East and Midwest, a sprawling area of heat advisories covers the zone from East Texas and portions of the Mississippi Valley to southeastern Michigan and large parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast along the Interstate 95 corridor and parts of New England.
Cities under heat advisories include Little Rock, Ark.; Nashville, Tenn.; Raleigh, N.C.; Indianapolis; Washington; and Boston. Some areas could even see harsher conditions with “extreme” heat and humidity, prompting an excessive-heat warning for cities such as Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis; New York; and Philadelphia.
The heat was forecast to peak in Portland on Thursday, with highs near or at 100 degrees, some 15 to 20 degrees above average.
“With the widespread heat expected, there is an enhanced risk to sensitive groups. Drink lots of water, check on neighbors, friends and family often, and locate to a cool space during the peak heating time frames,” the Weather Service in Portland wrote.
Portland, which hit 102 degrees on Thursday, will see temperatures gradually moderate over the weekend. The excessive-heat warning remains in effect until Saturday, with forecast highs in the mid-90s, but temperatures will slip into the 80s by Sunday.
Today is forecast to be Seattle’s hottest day at 94 degrees, besting the previous Aug. 13 record of 92 degrees. Temperatures then moderate into the upper 80s Saturday and more refreshing 70s on Sunday.
Heat advisories also blanket most of the Midwest and Mississippi Valley, where the heat and tropical humidity will yield heat index values well into the 100-to-105-degree range.
On the East Coast, New York City is looking at a high of 95 degrees, and Boston could hit 97, today, although Washington, D.C., may cool to “only” 96 degrees.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Some 300,000 customers were without power in the Dominican Republic and more than a half million were affected by swollen rivers that forced part of the aqueduct system to shut down, government officials reported.
Government crews with megaphones walked through impoverished neighborhoods in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo ahead of the storm urging those in low-lying areas to evacuate. Hours later, the government reported flooding in one courthouse.
Forecasters said Fred was expected to become a tropical storm again today as it moved near the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A heat wave fed by hot air from North Africa has engulfed large parts of the Mediterranean region in recent days, contributing to massive wildfires and killing dozens of people in Italy, Turkey and Algeria. In Greece, huge wildfires have ravaged forests for a week, destroying homes and forcing evacuations.
Sicily recorded Wednesday what may be a new European temperature record, though weather experts cautioned that the measurement still must be confirmed.
The Sicily region’s agriculture-meteorological information service, SIAS, reported that a temperature of 119.84 degrees Fahrenheit was reached at the island’s Syracuse station. The agency said on its Facebook page it is the highest temperature registered in the entire network since its installation in 2002.
The highest temperature ever recorded on the European continent is 118.40 degrees Fahrenheit in 1977 in Athens.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But don’t be alarmed: Scientists reported Wednesday that the odds are still quite low that Bennu will hit us in the next century.
“We shouldn’t be worried about it too much,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist with NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, who served as the study’s lead author.
While the odds of a strike have risen from 1-in-2,700 to 1-in-1,750 over the next century or two, scientists now have a much better idea of Bennu’s path thanks to NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft, according to Farnocchia.
“So I think that overall, the situation has improved,“ he told reporters.
The spacecraft is headed back to Earth on a long, roundabout loop after collecting samples from the large, spinning rubble pile of an asteroid, considered one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our solar system. The samples are due here in 2023.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in 2018, telescopes provided solid insight into the asteroid, about one-third of a mile in diameter. The spacecraft collected enough data over 2 1/2 years to help scientists better predict the asteroid’s orbital path well into the future.
Their findings — published in the journal Icarus — should also help in charting the course of other asteroids and give Earth a better fighting chance if and when another hazardous space rock heads our way.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived on the scene, scientists put the odds of Bennu hitting Earth through the year 2200 at 1-in-2,700. Now it’s 1-in-1,750 through the year 2300. The single most menacing day is Sept. 24, 2182.
Bennu will have a close encounter with Earth in 2135 when it passes within half the distance of the moon. Earth’s gravity could tweak its future path and put it on a collision course with Earth in the 2200s — less likely now based on Osiris-Rex observations.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Temperatures soared to 97 degrees Fahrenheit by the evening in Portland, Ore. In a “worst-case scenario,” the temperature could reach as high as 111 degrees in some parts of western Oregon this week before a weekend cool-down, the National Weather Service said.
Sizzling weather also was expected in other parts of the country. The weather service said heat advisories and warnings would be in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic through at least Friday.
The high temperatures in Portland, part of a usually temperate region, would break all-time records this week if the late June heat wave had not done so already, meteorologist Tyler Kranz said. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a chance to break records, and many people there, like in Oregon, don’t have air conditioning.
The forecast was hotter than for Phoenix, a desert city notorious for its blistering summertime temperatures.
“We’ll often hear people say, ‘Who cares if it’s 106 or 108? It gets this hot in Arizona all the time.’ Well, people in Arizona have air conditioning, and here in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of people don’t,” Kranz said. “You can’t really compare us to the desert Southwest.”
People began coming into a 24-hour cooling center in north Portland before it opened Wednesday. Volunteers and county employees set up cots and stacked hundreds of bottles of water in the air-conditioned center in a vacant building.
Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center, citing the potential for disruptions to the power grid and transportation. Besides opening cooling centers, city and county governments are extending public library hours and waiving bus fare for those headed to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide help line will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety tips.
The back-to-back heat waves, coupled with a summer that’s been exceptionally warm and dry overall, are pummeling a region where summer highs usually drift into the 70s or 80s. Intense heat waves and a historic drought in the American West reflect climate change that is making weather more extreme.
Heat and humidity also broiled parts of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and other midwestern states Wednesday while storms accompanied by heavy rain bowled over trees and flooded roads.
Thousands of homes and businesses in western and northern parts of Michigan’s lower peninsula remained without power following damage to power lines.
Wind gusts reached about 70 mph in some areas, including the Dorr area south of Grand Rapids, toppling trees, limbs and power lines.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Since igniting in Northern California nearly a month ago, the Dixie fire has leveled the Gold Rush town of Greenville and grown to more than 500,000 acres, destroying at least 1,045 structures in its wake, according to fire officials.
More than 550 structures consumed by the blaze were homes, with the majority being “single residences,” according to the latest incident report.
The blaze — which has scorched Plumas, Lassen, Butte and Tehama counties — is now the 15th most destructive in California history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
And the threat is far from over, as the fire continues to grow in several directions across rugged terrain. It was 30 percent contained on Wednesday.
More than 16,000 additional structures are still endangered by the Dixie fire, and firefighters are on high alert in vulnerable communities.
Roughly 32 percent of the population of Plumas County is under an evacuation order, according to Carly Cabrera, a spokesperson with the county Sheriff’s Office.
“We don’t want another Greenville,” said Edwin Zuniga, a Dixie fire spokesperson with Cal Fire. The town of roughly 1,000 people was reduced to rubble when flames tore through it last Wednesday.
It’s estimated that 524 structures were destroyed in Greenville alone — including 472 homes and 52 businesses, Cabrera said, citing figures from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
A week later, personnel were positioned to defend the communities of Westwood and the northern part of the Lake Almanor Peninsula — where the fire is burning just to the north, Zuniga said.
Firefighters are also working to protect Chester, where crews have so far been able to stave off flames, according to Zuniga.
The blaze reached the outskirts of Chester, burning outbuildings and other structures, and has caused some damage within the town, he said.
Firefighters patrol populated areas and attempt to squash fire activity wherever it crops up — like when a rogue ember lands on a roof and ignites, Zuniga said.
He said they also put contingency lines around the communities to keep fire at bay.
“We don’t want any more structures to be destroyed,” he said. “We don’t want more people to be displaced by this fire.”
Lassen County has sustained far less damage relative to neighboring Plumas, but the fire recently forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people across three small communities near the county line, including Westwood, according to Lt. Dave Woginrich, with the county Sheriff’s Office.
Several hundred evacuees — including Plumas County residents — are sheltering at centers set up at Lassen Community College and Lassen High School, he said.
Despite avoiding the worst of the Dixie fire so far, Woginrich said Plumas County officials are exhausted from an onslaught of fires plaguing the region for the past two years.
About a month ago, the Beckwourth Complex fire arrived in the southern part of county, tearing through the town of Doyle.
“The winds down there were just howling” at the time, reaching fierce speeds of 50 to 60 mph, Woginrich said.
After dealing with that fire for about 10 days, “we got about a week off,” he said. Then the Dixie fire started creeping into the county.
“People — including in our department — are tired of the fires. We’re tired of evacuating people, putting people on evacuation warnings,” Woginrich said.
“July and August for the last two years, this year and last year, have just been really taxing,” he said.
Meanwhile, a former college instructor linked to a rash of arson fires has been arrested and charged with igniting a blaze on federal forest land, not far from the site of the Dixie fire.
Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, has been charged with willfully starting the Ranch fire, which sparked Aug. 7 in Lassen National Forest and burned about an acre, according to documents filed in federal court this week.
Maynard is also suspected in at least six other fires that ignited in the Lassen and Shasta-Trinity National Forests in the last month.
“It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” the documents say.
Investigators first encountered Maynard at the scene of the Cascade fire, a July 20 blaze in a remote part of Shasta-Trinity, according to an affidavit from U.S. Forest Service special agent Tyler Bolem supporting the arrest warrant.
A witness said Maynard arrived in the area that morning and appeared mentally unstable, at one point threatening the witness with a knife. He recalled Maynard “walking away in the same direction that the Cascade fire soon ignited” before returning about 10 minutes later, the affidavit said.
Maynard was still at the scene when a fire investigator arrived because his car was stuck in a rut. The investigator said he was agitated and uncooperative when questioned.
A search of the site led to burned areas on the ground consisting of sticks, newspaper material and a wooden match.
“After visiting the scene and reviewing the facts in the case, I concurred that the ignition of this fire was not only suspicious, but consistent with arson,” Bolem said.
When a second fire erupted early the next morning near the Everitt Memorial Highway on Mount Shasta, tire tracks at the scene matched those of Maynard’s car.
In the weeks that followed, investigators used tire tracks, location data, EBT card activity and vehicle records to link Maynard to the sites of several other fires at the time of their ignition. Charges have not been filed in those cases.
(Lila Sideman, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany's 16 states approved the state flood aid package, which still needs parliament's endorsement.
"This is significantly more than we had for previous floods," Merkel told reporters in Berlin.
More than 180 people died in Germany and hundreds more were injured in the July 14-15 floods, which also claimed lives in neighboring Belgium. Heavy rainfall turned small streams into raging torrents, sweeping away houses, bridges and cars.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers were "martyrs" who saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation's Berber population.
Eleven other soldiers were burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the nation's Defense Ministry said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The fire, which has seared 487,764 acres across four counties north of Sacramento, is continuing to generate its own weather.
Around midnight Monday, an explosive storm cloud rose roughly 40,000 feet above the eastern portion of the blaze.
The pyrocumulonimbus cloud was so intense that it sparked lightning, as well as fiery spinning vortexes known as fire whirls, said Rich Thompson, a National Weather Service incident meteorologist for the Dixie fire.
One large whirl captured by an infrared camera shows a thin tendril snaking high above the rest of the flames. Thompson estimates that it soared 300 to 400 feet above an area west of Antelope Lake, where evacuations were ordered this week.
“It’s a sign to let people know that this fire still has a lot of potential,” Thompson said. “It’s actually something that was very impressive to watch.”
A fire whirl — sometimes likened to a tornado — is generated when hot air surges upward and begins to spin. As it spirals, it can collect ash, smoke and embers and form a tight, spinning vortex, like the one observed Monday night, Thompson said. The spinning action can “throw those embers across fire lines, so it can cause some really significant control issues,” he added.
The second-largest blaze in California history, the Dixie fire has burned at least 893 homes and commercial buildings and threatens more than 16,000 others, according to the latest incident report.
Crews made progress on the blaze over the last several days, and containment has climbed to 25 percent — up from 21 percent Monday.
The fire, which is burning across Plumas, Butte, Tehama and Lassen counties, last week leveled the remote Sierra town of Greenville and destroyed homes in Canyondam, Indian Falls Canyon, Chester and Warner Valley, Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns said Monday evening.
Many people are unable to return to their communities amid continued fire threats and evacuation orders.
“Many of our friends and neighbors have lost everything, and I know for those folks, the healing and recovery process will begin when they are able to see the damage that has been done to their property,” Johns said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Smoke and ash from Evia, a rugged island of forests and coves close to the Greek mainland, blocked out the sun and turned the sky orange. The fire, which began Aug. 3, is the most severe of hundreds in the past week across Greece, gobbling up pristine pine forests as well as homes and businesses and forcing hundreds to quickly evacuate by sea to save their lives.
Greece has been baked by its worst heat wave in three decades, which sent temperatures up to 113 Fahrenheit and turned its prized pine forests into bone-dry tinderboxes.
In a televised nationwide address, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the destruction in Evia and elsewhere “blackens everyone’s hearts” and pledged compensation for all affected, as well as a huge reforestation and regeneration effort.
He also apologized for “any weaknesses” shown in addressing the emergency, a nod to criticism from some residents and officials who said Greece’s firefighting efforts and equipment were woefully inadequate.
“These last few days have been among the hardest for our country in decades,” Mitsotakis said. “We are dealing with a natural disaster of unprecedented dimensions.”
With roads on the island cut off by the flames, residents and tourists fled to Evia’s beaches and jetties to be ferried to safety by a flotilla of ferries and boats.
“We were completely forsaken. There were no fire brigades, there were no vehicles, nothing!” David Angelou, who had been in the seaside village of Pefki, said Sunday night after leaving by ferry to the mainland.
Mitsotakis said Monday he “fully understands” the pain of those who lost homes or property, and the anger of those seeking airborne assistance “without knowing whether the firefighting aircraft were operating elsewhere or whether conditions made it impossible for them to fly.”
Other big wildfires were still burning Monday in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region.
The causes of the blazes are as yet undetermined, though several people have been arrested for alleged arson.
Greece’s top prosecutor has ordered an investigation into whether the high number of fires could be linked to criminal activity.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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And officials are warning that it could take several more weeks to contain the blaze, which is the second-largest wildfire in California’s recorded history.
The fire grew to 489,287 acres Monday and was only 21 percent contained, Cal Fire said. The estimated date for containment is Aug. 30.
“It’s all based on fire weather conditions,” Cal Fire incident spokesman Edwin Zuniga said, noting that the heat, dryness and gusty winds that have stoked the fire’s growth show little signs of improvement in coming days.
After more favorable conditions over the weekend, temperatures in Northern California near the fire are expected to climb back into the high 90s by Wednesday and could reach triple digits, the National Weather Service said.
Last week, red-flag conditions sent embers from the Dixie fire flying into tinder-dry terrain, causing the blaze to explode by nearly 150,000 acres in less than two days.
That rapid growth is what caused containment numbers to plummet from 35 percent to 21 percent, Zuniga said.
More than 16,000 structures remain threatened by the blaze, Cal Fire officials said. Experts have said that dry vegetation leads to more intense fires that move faster and are harder to fight.
During a visit to the Dixie fire burn zone Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said it took only about 90 minutes for the conflagration to rip through the community of Greenville, reducing most of the small town to ash and rubble.
“The extreme weather conditions ... are leading to extreme conditions and wildfire challenges the likes of which we’ve never seen in our history,” Newsom said. “And as a consequence, we need to acknowledge, just straight up, these are climate-induced wildfires.”
Last month was the hottest July on record in four Western states, including California, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 5,800 firefighters are working around the clock to battle the Dixie fire, said Dan McKeague, an incident spokesman with the U.S. Forest Service. Exhausted crews are being swapped out for new ones.
And although the thick layer of smoke hovering over the fire is expected to dissipate Monday, McKeague said clearer skies actually expose the fire to more dangerous heat from the sun, which could lead to increased fire activity.
“It was actually helpful,” he said of the thick smoke. “It sort of held a cap that blocked some of the sunlight.”
The warming trend expected later in the week will add to challenging conditions, he said.
Evacuation orders and warnings spurred by the Dixie fire remained in effect Monday across swaths of Plumas, Butte, Tehama and Lassen counties.
The largest wildfire in California history is last year’s August Complex fire, which was composed of nearly 40 fires that ultimately grew to more than 1 million acres.
The largest stand-alone fire in the state is the Creek fire, which also ignited in 2020 and burned about 380,000 acres without ever merging with another fire, Cal Fire officials said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The fire on Evia, an island of forested mountains and canyons laced with small coves of crystalline water, began Aug. 3 and cut across the popular summer destination from coast to coast as it burned out of control. Scores of homes and businesses have been destroyed and thousands of residents and tourists have fled, many escaping the flames via flotillas that even operated in the dark of night.
The blaze is the most severe of dozens that broke out in the wake of Greece’s most protracted heat wave in three decades, which sent temperatures soaring to 113 degrees Fahrenheit for days, creating bone-dry conditions.
“It’s already too late, the area has been destroyed,” Giannis Kontzias, mayor of the northern Evia municipality of Istiaia, lamented on Greece’s Open TV. He was one of several local officials and residents who took to Greek TV networks to appeal for more firefighting help, particularly from water-dropping planes and helicopters.
Evacuation orders were issued Sunday for four villages in northern Evia, including Pefki, but many residents refused to leave, hoping to save their properties.
In dramatic scenes Sunday afternoon, fast-moving flames had encroached on the seaside village of Pefki, burning trees on the fringes and entering the houses’ yards. Panicked residents raced with water tanks, hoses and branches in a seemingly futile effort to extinguish the flames.
Late Sunday, firefighters managed to stop the fire before it advanced further into Pefki, on the island’s northern coast. Pefki residents and tourists fled to the port of Aidipsos to take the ferry to the mainland port of Arkitsa, 93 miles northwest of Athens.
Acrid, choking smoke hung in the orange-gray air, turning the day into an apocalyptic twilight as people headed toward Pefki’s pebble beach, dragging suitcases, clutching pets and helping elderly relatives.
The ferry, carrying panicked, exhausted evacuees who had boarded the vessel before the advance of the fire was halted, arrived at Arkitsa on Sunday evening. Passengers complained they had been left to fend for themselves as the fire approached.
The wildfires have stretched Greece’s firefighting capabilities to the limit, and the government has appealed for help from abroad. More than 20 countries in Europe and the Mideast have responded, sending planes, helicopters, vehicles and manpower.
Three more major fires were also burning Sunday in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region, while another broke out Sunday afternoon on the southern island of Crete.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More favorable weather conditions slowed the spread of the fire over the weekend, but it remained a dangerous monster, burning across four counties — Plumas, Butte, Lassen and Tehama. Thousands of residents of small mountain communities remained evacuated, and more evacuation orders were issued for Plumas County on Sunday. The fire was 21 percent contained as of Sunday morning.
Fire officials were concerned a shift in the wind later Sunday could increase fire activity overnight but said it likely wouldn’t be as severe as last week, when red-flag conditions helped send flames racing toward populated areas, decimating the town of Greenville.
Although a heavy blanket of smoke covering the area resulted in dismal air quality across the region, it was helping to suppress fire activity by keeping temperatures down, humidity slightly higher and wind speeds a bit lower.
At the same time, it also forced the grounding of some firefighting aircraft, officials said.
That was expected to change later Sunday afternoon, when a dry cold front was forecast to pass through and clear out the smoke, allowing the sun to once again heat up and dry out the vegetation.
The winds were expected to shift direction overnight, potentially pushing the fire to the south and west rather than to the north and east, where it’s been progressing for the past few days, said Rick Carhart, a public information officer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The fire ignited July 13 near a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power station in Feather River Canyon and might have been caused by a Douglas fir falling onto a power line, PG&E said.
Despite the improved weather conditions, crews fighting the Dixie fire remained vigilant. Given the fire’s size and the historically dry conditions — exacerbated by temperatures rising as a result of human-caused climate change — fire officials feared that embers could at any time cross containment lines and ignite spot fires.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The six-turbine Edward Hyatt Power Plant was taken offline after the water level in the Oroville Dam reservoir that feeds it sank to an historic low of less than 642 feet above mean sea level.
The reservoir in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento was less than a quarter full.
It was the lowest level since the nation’s tallest dam was completed in 1967 and the first time the hydroelectric plant has been idled by lack of water, officials said.
The plant can produce enough power for 80,000 homes and businesses but its shutdown had been expected “and the state has planned for its loss in both water and (electrical) grid management,” said a statement from the state Department of Water Resources.
“Steps have been taken in anticipation of the loss of power generation,” the statement said.
“This is just one of many unprecedented impacts we are experiencing in California as a result of our climate-induced drought,” agency director Karla Nemeth said.
The western United States is in the midst of an historic drought that is emptying reservoirs and contributing to massive wildfires.
Extreme conditions are often from a combination of unusual random, short-term and natural weather patterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change that has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years.
Hydroelectricity provides about 15 percent of California electricity, but production has plummeted in recent years. Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed an emergency proclamation suspending certain requirements so the state could obtain additional power capacity to avoid blackouts under high-demand conditions.
The low water level at Lake Oroville is a far cry from four years ago, when more than 180,000 people were evacuated after heavy winter storms filled the reservoir and its two spillways collapsed.
The feared uncontrolled release of massive amounts of water didn’t happen, but the state was left with a $1 billion repair bill.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Eight people have died in Turkey’s blazes, described as the worst in decades, that swept through swaths of the southern coast for the past 10 days.
In Greece, which had suffered a record heat wave, Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said firefighters faced “exceptionally dangerous, unprecedented conditions” as they battled 154 wildfires Friday, with 64 still burning into the night.
“Over the past few days we have been facing a situation without precedent in our country, in the intensity and wide distribution of the wildfires, and the new outbreaks all over (Greece),” he said in an evening briefing. “I want to assure you that all forces available are taking part in the fight.”
Evacuation orders were issued for dozens of villages on the mainland and the nearby island of Evia, as well as settlements on the forested fringes of Athens.
More than 1,000 firefighters and nearly 20 aircraft are now battling major fires across Greece.
In Turkey, authorities on Friday evacuated six more neighborhoods near the Mugla province town of Milas as a wildfire fanned by winds burned some 5 kilometers (3 miles) from a power plant. Two other neighborhoods were also evacuated as a precaution later in the day, as another fire spread from the region of Yatagan, in Mugla, toward the edge of the neighboring province of Aydin, further north.
At least 36,000 people were evacuated to safety in Mugla province alone, officials said.
Excavators formed firebreaks to keep flames from the Yenikoy power plant, the second such facility to be threatened in the region.
Wildfires near the tourism resort of Marmaris, also in Mugla, were largely contained by late Thursday, while by Friday afternoon the two main fires in neighboring Antalya province were brought under control.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire, which started July 13 in Feather River Canyon north of Sacramento, has destroyed at least 134 structures, threatens 13,871 more, and has sent thousands of area residents fleeing from their homes, officials said. The huge blaze that leveled a gold rush town is now burning in four counties — Butte, Lassen, Plumas and Tehama — and remains 35 percent contained.
Officials say a perfect storm of conditions has driven the fire’s rapid spread. The blaze was sixth on California’s list of largest wildfires just Thursday.
“It’s all of the things together,” said Capt. Mitch Matlow, spokesperson for the Dixie fire. “It’s the heat. It’s the dry fuels. It’s the drought. It’s the wind we saw yesterday. It’s the slope.”
With vegetation so dry, an ember colliding with it at times “was almost guaranteed to ignite and start another spot fire,” said Rick Carhart, another spokesperson for the fire.
Fire growth was predicted to slow down Friday amid more stable weather conditions, according to the fire behavior analyst and incident meteorologist.
Smoke from several regional fires was expected to amass over the Dixie fire on Friday, lowering temperatures and driving up humidity — which is good for firefighting efforts — but also souring air quality, said Ryan Walbrun, incident meteorologist for the Dixie fire.
“The smoke is, of course, not fun to breathe in and whatnot, but it should help out with the fire environment,” Walbrun said during a briefing Thursday evening.
Powerful winds surged Thursday and through the night, sending flames hurtling north and pushing ash and smoke swirling into blackened skies. Gusts were so strong near the Lake Almanor Peninsula area — where the fire hasn’t reached — that they uprooted a pine tree and hurled it into an outbuilding, said Mike Wink, an operations section chief for the fire, during a Friday update.
By Thursday evening, the flames surged past the town of Chester and into the Lassen Volcanic National Park, forcing the park’s closure.
Firefighters were defending homes all around Lake Almanor, where the fire had reached the western shore.
Wink said that two homes and a garage were destroyed or damaged in West Almanor, but crews successfully protected several hundred other structures in the community.
The Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District and public health departments in Nevada, Plumas and Sierra counties on Thursday extended a joint health advisory for air quality “due to the prolonged and widespread smoke” from the Dixie and River fires.
Poor air quality, “possibly reaching hazardous levels,” is expected to last as long as the fires are active, the advisory says. Health officials have advised people in the area to stay inside and keep their windows closed, minimize outdoor activity and stay hydrated.
The growing fire has spurred dozens of evacuation orders across a quartet of counties, affecting roughly 31,000 people, according to Chris Carlton, supervisor for the Plumas National Forest.
Much of western Lassen County was under evacuation orders, county Sheriff Dean Growdon said.
Lassen Community College President Trevor Albertson said hundreds of Dixie fire evacuees are staying on his Susanville campus. The shelter was initially set up for nearby Plumas County residents displaced by the blaze, Growdon said.
“I’ve got people in the gym, in RVs, classrooms. People are camping out on my grass,” Albertson said. The school is feeding evacuees. Nursing students and staff are treating them.
“There’s a lot of fear, but at the same time, there’s a lot of stick-to-itiveness, for lack of a better term,” he added.
Authorities set up an additional evacuation center at Lassen High School.
Some of the worst fire damage was in Greenville, a small town that was overrun by the blaze on Wednesday.
Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns struck a somber tone at a briefing Thursday night, describing himself as a lifelong resident of Greenville.
“My heart is crushed by what has occurred there, and to the folks that have lost residences and businesses — I’ve met some of them already — their life is now forever changed,” he said.
“And all I can tell you is, I’m sorry.”
More than 5,000 personnel are attacking the blaze. Johns said they were making a valiant effort and are “being met with complete and utter devastation at every turn.”
About a two-hour drive south, firefighters are gaining the upper hand on the fast-moving River fire that broke out Wednesday near the town of Colfax and destroyed nearly 90 homes and other buildings. More than 5,000 people were ordered to evacuate in Placer and Nevada counties, state fire officials said.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has said that its equipment may have sparked the Dixie fire July 13 but that a worker didn’t get to the site and discover the flames until 9 1/2 hours later.
On Monday, the utility company disclosed that its equipment may also have ignited the Fly fire, which started July 22 off Highway 70 and grew to 4,300 acres before it merged with the Dixie fire two days later.
The utility said it was taking additional safety measures, including attempting to respond to any fault or outage in a high-fire-risk area within 60 minutes or less, in light of this season’s severe burning conditions.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In a dramatic scene as flames approached, fire crews went house to house to escort residents out of homes some 12 1/2 miles north of the capital. The fire threatened the power supply to parts of the capital after damaging the transmission network, officials said.
Greek and European Union officials described the huge fires as a consequence of climate change.
Fueled by the worst heat wave in decades, the fires drew closer to a summer palace at Tatoi outside Athens once used by the former Greek royal family, as well as an archaeological site in southern Greece that was the birthplace of the ancient Olympics.
“Our priority is always the protection of human life, followed by the protection of property, the natural environment and critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, achieving all these aims at the same time is simply impossible,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised address late Thursday. The wildfires, he said, display “the reality of climate change.”
Earlier, he visited Tatoi as well as Ancient Olympia, where flame-lighting ceremonies for the modern summer and winter Olympics are held every two years.
As additional support arrived from Greece’s military and EU countries, water-dropping planes and helicopters swooped over blazes near the capital, in central Greece, on the island of Evia, and near Ancient Olympia to the south. Dozens of villages and settlements were evacuated, including a beachside campsite and hotels on Evia, where boats were used to transport stranded vacationers to safety.
A heat wave baking southeast Europe for a second week has also triggered deadly fires in Turkey and Albania and blazes across the region.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Dixie fire, swollen by bone-dry vegetation and 40 mph gusts, raged through the northern Sierra Nevada community of Greenville on Wednesday. A gas station, church, hotel, museum and bar were among the fixtures gutted in the town dating back to California’s gold rush era where some wooden buildings were more than 100 years old.
The fire “burnt down our entire downtown. Our historical buildings, families’ homes, small businesses, and our children’s schools are completely lost,” Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss wrote on Facebook.
Plumas County Sheriff Tom Johns, a lifelong resident of Greenville, said that “well over” 100 homes were destroyed, as well as businesses.
“My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” he said.
“We lost Greenville tonight,” U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the area, said in an emotional Facebook video. “There’s just no words.”
As the fire’s north and eastern sides exploded Wednesday, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office issued an urgent warning online to the town’s approximately 800 residents: “You are in imminent danger and you MUST leave now!”
A similar warning was issued Thursday as flames pushed toward the southeast in the direction of another tiny mountain community, Taylorsville, about 10 miles southeast of Greenville.
To the northwest, crews were protecting homes in the town of Chester. Residents there were among thousands under evacuation orders or warnings in several counties.
No injuries or deaths were immediately reported.
Margaret Elysia Garcia, an artist and writer who has been in Southern California waiting out the fire, watched video of her Greenville office in flames. It’s where she kept every journal she’s written in since second grade and a hand edit of a novel on top of her grandfather’s roll-top desk.
“We’re in shock. It’s not that we didn’t think this could happen to us,” she said. “At the same time, it took our whole town.”
Firefighters had to deal with people reluctant to leave on Wednesday. Their refusals meant that firefighters spent precious time loading people into cars to ferry them out, said Jake Cagle, an incident management operations section chief.
“We have firefighters that are getting guns pulled out on them, because people don’t want to evacuate,” he said.
The blaze that broke out July 14 is the largest burning in California and had blackened over 504 square miles [325,000 acres], an area larger than Los Angeles. The cause was under investigation. But Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines.
About 100 miles south, officials said between 35 and 40 homes and other buildings burned in the fast-moving River fire that broke out Wednesday near Colfax, a town of about 2,000. Within hours, it ripped through nearly 4 square miles of dry brush and trees. There was no containment and about 6,000 people were ordered to evacuate in Placer and Nevada counties, Cal Fire said.
After firefighters made progress earlier this week, high heat, low humidity and gusty winds erupted Wednesday and were expected to remain a threat.
Winds were expected to change direction multiple times Thursday, putting pressure on firefighters at sections of the fire that haven’t seen activity in several days, officials said.
The trees, grass and brush were so dry that “if an ember lands, you’re virtually guaranteed to start a new fire,” Matlow said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Local government official Sakib Al-Rabby said the bride was not with the group when the incident occurred Wednesday in Shibganj in Chapainawabganj district.
Al-Rabby said the group had just left their boat to take refuge because of the thunderstorm when they were struck.
The area is about 150 miles northwest of Dhaka, the capital.
The annual monsoon season is under way in Bangladesh.
Each year more than 200 people, mostly farmers in their fields, are killed by lightning.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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With more than 100 wildfires burning in Greece, the European Union sent assistance to it and other southeast European countries grappling with huge wildfires. The help came a day after another major blaze burned more than 100 homes and businesses near the Greek capital of Athens.
Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said 118 wildfires broke out over 24 hours, and warned that even worse days could lie ahead for the hard-pressed fire service.
“We are making a titanic effort on many fronts,” he told an evening briefing. “According to our threat forecasts, tomorrow too is expected to be a difficult day. The toughest part lies ahead of us, the next days and weeks will be even harder. Our key target is to protect human lives.”
Evacuations were taking place in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region due to a major fire near ancient Olympia — where the Olympics were held every four years from 776 B.C. for more than a millennium. The mayor of the nearby town of Pirgos said a strong firefighting cordon had been placed around the verdant site.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Dixie fire tore through Greenville on Wednesday evening, destroying businesses and homes as the sky was cast in an orange glow. A photographer on assignment for The Associated Press described seeing a gas station, hotel and bar burned to the ground.
“If you are still in the Greenville area, you are in imminent danger and you MUST leave now!!” the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook Wednesday.
The sheriff’s department and Cal Fire did not immediately respond to messages.
The 3-week-old fire has grown to more than 428 square miles [275,000 acres] across Plumas and Butte counties.
Firefighters had been trying to protect the town of 800 by clearing debris from roads and marking hazards.
Pandora Valle, a spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service, earlier told The San Francisco Chronicle that “firefighters are fighting for the town of Greenville,” but could not provide further details about the damage.
The destruction came amid a red flag warning issued by forecasters warning of hot, bone-dry conditions with winds up to 40 mph. That could drive flames through timber, brush and grass, especially along the northern and northeastern sides of the vast Dixie fire.
“I think we definitely have a few hard days ahead of us,” said Shannon Prather with the U.S. Forest Service.
Firefighters were able to save homes and hold large stretches of the blaze, but flames jumped perimeter lines in a few spots Tuesday, prompting additional evacuation orders for about 15,000 people east of Lake Almanor, officials said.
The fire has threatened thousands of homes and, before Wednesday, had destroyed 67 houses and other buildings since breaking out July 14.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Firefighters saved homes Monday in the small northern California community of Greenville near the Plumas National Forest as strong winds stoked the Dixie fire, which grew to over 395 square miles [253,000 acres] across Plumas and Butte counties.
“Engines, crews and heavy equipment shifted from other areas to increase structure protection and direct line construction as the fire moved toward Greenville,” Cal Fire said Tuesday morning.
Evacuations were ordered for the community of about 1,000 people as well as for the east shore of nearby Lake Almanor, a popular resort area. About 3,000 homes were threatened by the blaze that has destroyed 67 houses and other buildings since breaking out July 14. It was 35 percent contained.
Crews contended with dry, hot and windy conditions “and the forecast calls for the return of active fire behavior,” Cal Fire said.
Similar weather was expected across Southern California, where heat advisories and warnings were issued for interior valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.
More than 20,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 97 large, active wildfires covering 2,919 square miles [1.9M acres] in 13 U.S. states on Tuesday, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
Dry conditions and powerful winds made for dangerous fire conditions again on Tuesday in Hawaii.
Firefighters gained control over the 62-square-mile [40,000-acre] Nation fire that forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend and destroyed at least two homes on the Big Island.
About 150 miles west of California’s Dixie fire, the lightning-sparked McFarland fire threatened remote homes along the Trinity River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The nearly 25-square-mile fire was 5 percent contained Tuesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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For the sixth straight day, Turkish firefighters battled Monday to control the blazes that are tearing through forests near Turkey’s beach destinations. Fed by strong winds and scorching temperatures, the fires that began Wednesday have left eight people dead. Residents and tourists have fled resorts in flotillas of boats or convoys of cars and trucks. Many villagers have lost their homes and farm animals and have had trouble breathing amid the smoke.
Overall, some 10,000 people have been evacuated in Mugla province alone, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Monday.
Sanli returned to check on his house Monday in Bozalan only to find that the fire had flared.
“Property is an important part of life but life itself comes first,” he said as he prepared to leave again.
Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said on Twitter that crews were still tackling nine fires in the coastal provinces of Antalya and Mugla that are popular tourist areas. Other active fires were in the provinces of Isparta, Denizli, Izmir and Adana.
Another fire in Tunceli, in southeast Turkey, was contained on Monday, the minister said earlier. In all, 137 fires that broke out in over 30 provinces since Wednesday have been extinguished.
“We are going through days when the heat is above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), where the winds are strong and humidity is extremely low,” Pakdemirli said. “We are struggling under such difficult conditions.”
In Bozalan, Esra Sanli sobbed as she pointed at a fire raging near the village.
“There’s no plane, there’s no helicopter, there’s no roads. How is this going to be extinguished? How?” she said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities have lifted evacuation orders but warned that they could be reinstated at any time and that people should be ready to go.
“It’s the biggest (fire) we’ve ever had on this island,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said of the nearly 40,000-acre blaze. “With the drought conditions that we’ve had, it is of concern. You see something like this where you’re putting thousands of homes in danger, it’s very concerning.”
Fires in Hawaii are unlike many of those burning in the U.S. West. They tend to break out in large grasslands on the dry sides of the islands and are generally much smaller than mainland fires.
Even though Hawaii has a wet, tropical climate that isn’t typically at risk from large fires, blazes could become more frequent as climate-change-related weather patterns intensify.
The islands have seen a downward trend in overall rainfall in recent years. Drought conditions have reached the most severe level in some parts of Hawaii in recent years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Drought that is tied to climate change has made wildfires harder to fight.
Two homes were confirmed destroyed in the Hawaii fire. One homeowner said he tried to protect his property but lost the battle as the wind picked up.
“I had a dozer on my lawn, my land, and I tried to make a fire break,” Joshua Kihe of the community of Waimea told Hawaii News Now.
He said the fire destroyed his home.
“I definitely need to think of a plan because it’s a life-changer,” he said.
Others scrambled to evacuate.
“I just seen the flames coming,” Waimea resident Kanani Malakaua said. “I mainly got my important papers, made sure my kids were in the car, got my animals — but this is a very, very scary time for us.”
Some nearby roads were closed, making certain neighborhoods inaccessible, but there was no imminent threat to those houses.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Fires also enveloped Mugla province’s Mazikoy, and villagers who evacuated were devastated.
Farmer Nurten Almaz said she lost everything. “I feel so much pain, like I lost a child,” she said. The 63-year-old woman lost her animals and her home as well as “one century of people’s labor.” She called for the death penalty for people who may have caused the fire.
Residents had to flee nearby Cokertme village as flames neared. Some got on boats and others left by cars as the fire got closer and closer. In one video, firetrucks and cars were rushing to escape fire raging on all sides. After nightfall, the village looked apocalyptic from a distance, with flames taking over the dark hills.
Bodrum Mayor Ahmet Aras said Sunday evening that people experienced “hell” near Cokertme and Mazi as they drove away from the fire. He said the blaze could not be stopped and hoped to protect residential areas but said it was too late for the trees.
The area was engulfed by Sunday night, Turkish broadcasters said. Reporters said they had to hurry to safety as the fire intensified. Officials said precautions were being taken to protect two thermic power plants in the vicinity and that winds were blowing away from the plants.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Containment of the Bootleg fire in remote southern Oregon was up to 74 percent on Sunday. It was 56 percent contained a day earlier.
“That reflects several good days of work on the ground where crews have been able to reinforce and build additional containment lines,” fire spokesman Al Nash said Sunday.
The blaze has scorched more than 413,000 acres since being sparked by lightning July 6 in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.
California’s Dixie fire covered more than 245,000 acres in mountains where 42 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.
The fire was 32 percent contained Sunday, and evacuation orders and warnings were lifted for areas of Butte and Plumas counties.
The cause of the blaze, which ignited July 13, was still under investigation.
Authorities warned that with unpredictable winds and dry fuels, the risk of flare-ups remained high.
In recent days, lightning sparked two wildfires that threatened remote homes in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Evacuation warnings remained in place Sunday for communities along the Trinity River.
In Montana, a wildfire destroyed more than a dozen homes, outbuildings and other structures, authorities said Sunday. Evacuations were ordered after flames jumped a highway and moved toward communities near Flathead Lake.
Crews also battled blazes in northeast Washington and northern Idaho.
Nearly 22,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 91 fires in mostly western states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The flood risk was elevated for many areas of the West where recent wildfires burned away vegetation and left hillsides more susceptible to erosion, the National Weather Service said.
Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon, Colo., was closed with no word on when it might reopen after being pounded by flash floods over a three-day period. Lanes in both directions remained blocked by debris that flowed out of the burn scar from a wildfire last year in the Grizzly Creek area.
The torrent of rocks that came tumbling down the canyon’s steep walls smashed apart sections of the concrete roadway and sheared off a long section of steel guardrail, photos provided by state officials showed.
More rain was in the forecast for the drought-parched region, triggering flash flood watches for portions of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
I-70 is a major transportation corridor between the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast.
An approximately 46-mile stretch of the interstate was closed. Transportation officials advised long-distance truckers to detour north onto Interstate 80 through Wyoming.
Crews were still assessing damage late Sunday. They had been working to clear the highway since Thursday when another flash flood hit Saturday, forcing them to evacuate the area and causing even more damage.
“When we know exactly what the damage is, then we’ll have a better idea” on when it could reopen, said Colorado Department of Transportation spokesperson Tamara Rollison.
“It’s not just clearing the debris. There’s also the damage,” she said. “Our engineering staff have never seen anything like this before.”
More than 100 people had to spend the night on the highway Thursday night, including nearly 30 who took refuge in a tunnel following the mudslides in western Colorado.
Mudslides also closed down Colorado Highway 125 near Granby and U.S. Highway 6 over Colorado’s Loveland Pass. Highway 6 was reopened Sunday, Rollison said.
In Rock Springs, Wyo., nine adults and eight children received assistance after flooding on Saturday, the Red Cross said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Dixie fire covered nearly 241,000 acres in the mountains of Northern California where 42 homes and other buildings have been destroyed and more than 10,000 are still threatened.
The vegetation burning inside the fire on Thursday produced a huge “fire cloud,” towering columns of smoke and ash that can pose a danger to firefighters. Residents were given assurances that it had been expected and would happen again.
“There’s nothing close to our line right now. It’s all interior fuels burning,” Mike Wink, an incident commander, said in an online briefing.
The fire northeast of the town of Paradise, which was largely destroyed in 2018 by the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century, has been burning since July 13 and is more than 20 percent contained.
With more than 80 large fires burning across the country on Friday, scorching about 1.7 million acres across 13 states, President Joe Biden sounded the alarm about the need for more resources to fight the blazes, as climate change has worsened the spread and ferocity of the blazes.
“Our resources are already being stretched to keep up,” Biden told a bipartisan group of governors at a virtual meeting Friday. “We need more help.”
The president opened the meeting with a nod to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who sought the Democratic nomination for president against Biden by stressing the threats from climate change.
“Jay, you’re beginning to convince the American people there is a thing called climate crisis,” the president said.
It was the second meeting between Biden and the governors, and the situation has only worsened since the first, putting a strain on aircraft, hoses and other supplies.
The governors from California, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Minnesota also took part in the meeting.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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the people were caught with their vehicles on Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon on Thursday night. Those in the tunnel were stuck for about nine hours until crews could carve out a path through the mud to reach them Friday morning, Garfield County Sheriff's Office spokesman Walt Stowe said.
The tunnel serves as a 24-hour operations center for the Department of Transportation, so it is well-lit and has telephones, Stowe said. No injuries were reported.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the earthquake happened at 12:10 p.m. local time, with an epicenter about 5 miles east of the city of Sullana. It was also felt in southern Ecuador.
The earthquake caused many citizens of Sullana to flee their homes. A woman was injured after being trapped under a collapsed wall while a car was crushed by bricks.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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It would be the latest action against the nation’s largest utility, which was forced into bankruptcy over devastating wildfires ignited by its long-neglected electrical grid.
Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett announced on Facebook that her office had determined that PG&E was “criminally liable” for the Zogg Fire.
Prosecutors hadn’t yet decided which charges to file, but they plan to do so before the September anniversary of the blaze, Bridgett said.
PG&E said the loss of life and devastation from the fire was “heartbreaking,” but said it has resolved civil claims with Shasta County and continues to reach settlements with victims and their families “in an effort to make it right.”
“We do not, however, agree with the district attorney’s conclusion that criminal charges are warranted given the facts of this case,” the utility’s statement said.
Pushed by strong winds, the fire that began on Sept. 27 raged through the Sierra Nevada and local communities, killing four people, burning about 200 homes and blackening about 87.5 square miles of land.
In March, state fire investigators concluded that the fire was sparked by a gray pine tree that fell onto a PG&E transmission line. Two counties, Shasta and Tehama, have sued the utility for negligence, arguing that PG&E had failed to remove the tree even though it had been marked for removal two years earlier.
PG&E, which has an estimated 16 million customers in central and Northern California, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after its equipment was blamed for a series of fires, including the 2018 Camp fire that killed 85 people and destroyed 10,000 homes.
That blaze largely destroyed the town of Paradise. It was the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century.
PG&E pleaded guilty to more than 80 counts of involuntary manslaughter over that blaze, which was linked to a badly maintained and aging transmission tower.
PG&E emerged from bankruptcy last summer and negotiated a $13.5 billion settlement with some wildfire victims. But it still faces both civil and criminal actions.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The deluge swept away most of the village in the Nuristan province, destroying around 200 homes, and caught most residents off guard because they were sleeping. By Thursday night, villagers had recovered around 80 bodies; as the search continues, local officials expect the death toll to surpass 200.
“It is wiped out; nothing remains after floods,” said Abdul Naser, a resident of the district who visited the village Thursday. “No aid has arrived yet, and there are no measures for caskets, coffins and funerals.”
The flash flood is the latest blow for Afghanistan, where fighting between government forces and the Taliban has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in recent months and pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis, aid agencies say. Since international troops began withdrawing in May, the Taliban have made a swift military advance, gaining control of more than half of the country’s 400-odd districts.
But as the militant group presses on in its offensive, raising the possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, many have questioned whether they could effectively govern the war-stricken and foreign aid dependent country if they seize power. The flood, in Kamdesh district, offered an early test for the Taliban’s ability to provide relief services — a sign of effective governance — in the areas they control.
On Thursday afternoon, local officials called on the Taliban to grant aid groups access to the district to provide emergency services. But by the afternoon, search-and-rescue teams had still not been able to reach the remote village largely because the Taliban control the roads into the district, according to a statement from the Ministry for Disaster Management. Local disaster management committees in nearby Kunar and Laghman provinces were working on getting their rescue teams to the area.
“The area is under Taliban control, if the Taliban allow us, we will take aid to the area,” said Hafiz Abdul Qayum, the governor of Nuristan province.
In a statement Thursday evening, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the group welcomed aid organizations’ assistance.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Temperatures rose above 104 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Greece and across much of the region.
Weather experts in Athens said they expected the heat wave to extend into next week, making it one of the most severe recorded in the country since the mid-1980s.
At least three people were killed in southern Turkey and dozens of people were hospitalized as the intense summer heat and strong winds fanned two separate forest fires.
Wildfires in Greece threatened homes for a third successive day, with a blaze reported Thursday outside the western city of Patras.
“The ongoing heat wave is a dangerous weather phenomenon, as it will last until the end of next week with a small temperature range between maximum and minimum levels,” said Theodoris Kolydas, director of Greece’s National Meteorological Service.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The magnitude 8.2 earthquake was reported about 10:15 p.m. Wednesday, and struck just south of the Alaska Peninsula, nearly 500 miles southwest of Anchorage. The quake was about 60 miles offshore and 29 miles below the surface of the North Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Alaska Earthquake Center said that it was the largest quake in the U.S. since a magnitude 8.7 quake in the Aleutians in 1965. A year before that, the magnitude 9.2 Good Friday earthquake devastated parts of Anchorage and other Alaska communities. That quake and ensuing tsunami killed 131 people from Alaska to California.
The quake Wednesday produced a lot of shaking. But the director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said Thursday no major damage was reported anywhere in the nation’s largest state.
“You could imagine if that earthquake happened in Anchorage or in Los Angeles the damage that would have occurred and the loss of life and injury and property damage and all of that. But so far, so good,” said the director, Bryan Fisher.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 40 structures have burned in the monstrous fire, and an additional 10,700 remain under threat, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. At least 20 minor structures, such as outbuildings and sheds, have also gone up in flames.
At 221,504 acres, the multi-county fire is now the 13th largest wildfire in the state’s recorded history, according to Cal Fire, up from the No. 15 spot just days ago. It is burning an area larger than New York City.
For the third day in a row, the Dixie fire remained only 23 percent contained.
“It’s kind of hard to wrap our heads ... around a 220,000-acre fire,” Plumas National Forest Supervisor Chris Carlton said during an incident update Wednesday evening, noting that the fire’s perimeter was more than 80 miles. “That’s a lot of fire out there.”
Crews on Thursday were focused on laying containment lines and defending nearby communities, officials said, while up against increasingly challenging conditions.
Temperatures are expected to climb to the mid-80s in the coming days, and humidity levels are rapidly dropping, according to the National Weather Service.
Fire behavior analyst John Cook said the expected hot, dry weather indicated a likely increase in fire activity.
“We’re dealing with very critical fuel conditions right now — the fuels are much drier than they would be normally this time of year,” Cook said. “And when they’re dry, they’re much harder to contain.”
Much of the West has been plagued by extreme heat and drought due to the worsening climate crisis, which is drying vegetation and feeding massive fires earlier in the year. To date, 82 large fires have burned nearly 1.7 million acres across 13 states, officials said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and California Gov. Gavin Newsom stood on ashen ground as they surveyed burned homes and a mountain range of pine trees charred by the Tamarack fire south of Gardnerville, Nev., near Topaz Lake.
The Democrats called on the federal government to provide more firefighting resources and stressed that climate change could make wildfires even more intense and destructive.
Battling large-scale fires with limited resources, the U.S. Forest Service decided in early July to let dozens of lightning fires burn, including the Tamarack fire.
Sisolak said more support and firefighters would have prevented the U.S. Forest Service from having to make difficult decisions about where to direct its resources.
“We need help on the federal side. We need more people coming in. We need more resources. We need more air support. We need more boots on the ground,” Sisolak said.
Nevada firefighters with the East Fork Fire Protection District told Newsom that each year fires are spreading earlier in the season due to hotter, drier weather.
The U.S. Forest Service manages the majority of wildfire-prone land in California. Newsom said the agency is understaffed, underfunded and needs major changes.
“We have a historic framework that has to be thrown out. You can’t look back a decade or two. The world is radically changing as the climate changes. You may not believe in science, you got it with your own damn eyes,” Newsom said, gesturing toward the blackened landscape.
Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Cooler weather and even rain helped the fight against some of the largest blazes this week but fire officials warned that hotter, drier weather was returning.
The 106-square-mile Tamarack blaze was more than halfway surrounded by containment lines. At least 23 buildings have burned since lightning sparked the fire on July 4.
Evacuation orders for about 2,000 residents on both sides of the state line were lifted early in the week.
California’s largest blaze, the Dixie fire, was 23 percent contained but threatening more than 10,000 homes in the region about 175 miles northeast of San Francisco.
The fire had scorched nearly 340 square miles, an area bigger than New York City. Weather conditions trapped smoke over the blaze and the shade helped lower temperatures and keep humidity up but authorities said temperatures could warm to well above normal in the second half of the week.
Wednesday’s report on property losses showed 35 structures and 19 minor structures destroyed, and seven other structures damaged.
(Sam Metz, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Mamunur Rashid, a local official in Cox’s Bazar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have lived for years after fleeing neighboring Myanmar, said that at least six people had died on Tuesday in the Balukhali and Palong Khali camps, including one child. Five others died in a camp at Teknaf on Wednesday morning, he said.
According to the Inter Sector Coordination Group, an international relief organization that oversees the camps, as many as 13,000 people have been affected by the severe floods and landslides, which have killed scores in India in recent days. Locals said that dozens of people had been reported missing.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Fire officials have struggled to gain a footing on the monstrous blaze, which is only 23 percent contained. More than 16,000 residents have been displaced by the fire, and at least 31 structures have been destroyed, according to the fire’s incident management team.
As of Tuesday morning, the fire had burned 208,206 acres, Cal Fire said. Over the weekend, it merged with the 4,300-acre Fly fire.
Video from an AlertWildfire camera on Indian Ridge showed the flames chewing through trees and sending smoke spewing into the sky before engulfing the camera in flames.
Images of the burnt ridge laid bare the fire’s destruction: In just two hours, the once-green hillside was reduced to barren trees and ash.
In towns near the Dixie fire, residents have reported thick, black smoke and eerie orange skies, with wildfire photographer Josh Edelson tweeting that it was the “darkest fire I’ve ever seen.”
During an incident update Monday evening, Chief Nick Truax of the fire’s west zone said smoke from fires that burn structures is worse than smoke from forest fuels alone, but noted that any wildfire smoke is “definitely a health concern.”
Residents — especially those with health issues — are advised to stay indoors or leave smoky areas if possible, he said.
The Butte County Air Quality Management District and the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District have issued air quality advisories because of the Dixie and other fires in the West, noting that poor air quality is expected to persist as the fires burn.
Air quality on Tuesday in the Lake Almanor area near the northern edge of the blaze soared to a hazardous 466 — near the very worst end of the scale — according to AirNow.gov, an Environmental Protection Agency air monitoring site.
Jason Mandly, an air quality planner with the Butte County Air Quality Management District, said those who can’t leave the area should stay indoors as much as possible with doors and windows shut, and avoid letting outside air in.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of experience with hazardous [air quality] levels in this area,” Mandly said, referencing the 2020 wildfire season and the 2018 Camp fire.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Over the weekend, the massive Dixie fire merged with the smaller Fly fire and tore through the remote Northern California community of Indian Falls. The blaze had already leveled at least 16 houses and other structures, but a new damage estimate wasn’t immediately available because flames were still raging in the mountain area.
“Fire behavior has been so unpredictable, it hasn’t been safe for inspectors to go in to work,” said Mitch Matlow, a fire spokesperson. “Until things settle down, we won’t know the extent of what’s burned.”
Flames spread in remote areas with steep terrain crews can’t easily reach, Matlow said. Gusty winds also hindered containment efforts and the problem could get worse with the predicted arrival later Monday of pyrocumulus clouds — meaning “fire clouds” — which can bring lightning and the risk of new ignitions.
Fire officials said the blaze had charred nearly 200,000 acres of timber and brush in Plumas and Butte counties, about two hours northeast of Sacramento. It was 22 percent contained and more than 10,000 homes were still under threat.
Elsewhere in California, the 67,000-acre Tamarack fire south of Lake Tahoe continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, Calif., has destroyed at least 23 buildings, including more than a dozen in Nevada. It was 45 percent contained.
Authorities were hopeful that improving weather will help them continue to make progress against the nation’s largest wildfire, the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon. It was 53 percent contained after scorching more than 400,000 acres of remote land. On Monday, an additional crew from the Oregon National Guard was sent to help out the more than 2,200 people battling the blaze.
The lightning-caused fire has burned at least 70 homes, mainly cabins, and some 2,000 residences were under evacuation orders.
In Montana, four firefighters were released from a hospital and a fifth was being treated at a burn center Monday after a wildfire overran them last week, authorities said. The five were building a defensive line at the Devil’s Creek fire in Garfield County when winds shifted suddenly and blew flames back at them.
The firefighter still being treated — a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee — “is making good progress and is in good spirits,” spokesperson Kari Cobb said.
Crews were trying to keep the fire from reaching Fort Peck Reservoir along the Missouri River in central Montana. It’s one of three major fires in the state.
Across the West this summer, firefighters have confronted an unusually large number of unpredictable early season fires, U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities on Sunday issued new evacuation orders as the massive Dixie fire in Butte County, north of Sacramento, continued to spread rapidly to the north and east and burned together with the nearby Fly fire, which had previously scorched about 4,300 acres.
“Right now, with the weather getting hotter and drier, the fire is moving faster,” Luis Jimenez, public information officer on the fire, said Sunday.
The incident meteorologist warned firefighters that unstable atmospheric conditions could help the fire generate a pyro-cumulonimbus cloud capable of creating its own lightning, he said.
“The whole thing is basically picking up and going, and we’re trying to get that box, trying to corral the fire,” Jimenez said. “It’s been like that since Day One.”
Already, the fire had destroyed at least 16 structures, but damage assessment teams hadn’t been able to get into the areas it burned through Saturday to provide updated numbers, Jimenez said.
About 5,022 firefighting personnel were able to boost containment of the fire on Sunday to 21 percent, up from 14 percent the day before, with most of the progress at its heel near where it started, Jimenez said.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has said its equipment might have sparked the fire in Feather River Canyon on July 13, and that a worker wasn’t able to get to the site and discover the flames until 9 1/2 hours later. Its growth has been fed by record-dry vegetation, low humidity and gusty winds funneling through the steep terrain. Efforts to fight it have been hampered by the remote location and an intensity that has lent itself to extreme behavior, with the fire at times creating its own weather patterns.
The fire is one of several in the West that has burned unusually fiercely for this early in the season, with authorities saying the conditions on the ground are more closely resembling those typically seen at the peak of the fire season in August or September.
The largest wildfire, the 408,930-acre Bootleg fire in Oregon, was burning so quickly through dry vegetation at one point last week that when atmospheric conditions aligned, a tornado formed along its eastern perimeter, officials confirmed Saturday. The fire was 46 percent contained as of Sunday.
Experts have said the environment across much of the Western U.S. is primed to burn due to the persistent drought and historic heat. Rising global temperatures have been linked to larger, more intense fires and longer, more destructive fire seasons, especially in areas choked by overgrowth due to decades of aggressive fire suppression.
Authorities reported progress against the Tamarack fire, east of Sacramento, burning in both California and Nevada. The fire was 66,744 acres and 27 percent contained as of Sunday morning, up from 4 percent contained the day before.
“Saturday, the winds calmed down and that gave us the opportunity to go direct,” said Mike DeFries, public information officer on the fire.
Authorities were able to insert firefighters in several locations along the fire’s edge to engage the flames and secure containment lines, he said.
Smoke continued to pose a key challenge. A good amount of it was coming from the Dixie fire, burning more than 100 miles away, compromising visibility and at times limiting the types of firefighting aircraft that could be in the air, DeFries said.
Forecasters were also calling for a monsoonal moisture surge pushing up from the south to arrive in the area today, which could bring thunderstorms that generate dry lightning or outflow winds.
“Our firefighters have been warned to be ready if storms are in the area because there may be a burst of strong, even extreme gusts of wind that pushes through from the storm coming from elsewhere nearby,” DeFries said.
About 1,557 personnel were continuing to fight the fire, which had destroyed at least 14 structures, he said.
“This fire has really been challenging, and there’s a lot of people that have been evacuated so it’s very significant to be able to announce a jump in containment today,” DeFries said. “And we’re hoping in the next couple of days to be able to announce even more significant gains.”
The Tamarack fire was sparked by lightning in the Mokelumne Wilderness on July 4 and, at first, only a single tree was ablaze. Federal firefighting authorities initially decided to monitor the fire.
But 12 days later amid high winds and low humidity, the fire took off and made a run downslope. It is one of 86 large fires currently burning that have together torched 1,498,205 acres in 12 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
(Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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the Reuters news agency cited the Indo-Tibetan Border Police as saying that the vehicle had been carrying 11 people.
In addition to the nine killed, two others, as well as a passerby, were injured, Reuters said, citing its partner news agency ANI. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, offered his sympathies to relatives of those killed.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The dead included 54 killed in four landslides in the Raigad and Ratnagiri districts in western Maharashtra state on Thursday and Friday, according to District Collector Nidhi Chaudhary and state government official Sagar Pathak.
Many of those who were rescued were stranded on rooftops and even on top of buses on highways, Chaudhary said.
Pathak said more than 30 people were missing after the landslides.
Chaudhary said the rain had slowed, but water levels were rising again because of a high tide Friday. Rescuers, however, have reached the worst-hit areas.
Twenty-seven people were killed by houses collapsing or being swept away by rushing floodwaters in Satara district, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. It also said more than 20 deaths have been reported from the eastern districts of Gondia and Chandrapur.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was anguished by the loss of lives.
“The situation in Maharashtra due to heavy rains is being closely monitored and assistance is being provided to the affected,” Modi tweeted.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Oregon’s Bootleg fire grew to 624 square miles, or about 399,360 acres — more than half the size of Rhode Island. However, authorities said higher humidity Wednesday and overnight and better conditions allowed crews to improve fire lines. The fire also was approaching an area burned by a previous fire on its active southeastern flank, raising hopes that a lack of fuel could reduce its spread.
“Fire crews and support personnel have made significant progress in containing this fire in the last few days,” Joe Prummer, incident commander trainee of Pacific Northwest Incident Management Team 2, said in a statement. “However, we still have a long road ahead of us to ensure the safety of the surrounding communities.”
The Oregon fire, which was sparked by lightning, has ravaged the sparsely populated southern part of the state and had been expanding by up to 4 miles a day, pushed by strong winds and critically dry weather.
The blaze, which is being fought by more than 2,200 people, is now more than one-third contained.
On Thursday, authorities said at least nine people working the fire had tested positive for COVID-19.
The Oregon Department of Forestry said people who test positive are quarantined away from the main fire camp. Also, people who report symptoms and anyone who worked closely with them are tested and isolated until results are returned.
At least 2,000 homes were ordered evacuated at some point during the fire, and an additional 5,000 homes were threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have burned, but no one is known to have died.
Meanwhile the Tamarack fire south of Lake Tahoe had burned more than 78 square miles, about 49,920 acres, of timber and head-high chaparral in national forest land. It erupted July 4 and was one of nearly two dozen blazes sparked by lightning strikes.
Windy conditions were hampering more than 1,200 firefighters Thursday battling the Alpine County blaze. It has destroyed at least 10 buildings, forced evacuations in several communities and had closed parts of U.S. Highway 395 in Nevada and California.
Bill Beidler, an evacuee from Woodfords, said: “We’ve been suppressing fires for so many generations, when we get one, this is what we get. Everything burns. People are losing their homes and everything.”
Blowing embers from flames ignited a new spot fire Thursday afternoon that jumped the highway north of Topaz Lake on the California-Nevada line, prompting an evacuation order at Topaz Lake Estates and neighboring areas.
Fire officials reported later Thursday the spot fire that started east of the highway in winds gusting to 25 mph was “growing rapidly despite firefighters’ diligent efforts to contain it.”
“Firefighters on the ground and aircraft continue to battle the growing spot under exceptionally difficult weather and fuel condition,” the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest said in an update.
It estimated the new blaze already had burned nearly 2,560 acres. There were no immediate reports there of any injuries or structures destroyed.
To the northwest, the summer fun of boating and bathing came to an abrupt end for vacationers at Lake Almanor as the Dixie fire spread up the west flank of the Sierra Nevada, expanding to more than 103,000 acres. The west shore of the resort lake and many other small communities were under evacuation orders.
(Nathan Howard, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states all the way to the other side of the continent. Haze hung over New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The nation’s largest wildfire, Oregon’s Bootleg fire, grew to 394,240 acres — just over half the size of Rhode Island. Fires also burned on both sides of California’s Sierra Nevada and in Washington state and other areas of the West.
The smoke blowing to the East Coast was reminiscent of last fall, when large blazes burning in Oregon’s worst wildfire season in recent memory choked the local sky with pea-soup smoke but also affected air quality several thousand miles away. So far this year, Seattle and Portland have largely been spared the foul air.
People in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere with heart disease, asthma and other health issues were told to avoid the outdoors. Air quality alerts for parts of the region were in place through today.
“One of the things about this event that makes it so remarkable is that the smoke is affecting such a large swath of the U.S.,” said Jesse Berman, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an expert on air quality. “You’re not just seeing localized and perhaps upstate New York being affected, but rather you’re seeing numerous states all along the East Coast that are being impacted.”
David Lawrence, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said wildfire smoke usually thins out by the time it reaches the East Coast, but this summer it’s “still pretty thick.”
In California, a wildfire burning completely uncontained south of Lake Tahoe crossed the state line into Nevada. New voluntary evacuation orders were issued for portions of Douglas County, Nev.
The Tamarack fire, started by lightning in Alpine County, has now burned more than 41,600 acres. Authorities say more than 1,200 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has destroyed at least 10 structures.
Meanwhile, Oregon on Wednesday banned all campfires on state-managed lands and in state campgrounds east of Interstate 5.
The regulation includes the designated fire rings at campsites, as well as candles and tiki torches. Propane grills are still allowed, but the state urged campers to pack food that doesn’t require heating or cooking.
The Oregon fire has ravaged the sparsely populated southern part of the state and has been expanding by up to 4 miles a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox.
(Gillian Flaccus& Sara Cline, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the quake was off the Pacific coast of Panama and Costa Rica's shared border, about 30 miles south of Punta de Burica, Panama. Although there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“Once I got to the scene, I couldn’t help anyone,” said Wang, a 34-year-old logistics manager. “The water was too deep.”
Wang and other volunteers recounted scenes of devastation in Zhengzhou on Wednesday, as the death toll rose to 25 and more than 1.2 million people were displaced. Videos circulating online showed residents being rescued with ropes from deep, rushing waters. Large areas of the surrounding countryside remained underwater.
One of the hardest-hit areas was the tunnel between two subway stops on Line 5 — 12 died when their train became trapped in rising floodwaters, South China Morning Post reported. About 500 people were rescued from the underground tunnels in a massive operation.
The disaster was severe enough for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to issue a statement Wednesday through state media, ordering authorities to give top priority to people’s safety and property. More than 17,000 firefighters were mobilized for rescue operations, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management, along with local volunteers and personnel from other provinces.
Late on Tuesday, Chinese authorities breached a dam in Luoyang to release floodwaters and lessen the pressure on the flood-hit region, according to The Associated Press.
Reuters reported that several Chinese companies rushed to make donations to the flood aid, totaling up to $300 million for the stricken region.
The flooding is a blow to China as it seeks to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The country has largely returned its economy to its previous growth trajectory, although it retains strict border controls. Zhengzhou is a major transportation and logistics hub in China, and the surrounding countryside of Henan province is part of the country’s breadbasket. The flooding threatens to disrupt industry and agriculture in the region.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Rebuilding what was damaged in last week’s rampaging torrents will take years and millions of euros.
“All means will be used,” promised King Philippe in his traditional address on the eve of Belgium’s July 21 independence day, which will be more subdued this year because of the disaster.
He and Queen Mathilde consoled those suffering in Verviers in the wake of the floods that killed 31 people and left about 70 people missing in Belgium. At least 170 people died in Germany, bringing the death toll in both countries to 201.
Flags were lowered to half-staff. At noon, sirens wailed across Belgium, followed by a minute of silence.
“We will not abandon you we will do everything possible to support you,” said Prime Minister Alexander De Croo in an open letter.
Help is pouring in from elsewhere in Belgium, and about 10,000 volunteers have offered to go to the hilly eastern region to help in the cleanup once the high water recedes.
In Germany, where the damage is more extensive from the rushing floodwaters in once-picturesque villages, Merkel said the affected areas faced “a very long haul” to recovery.
“We will not forget you,” she vowed.
Her visit came a day before her Cabinet plans to approve a package of immediate aid, expected to be about 400 million euros ($472 million).
“We will do everything ... so that the money comes quickly to people who often have nothing left but the clothes on their backs,” Merkel said. “I hope this is a question of days.”
The government also plans a long-term reconstruction effort.
It was her second visit to the region hit by the July 14-15 flash floods, and work continued to clean up piles of mud-caked debris and search for any more victims. She began her day in the town of Bad Muenstereifel, visiting a warehouse where donations were being stored.
In both Belgium and Germany, government leaders promised a redoubled political focus on curbing climate change.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The already drenched city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, was hit by 8 inches of rain from 4 to 5 p.m., the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Henan weather agency.
The torrent of rain turned streets into rapidly flowing rivers and inundated subway stations and cars. Videos posted online showed entire neighborhoods covered in waist-deep water and vehicles floating in the muddy mire.
To the north of Zhengzhou, the famed Shaolin Temple known for its Buddhist monks' mastery of martial arts was badly hit. Henan province is home to many cultural sites and a major base for industry and agriculture.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As floodwaters receded Monday, authorities continued searching for more victims and intensified their efforts to clean up a sodden swath of western Germany, eastern Belgium and the Netherlands.
So far, 117 people have been confirmed dead in the worst-affected German region, Rhineland-Palatinate, while 47 were killed in the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and at least one in Bavaria, parts of which saw heavy rain and flooding over the weekend. The death toll in Belgium was 31.
Authorities said they were likely to find more victims among destroyed homes.
Weather officials had forecast the downpours that led to even small rivers swelling rapidly, but warnings of potentially catastrophic damage didn’t appear to have made it to many people in affected areas — often in the middle of the night.
Federal and state authorities faced criticism from some opposition politicians over the disaster, which comes as a national election looms in September. But Interior Minister Horst Seehofer dismissed suggestions that federal officials had made mistakes and said warnings were passed to local authorities “who make decisions on disaster protection.”
“I have to say that some of the things I’m hearing now are cheap election rhetoric,” Seehofer said during a visit to the Steinbach Reservoir in western Germany, where authorities say they no longer fear a dam breach. “Now really isn’t the hour for this.”
Seehofer underlined that message during a visit Monday to Bad Neuenahr, in the worst-hit area, but said authorities will have to draw lessons once the immediate relief phase is over.
“Wherever we can improve anything — in alarms, in equipment, we must do so,” he said. “We owe that to the families who have been affected, and above all to the victims.”
The head of Germany’s civil protection agency said the weather service had “forecast relatively well” and that the country was well-prepared for flooding on its major rivers.
But, Armin Schuster told ZDF television Sunday night, “half an hour before, it is often not possible to say what place will be hit with what quantity” of water. He said 150 warning notices had been sent out via apps and media.
He said “we will have to investigate” where sirens sounded and where they didn’t.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The blaze, known as the Dixie fire, has spread through remote wilderness about 100 miles north of Sacramento, in an area close to the burn scars of 2018’s devastating Camp fire, which itself was caused by PG&E equipment failures.
The utility made the disclosure in a preliminary report filed with the California Public Utilities Commission. Matt Nauman, a PG&E spokesperson, said that the report was submitted “in an abundance of caution,” and that the utility was cooperating with a state investigation into the fire’s origin.
PG&E has been linked to some of California’s most destructive and deadliest wildfires. It pleaded guilty last year to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise.
In June, the utility reached a $12 million settlement with two Northern California counties after last year’s Zogg fire was determined to have been caused by a pine tree contacting PG&E transmission lines. The 56,000-acre fire killed four people and destroyed more than 200 buildings.
PG&E also faces criminal charges for its role in igniting the 2019 Kincade fire that burned 120 square miles in Sonoma County. That blaze damaged or destroyed more than 400 buildings and seriously injured six firefighters.
The utility emerged from bankruptcy last summer, placing $5.4 billion in cash and 22.19 percent of its stock into a trust for victims of wildfires caused by the utility’s equipment.
In its report on the Dixie fire, PG&E said that last Tuesday morning, a utility worker spotted what he thought were blown fuses atop a utility pole in a remote area. The worker could not immediately reach the pole, it said, “due to the challenging terrain and road work resulting in a bridge closure.”
When he finally got there, about 10 hours later, he noticed that a fire had started near the base of a tree.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The 537-square-mile Bootleg fire is burning 300 miles southeast of Portland in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, a vast expanse of old-growth forest, lakes and wildlife refuges. Evacuations and property losses have been minimal compared with much smaller blazes in densely populated areas of California.
But eyeing how the Bootleg fire — fueled by extreme weather — keeps growing by miles each day, officials with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southwest Oregon are asking for more outside crews to be ready should there be a surge in fire activity there.
“Although the lightning activity predicted for early this week is expected to occur east of us, we are prepared for the worst, and hoping for the best,” Mike McCann, an assistant fire staff, said Monday in a statement released by the national forest.
The worry is that dry conditions, a drought and the recent record-breaking heat wave in the region have created tinderbox conditions, so resources like fire engines are being recruited from places like Arkansas, Nevada and Alaska.
The fire’s jaw-dropping size contrasted with its relatively small impact on people underscores the vastness of the American West and offers a reminder that Oregon is still a largely rural state.
At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. No one has died.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The committee, which is meeting both virtually and in the Chinese city of Fuzhou for the next two weeks, will consider the draft decision on Friday.
“Australia, as a member state of the World Heritage Committee, should attach importance to the opinions of the advisory bodies and earnestly fulfill the duty of World Heritage protection instead of making groundless accusations against other states,” said Tian Xuejun, the Chinese vice minister of education and the president of this year’s session.
The UNESCO committee will consider adding new sites to the World Heritage list, taking some off and adding others to the “in danger” category. A draft decision to put Venice on the in-danger list prompted the Italian government to ban cruise ships from the lagoon city in a bid to avoid the designation.
Tian, speaking at the first news conference since the meetings opened last Friday, said the Great Barrier Reef proposal was based on data from Australia and recommendations from an advisory body.
Australia reacted angrily when the draft was released last month.
“This decision was flawed. Clearly there were politics behind it,” Environment Minister Sussan Ley said, without mentioning China by name.
Relations between the two nations have soured in recent years, with Australia blocking Chinese technology and investment in key infrastructure, and China using tariffs and other measures to reduce its imports from Australia.
Australia was warned in 2014 that an in-danger listing was being considered for the Great Barrier Reef, which was designated a World Heritage site in 1981.
The draft decision said that Australia’s long-term plan for the reef, a network of 2,500 reefs covering 134,000 square miles, “requires stronger and clearer commitments, in particular towards urgently countering the effects of climate change.”
“We acknowledge very much the work which has been done in Australia, but our text in the draft decision is a proposal for putting the site on the list of world heritage in danger because of the threats which were identified,” said Mechtild Roessler, the UNESCO director of the World Heritage Committee.
Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, the assistant director-general for culture at UNESCO, said that an in-danger listing should be viewed as a collective call for action from all the member states.
“It’s something that should be seen as something positive and not, as what we heard from some of the authorities in other countries, as a punishment,” he said, joining the news conference from Paris. “It’s how we preserve our heritage for future generations.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Merkel toured Schuld, a village on a tight curve of the Ahr River in western Germany where many buildings were damaged or destroyed by rapidly rising floodwaters Wednesday night.
Although the mayor of Schuld said no one was killed or injured there, many other places weren’t so lucky. The death toll in the Ahrweiler area, where Schuld is located, stood at 112. Authorities said people are still missing and they fear the toll may still rise.
In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, 46 people were killed, including four firefighters. Belgium confirmed 31 deaths.
Merkel said she came away from Schuld, still partly strewn with rubble and mud in bright sunshine, with “a real picture of, I must say, the surreal, ghostly situation.”
“It is shocking — I would almost say that the German language barely has words for the devastation that has been wreaked,” she said at a news conference in a nearby town.
Merkel said authorities will work to “set the world right again in this beautiful region, step by step,” and her Cabinet will approve an immediate and medium-term financial aid program on Wednesday.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that more than $354 million will be needed immediately. And he said officials must set up a longer-term rebuilding program which, from experience with previous flooding, will be in the billions.
“Thankfully, Germany is a country that can manage this financially,” said Merkel, who is stepping down as chancellor following an election in September. “Germany is a strong country and we will stand up to this force of nature in the short term — but also in the medium and long term, through policy that pays more regard to nature and the climate than we did in recent years. That will be necessary too.”
Climate scientists say the link between extreme weather and global warming is unmistakable and the urgency to tackle climate change undeniable.
Scientists can’t yet say for sure whether climate change caused the flooding, but they insist that it certainly exacerbates the extreme weather disasters on display around the world.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The destructive Bootleg fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 square miles [305,000 acres], an area about the size of Los Angeles.
Erratic winds fed the blaze, creating dangerous conditions for firefighters, said John Flannigan, an operations section chief on the 2,000-person force battling the flames.
“Weather is really against us,” he said. “It’s going to be dry and air is going to be unstable.”
Authorities expanded evacuations that now affect some 2,000 residents of a largely rural area of lakes and wildlife refuges. The blaze, which was 22 percent contained, has burned at least 67 homes and 100 outbuildings while threatening thousands more.
At the other end of the state, a fire in the mountains of northeast Oregon grew to more than 17 square miles [11,000 acres] by Sunday.
The Elbow Creek fire that started Thursday has prompted evacuations in several small, remote communities around the Grande Ronde River about 30 miles southeast of Walla Walla, Wash. It was 10 percent contained.
In California, a growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe jumped a highway, prompting more evacuation orders, the closure of the Pacific Crest Trail and the cancellation of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada.
The Tamarack fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 4, had charred nearly 29 square miles [19,000 acres] of dry brush and timber as of Sunday morning. The blaze was threatening Markleeville, a small town close to the California-Nevada state line. It has destroyed at least two structures, authorities said.
A notice posted Saturday on the 103-mile Death Ride’s website said several communities in the area had been evacuated and ordered all bike riders to clear the area.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Rescue workers across Germany and Belgium rushed Friday to prevent more deaths from some of Europe’s worst flooding in years as the number of dead surpassed 125 and the search went on for hundreds of missing people.
Fueled by days of heavy rain, the floodwaters also left thousands of Germans homeless after their dwellings were destroyed or deemed to be at risk, and elected officials began to worry about the lingering economic effects from lost homes and businesses.
Elsewhere in Europe, dikes on swollen rivers were at risk of collapsing, and crews raced to reinforce flood barriers.
Sixty-three people perished in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, including 12 residents of an assisted living facility for disabled people in the town of Sinzig who were surprised by a sudden rush of water from the nearby Ahr River, authorities said.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “stunned” by the devastation and pledged support to the families of those killed and to cities and towns facing significant damage.
“In the hour of need, our country stands together,” Steinmeier said in a televised statement. “It’s important that we show solidarity for those from whom the flood has taken everything.”
By Friday evening, waters were receding across much of the affected regions, but officials feared that more bodies might be found in cars and trucks that were swept away.
Authorities cautioned that the large number of missing could stem from duplicated reports and difficulties reaching people because of closed roads and disrupted phone service.
After Germany, where the death toll stood at 106, Belgium was the hardest hit. The country confirmed the deaths of 20 people, with another 20 still missing, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told the VRT network Friday.
Several dikes on the Meuse River that runs from Belgium into the Netherlands were at risk of collapsing, Verlinden said. Authorities in the southern Dutch town of Venlo evacuated 200 hospital patients due to the river’s looming threat.
Utility companies reported widespread disruption of electricity and gas service that they said could last for days or weeks.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Crews had to flee the fire lines late Thursday after a dangerous “fire cloud” started to collapse, threatening them with strong downdrafts and flying embers. An initial review Friday showed the Bootleg fire destroyed 67 homes and 117 outbuildings overnight in one county. Authorities were still counting the losses in a second county where the flames are surging up to 4 miles a day.
The blaze has forced 2,000 people to evacuate and is threatening 5,000 buildings that include homes and smaller structures in a rural area just north of the California border, fire spokeswoman Holly Krake said. Active flames are surging along 200 miles of the fire’s perimeter, she said, and it was expected to merge with a smaller, but equally explosive fire.
The Bootleg fire is now 377 square miles (241,280 acres) — larger than the area of New York City — and mostly uncontained.
“We’re likely going to continue to see fire growth over miles and miles of active fire line,” Krake said. “We are continuing to add thousands of acres a day, and it has the potential each day, looking forward into the weekend, to continue those 3- to 4-mile runs.”
The inferno has stymied firefighters for a week with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior, including ominous fire clouds that form from superheated air rising to a height of up to 6 miles above the blaze.
The Bootleg fire is one of at least a dozen major fires burning in Washington state, Oregon and California as a siege of wildfires takes hold across the drought-stricken West. There were 70 active large fires and complexes of multiple fires that have burned nearly 1,659 square miles (1,061,760 acres) in the U.S., the National Interagency Fire Center said.
In the Pacific Northwest, firefighters say they are facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall than early July.
About 200 firefighters were battling but had little control over the 17-square-mile (10,880-acre) Red Apple Fire near Wenatchee, Wash. The flames were threatening apple orchards and an electrical substation, but no buildings have been lost, officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The flood was part of monsoon storms that have inundated Arizona this week, including in Flagstaff where city streets were left a muddy mess as water mixed with logs and debris swept through. Cleanup was under way Thursday with the threat of more rain looming.
At the Grand Canyon, a torrent of water rushed through a slot canyon and washed away the camp where two commercial rafts with 30 passengers pulled off the river to stay Wednesday evening, said Grand Canyon spokeswoman Joelle Baird.
Authorities initially believed that two people had been swept into the river and launched a search by air, ground and water to find them. One was found at the camp that the group had abandoned to seek a safer place to sleep, Baird said. The other was found dead in the water next to the camp that flooded, she said.
A park helicopter took two paramedics to the river late Wednesday to treat and stabilize the injured rafters after receiving a satellite phone call from someone on the trip asking for help. Seven passengers who were injured were airlifted out of the canyon, Baird said. She wasn’t sure of the extent of their injuries.
Baird said the park will help the other rafters who want to cut their trip short get off the river. The motorized trip operated by Arizona Raft Adventures was scheduled to last more than a week.
The flood hit the camp set up about 40 miles downstream from where the rafts launched at Lees Ferry near the Arizona-Utah state line, turning the normally greenish-colored river into a muddy brown. Forecasters had issued a flash flood watch for the area Wednesday, but it’s not clear whether the rafting guides were aware.
The Southwest, which has been desperate for rain after two years of dismal monsoon activity, has been hammered with summer storms, and more rain is in the forecast.
The threat of flash flooding will remain through next week, the National Weather Service said.
“The moisture is not going anywhere, and it will heat up as well, so those are perfect ingredients for thunderstorms in the afternoon and evenings in Arizona,” said Evan LaGuardia, a meteorologist in Flagstaff.
(Felicia Fonseca, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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That staggering figure was announced after swift-moving water from swollen rivers surged through cities and villages in two western German states, where the hardest-hit regions said that 58 people were known to have died and other fatalities were expected.
With communication badly hampered, authorities were hoping that the missing people are safe, if unreachable. But the storms and the floods have already proved deadly.
At least 11 more people were reported dead in Belgium, according to authorities who also ordered inhabitants of downtown Liège to evacuate as the Meuse River, which flows through its center, overflowed its banks.
The storms and resulting high water also battered neighboring Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as a slow-moving weather system threatened to dump even more rain on the inundated region overnight and early today.
One of the most heavily hit regions was the Ahrweiler district, where flash floods surged through the village of Schuld, washing away six houses and leaving several more on the verge of collapse.
With so many unaccounted for, the district authority said late Thursday the number of dead was expected to climb. “Given the complexity of the level of damage, it is not possible at this time to make a final assessment of the situation,” it said in a statement.
“We have no exact numbers of dead, but can say that we have many people who have become victims of this flood,” Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the hardest-hit states in Germany, told reporters on Thursday.
The police in Koblenz said 18 people had died in the heavily hit Ahrweiler district, where the Ahr river burst its banks, inundating the town of Schuld with murky pale brown water.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Bootleg fire, at 227,234 acres the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., has now torched an area larger than New York City and has stymied firefighters with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior. The fire, pushed by winds from the south, was expected to merge with the smaller, yet still explosive Log fire, said Rob Allen, incident commander for the blaze.
The Log fire started on Monday as three smaller fires but exploded to nearly 5,000 acres in 24 hours. It is also being fanned by winds from the south, Allen said.
Firefighters were all pulled back to safe areas due to intense fire behavior and were scouting ahead of the main blaze for areas where they could make a stand by carving out fire lines to stop the inferno’s advance, he said.
The main fire has destroyed 21 homes in an area north of the Oregon-California border that has been gripped by extreme drought. It was 7 percent contained as of Thursday, when authorities decided to expand previous evacuation orders near Summer Lake and Paisley. Both towns are located in Lake County, a remote area of lakes and wildlife refuges with a total population of about 8,000.
“We’re trying to determine where is it moving, how far and how fast, to determine what to do with evacuation levels,” said Gert Zoutendijk, spokesman for the Oregon office of the State Fire Marshal.
Meanwhile, a fire near the Northern California town of Paradise, which burned in a horrific 2018 wildfire, caused jitters among homeowners who were just starting to return to normal after surviving the deadliest blaze in U.S. history.
Chuck Dee and his wife, Janie, returned last year to Paradise on the Sierra Nevada foothills to rebuild a home lost in that fire. So when they woke up Thursday and saw smoke from the new Dixie fire, it was frightening, even though it was burning away from populated areas.
“It made my wife and I both nervous,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The Dixie fire was tiny when it began on Tuesday, but by Thursday morning it had burned more than 2,200 acres of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County northeast of Paradise. It also moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.
There was zero containment and officials kept in place an evacuation warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and east Concow.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The measure announced Wednesday replaces the fishing-free “zero tolerance” zone in the upper Gulf of California with a sliding scale of punishments if more than 60 boats are seen in the area on multiple occasions.
Given that Mexico has been unable to enforce the current restrictions — which bans boats in the small area — the sliding-scale punishments also seem doomed to irrelevance.
Environmental experts say the move essentially abandons the world’s most endangered marine mammal to the gill nets that trap and drown them. The nets are set for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is a delicacy in China, and sells for thousands of dollars per pound.
Alex Olivera, the Mexico representative for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the rules establish a sliding scale of responses to a situation that shouldn’t be allowed to occur in the first place. For example, the Agriculture and Fisheries Department says it will use 60 percent of its enforcement personnel if 20 fishing boats or less are seen in the restricted area.
“This is stupid. They are waiting to count boats in an area designated as ‘zero tolerance,’ where there shouldn’t be a single boat,” Olivera said. “They are letting in dozens of boats.”
“This is the end of the concept of zero tolerance,” Olivera said.
One conservation expert who is familiar with the case, but who cannot be quoted by name for fear of repercussions, said the new rules “imply not protecting the vaquita.”
“It appears that fisheries authorities want to drive the vaquita to extinction,” the expert said.
Two ships from the conservationist group Sea Shepherd have worked with Mexican marines to try to grab banned fishing nets from the area, but they are frequently outnumbered and attacked by fishermen.
The upper Gulf of California is the only place the vaquita lives.
Mexico’s Environment Department had previously said the drop in the number of vaquitas and the area where they have been seen in recent years justified reducing the protection zone, which in theory once covered most of the upper Gulf.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Now, less than a year later, the tribal councilman is watching in horror as flames encroach on the parched lands of other Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest. At least two tribes have declared states of emergency amid the devastation.
Blazes in Oregon, California, and Washington were among nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through about 1,562 square miles in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center moved the Pacific Northwest region up to the highest alert level Wednesday — rare for this time of year — as dry, gusty winds were expected in parts of Oregon and new fires popped up.
In California, the Dixie fire was rapidly expanding Wednesday in the Feather River Canyon. State fire officials said the blaze, which erupted late Tuesday afternoon, covered 1.8 square miles. There was zero containment Wednesday evening.
The largest fire in the U.S. on Wednesday was burning in southern Oregon, to the northeast of the wildfire that ravaged Hockaday’s tribal community less than a year ago. The lightning-caused Bootleg fire was encroaching on the traditional territory of the Klamath Tribes and sending huge, churning plumes of smoke into the sky visible for miles.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A high-pressure system that created the intense weather was weakening, but temperatures were forecast to remain above normal on the lines of more than 60 active large blazes burning in the West and Alaska.
More than 14,000 firefighters and support personnel were attacking fires covering close to a million acres of land, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The largest fire in the United States was incinerating huge swaths of the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon, where firefighters received a warning about conditions from incident commander Al Lawson.
“As you go out there today — adjust your reality,” he said. “We have not seen a fire move like this, in these conditions, this early in the year. Expect the fire to do things that you have not seen before.”
The week-old Bootleg fire had ravaged more than 202,000 acres by Tuesday evening, threatening about 2,000 homes and destroying more than 20 others, along with other minor structures. The fire’s movement prompted authorities to place additional areas under evacuation notice and expand the number of acres ordered closed on an emergency basis inside Fremont-Winema.
Firefighters have had some success in keeping the Bootleg fire out of several small communities.
“Quick actions from crews on the ground prevented numerous homes from catching fire during nighttime ember showers,” a U.S. Forest Service statement said Monday.
The fire disrupted three transmission lines that provide electricity to California and the state’s power grid operator asked for voluntary power conservation Monday. The California Independent System Operator said Tuesday that the grid was stable and with the forecast for cooler temperatures another call for conservation was not expected.
In northeastern California, progress was reported on the state’s largest fire so far this year. The Beckwourth Complex, a combined pair of lighting-ignited blazes, was almost 50 percent contained after blackening 92,800 acres near the Nevada state line.
Damage was still being tallied in the rural community of Doyle, where flames swept in during the weekend and destroyed several homes, including Beverly Houdyshell’s.
The 79-year-old said Tuesday that she’s too old and too poor to rebuild and isn’t sure what her future holds.
“What chance do I have to build another house, to have another home?” Houdyshell said. “No chance at all.”
Elsewhere, several wildfires burned in north-central Washington state, prompting an evacuation order for the town of Nespelem and surrounding areas. The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center said about 60 lightning strikes were reported Monday on or near the town, sparking five wildfires.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A majority of the deaths occurred in the western state of Rajasthan, where 11 people died after being struck by lightning near a watchtower at the 12th century Amber Fort, police said.
Senior police officer Anand Srivastava said some of the victims were taking selfies near the watchtower when lightning struck late Sunday.
Srivastava said at least nine more people were killed and nearly 20 others were injured in separate lightning strikes when the state was lashed with thunderstorms and monsoon rains.
In Uttar Pradesh, 18 people were killed by lightning on Sunday, said Manoj Dixit, a government official. Most of those killed were farm laborers working in fields.
Both state governments announced financial compensation for the families of the victims and those who were injured.
The Indian Meteorological Department has warned of more lightning in the next two days.
Lightning strikes are common during India’s monsoon season, which runs from June to September.
More than 2,900 people were killed by lightning in India in 2019, according to the most recent official figures available.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fires have forced evacuations in numerous areas with scattered homes and tiny communities where some burned houses and other structures have been observed, but total losses were still being tallied.
The fires erupted as the West was in the grip of the second bout of dangerously high temperatures in just a few weeks. And a climate change-fueled megadrought is making conditions that lead to fire even more dangerous, scientists say.
The National Weather Service said, however, that the heat wave appeared to have peaked in many areas, and excessive-heat warnings were largely expected to expire by today.
The two largest fires were burning forests in northeastern California and southern Oregon, sending smoke across other states.
The Beckwourth Complex, two lightning-ignited blazes, covered about 140 square miles on Northern California’s border with Nevada. Plumas National Forest officials said firefighters successfully contained almost a quarter of the blaze but still expected some extreme fire activity.
Evacuation orders and warnings were in effect for remote areas of California’s Lassen and Plumas counties and Nevada’s Washoe County. Some structures were destroyed over the weekend in Doyle, Calif., a town of about 600 residents.
“A damage assessment team has arrived to validate and assess reports of structures damaged or destroyed,” a forest statement said.
In Oregon, the Bootleg fire covered 240 square miles in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, near the Klamath County town of Sprague River.
After doubling in size at least twice over the weekend, it grew only incrementally Sunday, a sign of some progress, said Rich Saalsaa, spokesman for the Oregon State Fire Marshal.
“It’s allowed firefighters to build more lines and go on the offensive,” Saalsaa said.
Seven homes and 43 outbuildings have been destroyed in an area on the south end of the blaze, Saalsaa said.
In central Oregon, a wildfire that started Sunday near the resort town of Sisters doubled in size to 6.2 square miles.
The Bootleg fire disrupted service on three transmission lines providing up to 5,500 megawatts of electricity to California, where the state’s grid operator asked for voluntary power conservation from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. to ease the strain. The timing coincides with decreasing generation from solar facilities as night falls.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Death Valley National Park recorded a staggering high of 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday and 129 degrees on Saturday. The 130-degree reading is the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when the same Furnace Creek desert area hit 134 degrees, considered the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth.
The Beckwourth Complex — two lightning-caused fires burning 45 miles north of Lake Tahoe — showed no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size between Friday and Saturday.
California’s northern mountain areas already have seen several large fires that have destroyed more than a dozen homes. Although there are no confirmed reports of building damage, the Beckwourth Complex prompted evacuation orders or warnings for roughly 2,800 people along with the closure of nearly 200 square miles of Plumas National Forest.
On Friday, hot rising air formed a gigantic, smoky pyrocumulus cloud that reached thousands of feet high and created its own lightning, fire information officer Lisa Cox said.
Spot fires caused by embers leaped up to a mile ahead of the northeastern flank — too far for firefighters to safely battle, Cox said. The flames rose up to 100 feet in places, forcing firefighters to focus instead on building firebreaks to protect homes.
Firefighters usually take advantage of cooler, more humid nights to advance on a fire, Cox said, but the heat and low humidity never let up. The more than 1,200 firefighters were aided by aircraft. But the blaze was expected to continue forging ahead.
The air was so dry that some of the water dropped by aircraft evaporated before reaching the ground, she added.
The blaze, which was only 8 percent contained, increased dramatically to 55,040 acres after fire officials made better observations.
It was one of several threatening homes across Western states that are expected to see triple-digit heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region.
The National Weather Service warned the dangerous conditions could cause heat-related illnesses, while California’s power grid operator issued a statewide Flex Alert from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday to avoid disruptions and rolling blackouts.
The California Independent System Operator warned of a potential power shortage, not only because of mounting heat, but because a wildfire in southern Oregon was threatening transmission lines that carry imported power to California. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation on Friday suspending rules to allow for more power capacity, and the ISO requested emergency assistance from other states. On Saturday, Newsom issued another proclamation allowing the emergency use of auxiliary ship engines to relieve pressure on the electric grid.
Las Vegas late Saturday afternoon tied its all-time record high of 117 degrees, the National Weather Service said. The city has recorded that record-high temperature four other times, most recently in June 2017.
(Daisy Nguyen, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Maximum sustained winds from the storm were near 50 mph with higher gusts as it moved over Massachusetts. But the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its 2 p.m. update that Elsa was no longer considered a tropical storm.
Elsa remained powerful enough to bring about 3.5 inches of rain to areas of Massachusetts and Rhode Island by the early afternoon, flooding streets and stranding cars. West of Boston, Framingham police said Route 9 at Route 126 was closed because of high water.
Storm conditions caused morning snags on commuter rail lines across the New York City region, with slight delays on the Harlem Line north of the city and service suspended on the Long Island Rail Road’s Oyster Bay Branch because of fallen trees.
The downpour caused a small rockslide under the main railroad track in West Haven, Conn., forcing trains to switch to a secondary track for a couple of hours. West Haven was also among the coastal cities dealing with significant street flooding.
“We’re waiting on the water to recede,” said Joe Soto, the city’s emergency management director. “The drainage system was just overwhelmed.”
The storm came a day after a deluge flooded some streets and subway stations in New York City.
Despite videos showing flooding in some stations Thursday, “we actually weathered the storm quite well,” interim New York City Transit president Sarah Feinberg said in an email.
The strongest winds were expected to stay off the coast of New England. But the storm was expected to bring heavy rain — up to 4 inches on the Maine coast. Flash flood warnings were issued for parts of Maine on Friday, and were to remain in effect until this morning as the storm heads out toward the Bay of Fundy and Canada, forecasters said.
Scattered power outages were also reported along Elsa’s path Friday.
(Michael Hill&Tom Hays, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The quake shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday was centered south of Lake Tahoe near Walker, a rural community of a few hundred households in the eastern Sierra Nevada. It was felt as far off as Las Vegas and San Francisco, authorities said. Days of aftershocks are expected.
California state emergency crews worked overnight and found minor road damage but no significant impacts to infrastructure, said Brian Ferguson, spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. No injuries were immediately reported.
“We were relieved it wasn’t anything more substantial,” he said.
Thursday’s earthquake was followed by scores of aftershocks, including at least a half-dozen of magnitude 4 or above, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Friday’s temblors were all magnitude 3.7 and lower.
Sally Rosen, owner of the Walker Burger restaurant, said Friday that she did not sleep well.
“There were aftershocks all night. There were a couple that were very strong in the middle of the night. And I even felt one this morning at the restaurant,” Rosen said. Nothing compared to the initial jolt and heavy shaking from the day before: “It was the most intense, violent kind of shaking” she’d ever felt, she said.
Cups, supplies and canned food tumbled off shelves and the contents of the refrigerator shifted around, but by morning they had cleaned it all up and the shop was back open for business, she said.
The California Highway Patrol said some cars were struck by rocks but there were no injuries. Video from drivers showed cars slowly navigating around big blocks of stone that littered the roadway.
At one point, rockslides closed about 40 miles of the interstate, a major route through the northern Sierra Nevada, but the road reopened some hours later.
Boxes flew off the shelves at Smith’s Food and Drug in Gardnerville, Nev.
“Our whole entire store was shaking,” said Brittany Oswald, who works at the store’s deli. “I just stood there and held onto a table, and waited for it to end.”
The seismic waves rolled out across the eastern Sierra — where thousands of people camp and hike in national forests — westward through California’s agricultural Central Valley and were felt about 250 miles away in San Francisco.
Sacramento also felt the shaking and so did Las Vegas, about the same distance southeast of Walker.
The quake occurred along the Antelope Valley fault, which extends across the state line near Topaz Lake. Quakes aren’t uncommon there, seismologists said. Last month, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake rattled the eastern Sierra town of Lone Pine and sent boulders crashing down Mount Whitney.
However, Thursday’s temblor was the largest recorded since a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the area in 1994.
(Jocelyn Gecker, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Hundreds of firefighters aided by aircraft on Friday were fighting the Beckwourth Complex fire, two blazes sparked by lightning that were carving their way through the eastern edge of the million-acre Plumas National Forest in the northern Sierra Nevada near the Nevada state line.
Campgrounds and homes around Frenchman Lake were under evacuation orders Friday and a nearly 200-square-mile area of the forest was closed because of the danger, fire information officer Pandora Valle said.
After a day and night of explosive growth, the fire covered more than 24,380 acres at midmorning Friday, causing containment to drop to 11 percent.
The flames were burning through pine, fir and chaparral turned bone-dry by low humidity and high temperatures, while ridgetop winds and afternoon gusts of up to 35 mph were “really pushing” the flames at times, Valle said.
The fire was one of several burning in the north, where several other large blazes destroyed dozens of homes in recent days.
In the region between the Oregon border and the northern end of the Central Valley, the big Lava and Tennant fires were significantly contained, and progress was reported at the Salt fire as containment improved to 45 percent. The Salt fire has burned 27 homes and 14 outbuildings north of Redding, which hit 100 degrees before 11 a.m. The Lava fire destroyed 20 structures, including 13 homes, and damaged two structures. The Tennant fire destroyed five buildings, including two homes.
In north-central Arizona, increased humidity slowed a big wildfire that posed a threat to the rural community of Crown King. The 15,600-acre lightning-caused fire in Yavapai County was 29 percent contained. Recent rains allowed five national forests and state land managers to lift public-access closures.
Climate change is considered a “key driver“ of a trend that is creating “longer and more intense dry seasons that increase moisture stress on vegetation and make forests more susceptible to severe wildfire,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said recently.
In Oregon, pushed by strong winds, a wildfire in Klamath County grew from nearly 16,640 acres Thursday to nearly 39,040 acres on Friday in the Fremont-Winema National Forest and on private land. It was 0 percent contained, according to the an update posted on Facebook by the incident management team. Klamath County Emergency Management on Friday issued an immediate evacuation order for people in certain areas north of Beatty and near Sprague River. California dispatched two strike teams with wildland engines to help.
Meanwhile, forecasters warned that much of California will see dangerously hot weekend weather, with highs in triple digits in the Central Valley, mountains, deserts and other inland areas. Heat warnings did not include major coastal populations.
Death Valley reached a staggering 130 degrees Fahrenheit Friday, the National Weather Service said, and was expected to reach the upper 120s through the weekend.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Borrego Springs, which just had the hottest June on record, could be downright insufferable, with virtually no winds to mitigate the heat.
The pleasant temperatures at the coast will mask a serious problem. The inland heat will be so high it has prompted the California Independent System Operator, the nonprofit that manages the power grid for about 80 percent of the state including the San Diego area, to issue a Flex Alert for today.
From 4 to 9 p.m. today, the grid operator is calling on utility customers across the state to voluntarily reduce their energy use because the extreme heat will represent “potential capacity shortfall on the state’s electric grid.”
Measures include setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoiding the use of major appliances and turning off unnecessary lights. Residents should also consider pre-cooling their homes before the alert takes effect and use window coverings to keep rooms cool.
The temperature disparity is being caused by a high pressure system that’s making weather mild along the coast but severe off to the east.
A heat advisory will be in effect for the mountains through 8 p.m. on Monday, with temperatures projected to hit 92 to 102. And there will be an excessive heat warning in the deserts through 8 p.m. Monday.
Forecasters said Saturday will likely be the warmest day overall.
The weekend surf will be in the 2- to 4-foot range along the San Diego County coastline, and sea-surface temperatures are still in the 65- to 68-degree range.
“The marine layer is going to clear out pretty early along the coast through Sunday,” said Bruno Rodriguez, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Rancho Bernardo.
“It’ll be mild at the beaches.”
(Gary Robbins&Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE; U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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As of 8 p.m. Eastern time, Elsa was about 65 miles southwest of Norfolk, Va., and moving northeast at 21 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Up to 4 inches of rain was expected in parts of North Carolina, with isolated totals of up to 6 inches, and tornadoes were possible in the eastern Carolinas and southeastern Virginia, the center said. In New York City on Thursday night, some subway stations and roadways were flooded.
The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, was expected to move across the Carolinas before passing near the eastern mid-Atlantic states Thursday evening and into the Northeast today.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect along parts of the East Coast as far north as Massachusetts. The National Weather Service said that parts of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and southern New England should brace for possible tornadoes between Thursday night and Friday morning.
Elsa was expected to weaken to a post-tropical cyclone by tonight, the center said.
There were reports early Thursday of tornado damage across South Carolina, as residents shared pictures of downed trees and debris scattered across roadways on social media.
A tornado whipped through Camden County on the Georgia coast Wednesday afternoon, bringing 128 mph winds as it flipped multiple recreational vehicles and snapped trees, said Matt Zibura, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jacksonville, Fla. No one was injured, he said.
Elsa made landfall Wednesday morning in Taylor County, Fla., southeast of Tallahassee. One person was killed after a tree fell and hit two cars as storms moved through north Florida on Wednesday. At least 10 people were reported injured at a submarine base in southern Georgia after a possible tornado touched down.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The earthquake struck at 3:49 p.m. in a region about 250 miles east of San Francisco and south of Lake Tahoe. Its epicenter was 4 miles west-southwest of Walker. It was followed by a dozen aftershocks, with at least one with a 4.6 magnitude, the USGS said.
Sally Rosen, who owns a popular burger restaurant in Walker, said her 2-year-old was napping in her arms in her home behind the restaurant when the earthquake hit.
“We felt the shaking of the building, and we didn’t know quite what it was at first,” she told KGO-TV in San Francisco. “It kept going, and it was pretty intense and scary, frankly. So we ran out of the house as fast as we could and ran to the restaurant because the first thought was, ‘Oh my goodness, we need to shut off the gas.’”
Communities all around Lake Tahoe and as far south as Fresno felt the earthquake.
U.S. Highway 395, a major route through the northern Sierra Nevada, was closed because of rock slides, the state Department of Transportation said. The closure stretched about 40 miles from Willow Springs in Mono County north to Nevada border.
Further aftershocks were expected.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The earthquake struck at 3:49 p.m. in a region about 250 miles east of San Francisco and south of Lake Tahoe. Its epicenter was 4 miles west-southwest of Walker. It was followed by a dozen aftershocks, with at least one with a 4.6 magnitude, the USGS said.
Sally Rosen, who owns a popular burger restaurant in Walker, said her 2-year-old was napping in her arms in her home behind the restaurant when the earthquake hit.
“We felt the shaking of the building, and we didn’t know quite what it was at first,” she told KGO-TV in San Francisco. “It kept going, and it was pretty intense and scary, frankly. So we ran out of the house as fast as we could and ran to the restaurant because the first thought was, ‘Oh my goodness, we need to shut off the gas.’”
Communities all around Lake Tahoe and as far south as Fresno felt the earthquake.
U.S. Highway 395, a major route through the northern Sierra Nevada, was closed because of rock slides, the state Department of Transportation said. The closure stretched about 40 miles from Willow Springs in Mono County north to Nevada border.
Further aftershocks were expected.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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That broke the previous hottest average for June of 90.9, set in 1981.
“There was lots of high pressure that caused multiple heat waves in June,” said Brandt Maxwell, a forecaster at the weather service office in Rancho Bernardo. “And there’s going to be more high temperatures out there this weekend.”
The weather service says Borrego Springs and Ocotillo Wells could reach the 117 to 118 degree range on Saturday, and 116 on Sunday. An excess heat warning will be in place for the eastern reaches of the county from 9 a.m. Saturday to 10 p.m. Sunday.
The air will be dramatically cooler in San Diego, which will get a high of 78 on Saturday and 75 on Sunday.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The National Hurricane Center said Elsa still packed 45 mph winds more than nine hours after making landfall along Florida’s northern Gulf Coast.
The storm’s center was sweeping over southeast Georgia by 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Elsa seemed to spare Florida from significant damage, though it still threatened flooding downpours and caused several tornado warnings. The coasts of Georgia and South Carolina were under a tropical storm warning. Forecasters predicted Elsa would remain a tropical storm into Friday, and issued a tropical storm watch from North Carolina to Massachusetts.
Authorities in Jacksonville, Fla., said one person was killed Wednesday when a tree fell and struck two cars. The National Weather Service reported 50 mph wind gusts in the city. The tree fell during heavy rains and no one else was injured, according to Capt. Eric Prosswimmer of the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department.
“Now is a time to remember that weather is unpredictable,” Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said during a news conference Wednesday evening as he urged drivers to stay off the road. “This is really early in the (hurricane) season. We’re just outside of the July 4th holiday, we’ve had our first storm and, unfortunately, we’ve had a fatality.”
In nearby Camden County, Ga., a possible tornado struck a park for recreational vehicles at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. About 10 people were injured and taken to hospitals by ambulance, said base spokesman Scott Bassett. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear. He said some buildings on the base appeared to have been damaged as well.
Sergio Rodriguez, who lives near the RV park, said he raced to the scene fearing friends staying at the park might be hurt. The area was under a tornado warning Wednesday evening.
“There were just RVs flipped over on their sides, pickup trucks flipped over, a couple of trailers had been shifted and a couple of trailers were in the water” of a pond on the site, Rodriguez said in a phone interview.
Cellphone video he recorded at the scene showed trees bent low among scattered debris. He said ambulances arrived and began treating dazed people trying to understand what had happened.
“A bunch of folks had lacerations and were just banged around,” Rodriguez said. “A majority of folks were in their trailers when it happened.”
The hurricane center said parts of Florida could see up to 8 inches of total rain accumulation from the storm. There was also a risk of flooding in Georgia and South Carolina, which were predicted to get 3 to 5 inches of rainfall.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The state medical examiner Wednesday released an updated list of fatalities from the heat wave that added nine deaths.
Of the 116 deaths recorded, the youngest victim was 37 and the oldest was 97. In Portland’s Multnomah County, where most of the deaths occurred, officials said many victims had no air conditioners or fans and died alone.
Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, on Tuesday directed agencies to study how Oregon can improve its response to heat emergencies and enacted emergency rules to protect workers from extreme heat after a farm laborer collapsed and died June 26 at a nursery in rural St. Paul, Ore.
Temperatures shattered previous all-time records during the three-day heat wave that engulfed Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Canada. Authorities say hundreds of deaths may ultimately be attributed to the heat throughout the region.
The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The temperature was measured Monday at Finland's northernmost Utsjoki-Kevo weather station near the border with Norway by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
The institute said there was only one higher historical measurement reported in Lapland - 34.7 ° C (94.46 ° F) in the Inari Thule area, in July 1914.
The beginning of July has bee exceptionally warm in Lapland, one of Europe's last remaining wildernesses known for its extremely cold winters that attracts domestic and international nature lovers in both summer and winter. The region, Finland's largest by surface, holds records for the coldest temperatures in the nation of 5.5 million.
"It is exceptional in Lapland to record temperatures" of over 32 ° C, Jari Tuovinen, a meteorologist at the Finning Meteorological Institute, said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The state civil defense office said the landslide claimed the lives of a woman and three children Monday in a rural community just outside the Chiapas state capital.
On Tuesday, rescuers found the body of the 23-year-old Portuguese woman several miles downstream from where she fell or dove in at a series of pools and small waterfalls known as Agua Azul. The normally turquoise waters of the tourist spot were a muddy brown from heavy rains in recent days.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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It has the potential to dump up to 9 inches of rain in some parts of the state before traveling north and bringing stormy conditions to Georgia and the Carolinas.
Elsa would be the first major storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to hit Florida’s mainland. It became a Category 1 hurricane on Friday before weakening over the weekend, and then strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane again Tuesday night.
The hurricane was being watched closely in the Miami area, where rescue crews at the site of the collapsed condominium building in Surfside were forced to temporarily pause their efforts Monday because of lightning. Officials said they hoped that the brunt of the storm would spare Surfside, and on Tuesday afternoon, Elsa’s center appeared to be passing more than 100 miles west of Miami.
As of 8 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the storm was about 100 miles southwest of Tampa, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
It was moving north at 14 mph, the center said, adding that after making landfall in the northern part of Florida, Elsa will then weaken as it moves northeastward across the southeastern United States through Thursday.
A hurricane warning was issued for west-central Florida and north toward the Florida Panhandle. A tropical storm watch was also issued for the Georgia coast and parts of South Carolina.
“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane center said of those under a hurricane warning.
Up to 9 inches of rain could fall through today in the Florida Keys and the southwestern and western parts of the state, possibly leading to flooding. Elsewhere across Florida, as much as 6 inches of rain could fall through Wednesday night.
Before the storm, Tampa International Airport said it would suspend commercial flights and air cargo operations. The airport planned to reopen at 10 a.m. today, after assessing any potential storm damage.
As the storm moves north, parts of southeast Georgia and South Carolina could receive several inches of rain this week, with possible flooding.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The storm was passing over mainly rural areas to the east of Havana after making landfall near Cienega de Zapata, a natural park with few inhabitants.
By evening, Elsa had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. Its core was about 30 miles east of Havana and moving to the northwest at 13 mph.
“The wind is blowing hard and there is a lot of rain. Some water is getting under the door of my house. In the yard the level is high, but it did not get into the house,” Lazaro Ramon Sosa, a craftsman and photographer who lives in the Zapata Swamp, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Elsa had spent Sunday and much of Monday sweeping parallel to Cuba’s southern coast before heading on to land, sparing most of the island from significant effects.
As a precaution, Cuban officials had evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm was expected to move back over the sea before midnight Monday and then head for Florida. Tropical storm warnings were posted for the Florida Keys from Craig Key westward to the Dry Tortugas and for the west coast of Florida from Flamingo northward to the Ochlockonee River.
Elsa was a Category 1 hurricane until Saturday morning, causing widespread damage on several eastern Caribbean islands Friday as the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. The storm caused the deaths of one person on St. Lucia and of a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in separate events in the Dominican Republic.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Four people are dead, and authorities said they were considering releasing the names of the dozens who remained missing in an effort to determine whether they had been caught up in the mudslide.
Police, fire and military personnel continued a search-and-rescue operation that had begun Saturday after more than a foot and a half of rain triggered the landslide, which destroyed more than 100 homes.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Petroleos Mexicanos said the storm on July 2 forced the company to shut off pumping stations serving the offshore rig near where the fire occurred.
Simultaneously, the leak in an underwater pipeline allowed natural gas to build up on the ocean floor and once it rose to the surface, it was probably ignited by a light[ning stroke].
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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As of Monday, the Tumbleweed fire in the Gorman area, which started over the Fourth of July weekend, had burned 1,000 acres of brush and was only about 10 percent contained, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. While the fire can be seen from Interstate 5, the department does not currently have plans to close the area. The fire has not damaged any structures, and no buildings appeared to be in danger, a department spokesman said.
“We’re trying to increase that percentage of containment to make sure the fire doesn’t advance or jump out of the area that it’s already burned,” Capt. Ron Haralson said.
Haralson said favorable weather conditions allowed firefighters get a better handle on the fire overnight Monday. There were 200 fire personnel working the blaze. But Harrelson said there’s still concern over temperatures increasing, especially since brush and other vegetation are “extremely dry.”
The National Weather Service said warmer- and drier-than-usual conditions will continue in southwestern California this week, with even higher temperatures by week’s end. The valleys and mountains could see highs up to 112 degrees by the weekend.
In far Northern California, fire crews are working to contain the Lava fire, Salt fire, and Tennant fire, which have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and once again smothered large stretches of the state in thick smoke.
The Salt fire, south of the unincorporated community of Lakehead in Shasta County, had burned 11,693 acres and was only 20 percent contained as of Monday. There are nearly 750 fire personnel working in the area, and evacuation orders are still in place.
The Lava fire, burning northeast of Weed, is 24,974 acres and was 70 percent contained on Monday. The fire, the most destructive in California this year, was sparked by lightning on June 24. Officials said 45 structures have been destroyed, including 12 single-family homes. They noted that Highway 97 from Weed to Dorris and the Everett Memorial Highway are still closed.
Highway 97 actually crosses the paths of two fires — Lava and Tennant, both in Siskiyou County in the rugged forest terrain northeast of Mount Shasta. The Tennant fire, near the tiny community of Bray, had burned 10,541 acres and was 51 percent contained.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The Cuban government opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm, which was offshore moving along Cuba’s southern coast Sunday night. Most of those evacuated went to relatives’ homes, while some people sheltered at government facilities. Hundreds living in mountainous areas took refuge in natural caves prepared for emergencies.
The storm’s next target was Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County, where a condo building collapsed June 24.
Elsa’s center was near Cuba’s southern coast Sunday night and was moving northwest at 15 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The center said the storm was expected to gradually weaken while passing over central Cuba on Monday.
The storm killed one person on St. Lucia, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. A 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman died Saturday in separate events in the Dominican Republic after walls collapsed, according to the Emergency Operations Center.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said Civil Defense volunteers discovered that remains outside the village of Odou.
The blaze, which began Saturday outside the village of Arakapas, forced the evacuation of at least eight mountain villages.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The cause of the blast was not immediately determined, but state oil company SOCAR said preliminary information indicated it was a mud volcano.
The Caspian Sea has a high concentration of such volcanoes, which spew both mud and flammable gas.
SOCAR spokesman Ibrahim Ahmadov said the blast took places about 6 miles from the Umid gas field, which is 45 miles off the coast of the capital, Baku.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Ten people were rescued and as many as 80 homes in Atami buried, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
The agency said more people could still be missing under the mudslides but warned that details were not immediately clear. Torrential rains have slammed parts of Japan this past week, increasing landslide risks.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The storm was centered about 140 miles east of Kingston, Jamaica, and was speeding west-northwest at 23 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph as the tropical storm, which had been a Category 1 hurricane earlier on Saturday, weakened in its approach to Hispaniola and Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storm was forecast to hit Cuba next on a path that would take it to Florida, with some models showing it would spin into the Gulf or up the Atlantic Coast. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the Florida Keys from Craig Key westward to Dry Tortugas.
Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 Florida counties, including in Miami-Dade County where a high-rise condominium building collapsed last week.
One death was reported in St. Lucia, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman died Saturday in separate events in the Dominican Republic after walls collapsed on them, according to a statement from the Emergency Operations Center.
The deaths come a day after Elsa caused widespread damage in several eastern Caribbean islands as a Category 1 hurricane, the first of the Atlantic season. Among the hardest hit was Barbados, where more than 1,100 people reported damaged houses, including 62 homes that completely collapsed, as the government promised to find and fund temporary housing to avoid clustering people in shelters amid the pandemic.
Dozens of trees and power lines lay strewn across Barbados, where several schools and government buildings were damaged and hundreds of customers were still without power on Saturday, according to officials.
“This is a hurricane that has hit us for the first time in 66 years,” Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Saturday. “There is no doubt this is urgent.”
Barbados suspended classes until Wednesday and expected to reopen its international airport on Sunday.
Elsa was the first hurricane of the Atlantic season and the earliest fifth-named storm on record. Elsa also broke the record as the tropic’s fastest-moving hurricane, clocking in at 31 mph on Saturday morning.
(Danica Coto&Evens Sanon, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Fire officials said parched brush and timber made perfect fuel for the kinds of disasters that have destroyed thousands of square miles of land in recent years, mainly in rural and forest areas.
Three large fires were burning near Mount Shasta, a towering volcano about an hour from the Oregon state line.
The greatest threat came from the Salt fire, which broke out Wednesday near a freeway and destroyed 41 buildings, including 27 homes, in a rural area north of Redding. As of Saturday morning, it had grown to nearly 7,467 acres and was only 5 percent contained.
All lanes of Interstate 5 were open, but they remain under threat, Shasta-Trinity National Forest officials said in an email Saturday.
Highs in the area this weekend were expected to hit the mid-to-upper 90s despite a slight chance of morning thunderstorms. Those storms could cause erratic winds that may complicate firefighting. National Weather Service forecasters also warned that some areas could see late afternoon gusts that could fan flames.
Darlene Sherill’s cabin went up in flames Wednesday afternoon. She and her husband, who live in Danville, moved in last November and had filled it with his home-built furniture.
“It feels very much like a violation to have a fire come to your home and destroy it, probably within minutes,” Sherrill told the San Francisco Chronicle by phone from a Redding hotel on Friday.
Authorities suspect that it started from a hot piece of metal that flew off a car or truck on Interstate 5. They haven’t found the vehicle.
The largest blaze, the Lava fire burning partly on the flanks of Mount Shasta, was 26 percent contained after burning more than 24,460 acres. The blaze, sparked by a lightning strike June 25, forced several thousand people from their homes, but most of them were allowed to return late Thursday.
Still, officials at a community meeting Saturday acknowledged the frustration and asked for patience, saying they don’t want to let people back in and have flames spread quickly.
“The concern is repopulating too soon and having this be aggressive,” Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said.
To the northeast, the Tennant fire in the Klamath National Forest had burned five buildings, including two homes, and threatened several hundred more.
It grew slightly overnight to 10,012 acres. But progress against the fire was also reported there and it was 17 percent surrounded.
Mop-up began on the western flank while the east side remained active. Evacuation orders and warnings continued in nearby areas.
The trio were the largest of more than a dozen wildfires that erupted this week in the midst of hot, dry conditions usually seen in August, fire officials said.
National parks put out renewed calls for people to heed restrictions on campfires and other fire risks.
Klamath National Forest, a huge, sprawling area not far from the Oregon state line, said below-average winter rainfall and recent record-high temperatures “mean that one single spark can start a wildfire.” Visitors were warned not to drive or park on dry grass or brush because hot exhaust pipes and mufflers could torch them.
Dragging trailer chains, scraping brakes and low tires that allow the rims to hit the road also can throw off dangerous sparks, the park said.
Throughout the state, officials warned against setting off illegal fireworks amid the hot, dry weather.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Three wildfires near the towering Mount Shasta volcano an hour’s drive from the Oregon border have burned around 60 square miles of land.
Property damage was evident at the Salt fire, which broke out Wednesday near Interstate 5 and prompted evacuations for some roads in Lakehead, an unincorporated community of around 700 people north of Redding.
About a dozen destroyed buildings could be seen in just one area of the community.
The Salt fire covered nearly 8 square miles and was 5 percent contained, said Adrienne Freeman, a spokeswoman for Shasta-Trinity National Forest. She said official damage assessments will be made by local authorities.
No building damage was reported from two other northern fires, which erupted as California and the rest of the U.S. West is enduring a historic drought.
“Fuel conditions this year are looking a lot more like late August than early July,” Freeman said.
To the north, the Lava fire burning partly on the flanks of Mount Shasta covered more than 37 square miles but was 27 percent contained. Several thousand residents of Lake Shastina were allowed to return home late Thursday.
Firefighters were doing mop-up on the western side of the fire and making good progress on the most active eastern portion, fire official Pat Bell said in a morning briefing.
To the northeast, the Tennant fire in the Klamath National Forest grew to slightly more than 15 square miles, but progress was also reported there. Mop-up began on the western flank while the east side remained active. Evacuation orders and warnings continued in nearby areas.
The blazes erupted during an extreme heat wave in the U.S. West. The heat has since moderated, but temperatures in the Mount Shasta area were still expected to reach nearly 100 degrees over the weekend.
Arizona, New Mexico and Utah have been forced to battle wildfires, and California is bracing for what some experts fear will be one of its worst fire seasons yet.
Last year, California wildfires scorched more than 6,562 square miles of land, the most in its recorded history. And just three years ago, a fire in Butte County in Northern California killed 85 people and largely destroyed the town of Paradise.
This year, many of California’s national parks have restrictions on campfires, cooking and smoking because of fire risks in the hot, dry summer. The parks are bracing for large crowds over the holiday weekend.
(Terry Chea&John Antczak, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Category 1 storm is the first hurricane to hit Barbados in more than 60 years, unleashing heavy rains and winds on the island and then on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which are struggling to recover from recent massive volcanic eruptions.
Elsa was centered about 505 miles southeast of Santo Domingo and was moving west-northwest at 30 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
“That level of sustained wind can blow down a lot of buildings and cause a lot of damage,” said St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. “I am pleading with you. Let us not take this hurricane lightly. This is not the time to play the fool.”
The long-term forecast track showed it heading toward Florida as a tropical storm by Tuesday morning, but some models would carry it into the Gulf or up the Atlantic Coast.
Authorities in Barbados said they received calls about families trapped in their homes, collapsed houses and power and water outages, but no reports of serious injuries or deaths.
“We are getting a lot of reports of damage,” he said.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica and from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to Punta Palenque in the Dominican Republic. A hurricane watch was issued for the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Granma, Guantanamo, Holguin, Las Tunas, and Santiago de Cuba.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As forecasters warned of a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada last weekend, officials set up cooling centers, distributed water to the homeless and took other steps. Still, hundreds of people are believed to have died from Friday to Tuesday.
An excessive heat warning remained in effect for parts of the interior Northwest and western Canada on Thursday.
The death toll in Oregon alone reached 79, the Oregon state medical examiner said Thursday, with most occurring in Multnomah County, which encompasses Portland.
In Canada, British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday afternoon. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the province over a five-day period.
She said it was too soon to say with certainty how many deaths were heat related, but that it was likely the heat was behind most of them.
Washington state authorities have linked more than 20 deaths to the heat, but authorities said that number was likely to rise.
In Oregon’s Multnomah County, the average victim’s age was 67 and the oldest was 97, according to county Health Officer Jennifer Vines.
In a telephone interview Thursday, Vines said she had been worried about fatalities amid the weather forecasts. Authorities tried to prepare as best they could, turning nine air-conditioned county libraries into cooling centers.
Between Friday and Monday, 7,600 people cooled off amid the stacks of books. Others went to three more cooling centers. Nearly 60 teams sought out homeless people, offering water and electrolytes.
“We scoured the county with outreach efforts, with calls to building managers of low-income housing to be checking on their residents,” Vines said.
But the efforts weren’t enough, she said: “It’s been really sobering to see these initial (fatality) numbers come out.”
Oregon Office of Emergency Management Director Andrew Phelps agreed. “Learning of the tragic loss of life as a result of the recent heat wave is heartbreaking. As an emergency manager — and Oregonian — it is devastating that people were unable to access the help they needed during an emergency,” he said.
Among the dead was a farm laborer who collapsed Saturday and was found by fellow workers at a nursery in rural St. Paul, Ore. The workers had been moving irrigation lines, said Aaron Corvin, spokesman for the state’s worker safety agency, Oregon Occupational Safety and Health, or Oregon OSHA.
Weather experts say the number of heat waves are only likely to rise in the Pacific Northwest, a region normally known for cool, rainy weather, with a few hot, sunny days mixed in, and where many people don’t have air conditioning.
“I think the community has to be realistic that we are going to be having this as a more usual occurrence and not a one-off, and that we need to be preparing as a community,” said Dr. Steven Mitchell of Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, which treated an unprecedented number of severe heat-related cases. “We need to be really augmenting our disaster response.”
Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Mount Shasta, the volcano that towers over the region, was shrouded in a haze from smoke plumes that could be seen in images from weather satellites in space.
The scene was ominously reminiscent of last year’s California wildfire season, which scorched more than 6,562 square miles of land, the most in the state’s recorded history.
An extraordinary Pacific Northwest heat wave that extended into the upper reaches of California was slowly receding, but it was only expected to cool off slightly before temperatures trend back up heading into the Fourth of July weekend, forecasters said.
“It is very hot and dry,” said Suzi Johnson, a Shasta-Trinity National Forest spokeswoman for the Salt fire, which broke out Wednesday and grew to 7 square miles, about 4,480 acres, shutting several lanes of Interstate 5 and prompting evacuation orders for some roads in Lakehead, an unincorporated community of around 700 people.
A reporter for the Redding Record Searchlight saw at least a dozen buildings destroyed south of Lakehead, including homes, garages and outbuildings.
Johnson told the paper that investigators were trying to locate a car that may have started the fire Wednesday afternoon near Interstate 5 when hot pieces or parts apparently flew off and ignited dry brush.
About 300 firefighters battled the blaze but were hampered by hot weather and challenging terrain, officials said.
The fire was a threat to homes around Shasta Lake north of the city of Redding, more than 200 miles north of San Francisco. The huge lake is popular with vacationers, but its water level is dramatically low because of the drought.
No building damage was reported from two other northern fires, which erupted as California and the rest of the U.S. West was mired in a historic drought tied to climate change.
To the north, the Lava fire burning partly on the flanks of Mount Shasta grew to nearly 31 square miles (19,840 acres) and was 25 percent contained. Evacuation orders for communities near the city of Weed were still in effect.
To the northeast, the Tennant fire that broke out Monday in the Klamath National Forest and forced evacuations grew to about 15 square miles (9,600 acres). Its cause is being investigated.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period.
“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather,” LaPointe said in a statement.
Many homes in Vancouver, much like Seattle, don’t have air conditioning, leaving people ill-prepared for soaring temperatures.
“Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” Vancouver police Sgt. Steve Addison said in a statement.
Oregon health officials said more than 60 deaths have been tied to the heat, with the state’s largest county, Multnomah, blaming the weather for 45 deaths since temperatures spiked Friday. At least 20 deaths in Washington state have been linked to the heat, a number that was expected to rise.
The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
John Horgan, the premier of British Columbia, on Tuesday said the heat wave underlined the perils of climate change.
“The big lesson coming out of the past number of days is that the climate crisis is not a fiction,” he said at a news conference. “It is absolutely real.”
Seattle, Portland and many other cities broke all-time heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
While the temperatures had cooled considerably in western Washington, Oregon and British Columbia by Wednesday, interior regions were still sweating through triple-digit temperatures as the weather system moved east into the intermountain West and the Plains.
Amid the dangerous heat and drought gripping the American West, crews were closely monitoring wildfires that can explode in the extreme weather.
Heat warnings were in place for parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana as well as Saskatchewan and southern Alberta, where “a prolonged, dangerous, and historic heat wave will persist through this week,” Environment Canada said.
“The temperatures recorded this week are unprecedented — lives have been lost and the risk of wildfires is at a dangerously high level,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
In Oregon, the Multnomah County medical examiner blamed 45 heat deaths on hyperthermia, an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with heat. The victims ranged in age from 44 to 97.
The county that includes Portland said that between 2017 and 2019, there were only 12 hyperthermia deaths in all of Oregon.
“This was a true health crisis that has underscored how deadly an extreme heat wave can be, especially to otherwise vulnerable people,” Dr. Jennifer Vines, the county’s health officer, said in a statement.
The King County medical examiner’s office, which covers an area including Seattle, said on Wednesday that a total of 13 people had died from heat-related causes. In neighboring Snohomish County, three men — ages 51, 75 and 77 — died after experiencing heatstroke in their homes, the medical examiner’s office told the Daily Herald in Everett, Wash., on Tuesday. Four deaths have also been linked to heat in Kitsap County, west of Seattle.
In eastern Washington, the Spokane Fire Department found two people dead in an apartment building Wednesday who had been suffering symptoms of heat-related stress, TV station KREM reported.
The heat led a power company in Spokane to impose rolling blackouts because of the strain on the electrical grid. Avista Utilities says it’s trying to limit outages to one hour per customer.
Heather Rosentrater, an Avista vice president for energy delivery, said the outages were a distribution problem and did not stem from a lack of electricity in the system.
Renee Swecker, 66, of Clayton, Wash., visited a splashpad fountain in downtown Spokane’s Riverfront Park with her grandchildren Wednesday, saying they “are going everywhere where there is water.”
“I’m praying for rain every day,” Swecker said.
(Andrew Selsky&Jim Morris, ASSOCIATED PRESS; THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The fire covered more than 17,000 acres — about 27 square miles — but crews “made good progress on the western edge of the fire, cutting off progression into the communities,” Shasta-Trinity National Forest said in a statement.
Containment was estimated at 19 percent.
All evacuation orders issued by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office remained in effect for communities north of the city of Weed, about 250 miles north of San Francisco. Residents of other areas were warned to be prepared to evacuate.
Burning in the shadow of the towering Mount Shasta volcano, the Lava fire was ignited by lightning last week.
An apologetic fire official told a town hall Tuesday that firefighters responded to the initial small fire and left after concluding it was out. It rekindled amid winds and blistering heat because of a scorching high-pressure system over the Pacific Northwest.
The extent of damage from the Lava Fire was not known, but it did burn through marijuana grows that have proliferated in the region in the last few years, exacerbating a local conflict.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The largest of the fires, the lightning-sparked Lava fire in Siskiyou County, forced the evacuation of at least 8,000 residents Monday afternoon as gusty red flag conditions fueled the searing flames.
By Tuesday morning, the fire had expanded nearly tenfold, to 13,300 acres, Shasta-Trinity National Forest officials said.
By the evening, the fire was 19 percent contained and the National Weather Service had tweeted that smoke from the area could carry over to Medford, Ore.
“The fire made significant runs yesterday,” said Michelle Carbonaro, a spokeswoman for the fire’s unified command team, noting that the northern border saw the most growth Monday.
More than 470 personnel are now battling the blaze from the air and the ground, she said, with crews working 24-hour shifts.
Footage captured by OnScene.TV near Highway 97 in Weed showed firefighters working deep into the night while nearby brush and trees cracked and sizzled in the flames.
Evacuation orders for the Lake Shastina and Juniper Valley areas issued by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office remained in effect Tuesday morning. Carbonaro said crews were prioritizing the southern and western edges of the fire, which are closest to the communities.
Officials have also closed Highway 97 between Weed and the Juniper Lodge, about a 30-mile stretch.
Dangerously hot, dry weather is expected to improve as the week goes on, Carbonaro said, but crews will continue to contend with difficult conditions. Many parts of the Pacific Northwest remained under excessive heat warnings Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Siskiyou County was also battling the Tennant fire, which began Monday evening and by Tuesday morning had grown to about 1,700 acres and was 5 percent contained.
About 3 p.m. Pacific time, the fire prompted evacuations for the area east of Highway 97 to East Ball Mountain Road, as well as from Old State Highway to Bray.
Meanwhile, crews have gained some control over fires in Kern, San Bernardino and Monterey counties, as well as a brush fire that ignited in Hemet on Monday afternoon.
Two of the fires — the 2,000-acre Shell fire in Kern County and the 35-acre Peak fire in San Bernardino — have been linked to vehicle fires.
The Willow fire in Los Padres National Forest that ignited June 18 was holding steady at 2,877 acres and 87 percent containment Tuesday, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Lynn Olson said.
Olson said the fire outbreaks will probably repeat in the months to come.
“We’re anticipating a very busy season, unfortunately,” she said, pleading with the state’s residents to “recreate carefully” and avoid starting campfires or using fireworks where they’re not appropriate.
(Haley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Officials said more than a half-dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to the intense heat that began late last week.
The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit was expected to ease in those cities. But inland Spokane saw temperatures spike.
The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 degrees in Spokane — the highest temperature ever recorded there.
About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people.
“We try to limit outages to one hour per customer,” said Heather Rosentrater, an Avista vice president for energy delivery.
She said about 2,400 customers were without power as of shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday, mostly on the north side of the city, and those customers had been alerted about the planned outage. About 21,000 customers were warned Tuesday morning that they might experience an outage, she said.
Meanwhile, authorities said multiple recent deaths in the region were possibly related to the scorching weather.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said two people died due to hyperthermia, meaning their bodies had become dangerously overheated. The Seattle Times reported they were a 65-year-old Seattle woman and a 68-year-old Enumclaw, Wash., woman.
The heat may have claimed the life of a worker on a nursery in Oregon, the state’s worker safety agency, known as Oregon OSHA, said on Tuesday.
Officials in Bremerton, Wash., said heat may have contributed to four deaths in that Puget Sound city.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Seattle hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit by evening — well above Sunday’s all-time high of 104 — on the way to an expected high of 110. Portland, Ore., reached 116 after hitting records of 108 on Saturday and 112 on Sunday.
The temperatures were unheard of in a region better known for rain, and where June has historically been referred to as “Juneuary” for its cool drizzle. Seattle’s average high temperature in June is around 70, and fewer than half of the city’s residents have air conditioning, according to U.S. Census data.
The heat forced schools and businesses to close to protect workers and guests, including some places like outdoor pools and ice cream shops where people seek relief from the heat. COVID-19 testing sites and mobile vaccination units were out of service as well.
The Seattle Parks Department closed one indoor community pool after the air inside became too hot — leaving Stanlie James, who relocated from Arizona three weeks ago, to search for somewhere else to cool off. She doesn’t have air conditioning, she said.
“Part of the reason I moved here was not only to be near my daughter, but also to come in the summer to have relief from Arizona heat,” James said. “And I seem to have brought it with me. So I’m not real thrilled.”
The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.
The blistering heat exposed a region with infrastructure not designed for it, hinting at the greater costs of climate change to come.
In Portland, light rail and street car service was suspended as power cables melted and as the heat strained the power grid.
Heat-related expansion caused road pavement to buckle or pop loose. Workers in tanker trucks in Seattle were hosing down drawbridges with water at least twice a day to keep them cool to prevent the steel from expanding in the heat and interfering with their opening and closing mechanisms.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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At Portland International Airport in Oregon, it reached 112 degrees Sunday. It was the highest temperature recorded there since historical records began in 1940, the National Weather Service said.
A high temperature of 108 degrees was recorded at the airport Saturday, surpassing the previous record of 107 degrees set in July 1965 and twice in August 1981, the service said.
The average high temperature for this time of year at the airport is 73 degrees, said forecasters, who predicted that it would be even more stifling today.
Temperatures reached 102 degrees on Saturday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and on Sunday it reached 103, tying a record high.
“That’s now the first time in our climate record of two consecutive days above 100,” the National Weather Service said on Twitter. It said those readings included Seattle-area records dating to 1894.
“Goodnight cruel sauna — I mean, Seattle,” Maddie Kristell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Seattle, posted on Twitter on Saturday night, along with a photo of two air conditioning units that she had running.
The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for virtually all of Washington and Oregon, as well as parts of California, Idaho, Montana and Nevada.
The warning will remain in effect until tonight for much of Oregon and Washington, where state and local entities opened cooling centers for residents.
The meteorological anomaly, which forecasters attributed to an upper-level ridge of high pressure stalled over British Columbia, even led the National Park Service to warn hikers about how snow and ice are melting faster on Mount Rainier in Washington.
“Even higher elevations such as Paradise won’t escape the extreme heat hitting the PNW,” the national park said on Twitter.
The heat is expected to linger in areas farther east until at least the middle of the week, according to the National Weather Service. Its forecast office in Spokane, Wash., predicted high temperatures of at least 112 degrees from Sunday through Wednesday.
In preparation for the heat wave, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee suspended limits on the number of people who could be accommodated at cooling centers run by the government and by nonprofit groups in the state.
The limits had been put in place as part of public health emergency orders during the pandemic.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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“This isn’t normal here,” said Lt. Michael Shaw, spokesperson for the Michigan State Police. “Every freeway in the county had some level of flooding.”
By 3 p.m. Saturday, authorities counted about 350 vehicles that had been damaged in the flooding.
“Some suffered some type of wire damage, some had water up to the top of their tires, some had it up to windows, and some were completely submerged,” Shaw said. “A lot of people thought they could make it through the water, but there was just no way.”
Images shared on Twitter showed cars immersed in water and tractor-trailers stuck on freeways.
The last time Southeast Michigan had such flooding was in 2014, after 4 to 6 inches of rain fell over a period of four hours, according to the National Weather Service.
There were no injuries reported Saturday but rescue crews were dispatched to help people trapped in the flooding, Shaw said.
Many basements were flooded, and commuting Saturday was practically impossible, he said, adding that emergency dispatchers fielded thousands of calls Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Wayne County, which includes Detroit. Rain is forecast to continue until Friday in the area.
(Eduardo Medina, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Stores sold out of portable air conditioners and fans, hospitals canceled outdoor vaccination clinics, cities opened cooling centers, baseball teams canceled or moved up weekend games, and utilities braced for possible power outages.
Seattle reached 100 degrees by mid-afternoon Saturday, making it the hottest June day on record and only the fourth time in recorded history the usually temperate city had topped 100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Portland, Ore., also saw its hottest June day on record — reaching 103 degrees by the afternoon. Other cities and towns from eastern Washington to Portland to southern Oregon were also expected to break records, with temperatures in many areas expected to top out up to 30 degrees above normal.
It’s a dangerous forecast for a region accustomed to mild weather, and where many don’t have air conditioning.
James Bryant, a Seattle resident, picked up an air conditioner in anticipation of the extreme heat.
“My house is already hot, and so with the added heat over the next few days — I’ve got kids. I got to make sure they don’t get too hot as well,” Bryant said. “It seems to be a trend. So I’m not sure what’s driving it, but it’s not fun, that’s for sure.”
The hot weather had berry farmers scrambling to pick crops before they rot on the vine and fisheries managers working to keep endangered sockeye salmon safe from too-warm river water.
Officials in Oregon’s Multnomah County were asking for volunteers to help staff cooling centers as older people, homeless residents and others struggled with the heat. Cascades Street Outreach, an advocacy group for people experiencing homelessness, was going to homeless camps in the region to encourage people to use the cooling centers.
Peter Tiso, who works with Multnomah County’s Joint office of Homeless Services, told the Oregonian/OregonLive.com that the Oregon Convention Center can hold about 300 people, but no one will be turned away from the cooling shelter. The shelter also allows pets, he said.
“We don’t want anyone to be making the dangerous decision between leaving their pet behind or not,” he said.
Unusually hot weather was expected to extend into this coming week for much of the region.
Columbia Basin fisheries managers are worried about how the heat wave will affect endangered Snake River sockeye and other species of protected salmon.
State, tribal and federal officials are trying to mitigate rising water temperatures in the lower Snake River, the Lewiston Tribune reported, in part by releasing 42-degree water from Idaho’s Dworshak Reservoir. They began releasing the water last week, hoping to keep the water temperature at the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River at or below 68 degrees. Officials fear a repeat of 2015, when water temperatures in Columbia and Snake river reservoirs reached lethal levels for sockeye salmon.
In eastern Washington, berry farmer Jason Morrell said the sun was rapidly drying out his strawberries, leaving them at risk of rotting if they aren’t picked fast. Morrell, the owner of Walters’ Fruit Ranch near Spokane, told television station KREM that normally farmers have about three weeks to get their strawberry crop picked. With Spokane expected to reach 109 degrees on Monday, he expects to have just a few days to get the job done.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee lifted COVID-19 capacity restrictions on publicly owned or operated and nonprofit cooling centers in light of the heat. Capacity is currently limited to 50 percent until the state fully reopens Wednesday. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown suspended capacity limits for movie theaters and shopping malls — places with air-conditioning — as well as swimming pools ahead of a statewide reopening Wednesday.
(Sara Cline&Rebecca Boone, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The extreme and dangerous heat was expected to break all-time records in cities and towns from eastern Washington to southern Oregon as concerns mounted about wildfire risk.
Seattle was expected to edge above 100 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend and in Portland, OR, weather forecasters said the thermometer could soar to 108 degrees by Sunday, breaking an all-time record of 107 degrees set in 1981.
Seattle has only hit 100 degrees three times in recorded history, the National Weather Service said, and there was a chance it could eclipse the record of 103 degrees on Monday.
(U-T NEW SERVICES)
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Domenic Biagini, owner of Gone Whale Watching San Diego, said he’d taken half a dozen passengers out near the island on Saturday when they spotted an oily sheen covering the ocean. He said they found the slick about 12 nautical miles south of the island, tracking the pollution all the way past an area known as Butterfly Bank.
“When I say giant, it was a minimum of 50 miles,” Biagini said. “We had 90 minutes of having to wrap our faces in sweatshirts because it was so toxic to breathe the air around us.”
Coast Guard Sector San Diego did not respond on Tuesday to questions about the reported slick near San Clemente Island, located about 70 miles offshore.
Biagini said he was surprised to find no immediate reports of the pollution. So, on Sunday, he posted to social media drone footage of dolphins swimming through the oily slick.
“I went home thinking I was going to find a ton of information on this, and I was just flabbergasted to see nothing,” he said.
The Coast Guard reported on Sunday that a 100-gallon spill of diesel fuel was discovered Saturday about 10 nautical miles southwest of Point Loma, but authorities have yet to release any details about the source of the pollution or say whether the incidents were related.
Navy officials have repeatedly said they’re unaware of any spills involving the service’s vessels, directing all inquires to the Coast Guard.
Biagini said he called in the oil slick to the Coast Guard around 11 a.m. on Saturday.
“I almost didn’t think I needed to call the Coast Guard because it was so drastic and dramatic, I was like there’s no way they don’t know about this,” he said. “There were Navy ships in the area.”
San Diego resident Catherine Challender said she was on the boat and confirmed the account.
“We pulled up on a pod of dolphins and just saw oil everywhere, a big slick sheen in the water,” she said.
(Joshua Smith, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The city of Flagstaff was shrouded in smoke Monday, and ash was falling from the sky. The national forest surrounding it announced a full closure set to begin later this week — the first time that has happened since 2006.
Intense heat that has hampered firefighting efforts was expected to moderate in the coming days. The National Weather Service noted it could bring uncertainty for fire crews.
“The humidity and the possibility of some scattered rainfall is a good thing,” said meteorologist Andrew Taylor. “The lightning is not a good thing.”
In California, firefighters still faced the difficult task of trying to contain a large forest fire in rugged coastal mountains south of Big Sur that forced the evacuation of a Buddhist monastery and nearby campground.
In New Mexico, lightning-sparked blazes have been scorching the southern part of the state where a large portion of the Gila Wilderness remains closed, and fire officials are closely watching the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There was relief Monday, though, as authorities reported that it appeared no one had died. Less than a dozen people were hurt in the tornado that touched down after 11 p.m. Sunday, and all were expected to recover.
At least eight people were hospitalized in Naperville, where 22 homes were left “uninhabitable” and more than 130 homes were damaged in the suburb of 147,500 people that’s about 25 miles west of Chicago.
Two people initially described in critical condition had improved by Monday afternoon, said Naperville Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis.
“It could have been a lot worse, I will say that,” Puknaitis said. “When you look at the destruction that has occurred over this five square block area or so, it’s amazing that we can stand here and report that we only had eight people that were transported to a hospital.”
Officials in the nearby village of Woodridge said a tornado damaged at least 100 structures. The village’s fire chief said three people were taken to hospitals, but he could not provide more detail on their injuries.
Woodridge Police Chief Brian Cunningham said early warnings likely minimized the number of injuries.
“It was a nighttime event, a lot of people were sleeping, weren’t aware of what was going on,” he said. “The early warning got people to shelter.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The crash happened Saturday about 35 miles south of Montgomery on Interstate 65 after vehicles likely hydroplaned on wet roads, said Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock.
The van, containing children ages 4 to 17, belonged to the Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch, a youth home operated by the Alabama Sheriffs Association. Michael Smith, the youth ranches CEO, said the van was heading back to the ranch near Camp Hill, northeast of Montgomery, after a week at the beach in Gulf Shores. It caught fire after the wreck and Candice Gulley, the ranch director, was the van’s only survivor — pulled from the flames by a bystander.
Gulley remained hospitalized Sunday in Montgomery in serious but stable condition. “She’s going to survive her physical injuries,” Smith said. Two of the dead in the van were Gulley’s children, ages 4 and 16. Four others were ranch residents and two were guests, Smith said.
“This is the worst tragedy I’ve been a part of in my life,” said Smith, who drove Sunday to the ranch to talk to the remaining residents, who had returned from Gulf Shores in a separate van and did not see the wreck.
“Words cannot explain what I saw,” Smith said of the accident site, which he visited Saturday. “We love these girls like they’re our own children.”
The crash also claimed the lives of two other people who were in a separate vehicle. Garlock identified them as 29-year-old Cody Fox and his 9-month-old daughter, Ariana, both of Marion County, Tenn.
“He was a great guy and we’re really gonna miss him,” said Aaron Sanders, who worked with Fox at the emergency management agency in Marion County. He said Fox also ran a hot tub business with his father and doted on his daughter. “He just loved her to death and that was his life.”
Multiple people were also injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that it was sending 10 investigators to the area Sunday to investigate the crash, photos of which showed at least four burned vehicles, including two large trucks. It said the inquiry would focus on vehicle technologies such as forward collision warning systems, fuel tank integrity and occupant survivability.
Meanwhile, a 24-year-old man and a 3-year-old boy were also killed Saturday when a tree fell on their house just outside the Tuscaloosa city limits, said Capt. Jack Kennedy of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit. Makayla Ross, a 23-year-old Fort Payne woman, died Saturday after her car ran off the road into a swollen creek, DeKalb County Deputy Coroner Chris Thacker told WHNT-TV.
The deaths occurred as drenching rains from Tropical Depression Claudette pelted northern Alabama and Georgia late Saturday. As much as 12 inches of rain was reported earlier from Claudette along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Flash flood watches were posted Sunday for eastern Georgia, the southern two-thirds of South Carolina and the North Carolina coast. A tropical storm warning was in effect in North Carolina from the Little River Inlet to the town of Duck on the Outer Banks. A tropical storm watch was issued from South Santee River, South Carolina, to the Little River Inlet, forecasters said.
WBRC-TV reported that search efforts were under way for a man believed to have fallen into the water during flash flooding in Birmingham. Crews were using boats to search Pebble Creek.
Garlock said the location of the wreck is “notorious” for hydroplaning, as the northbound highway curves down a hill to a small creek. Traffic on that stretch of I-65 is usually filled with vacationers driving to and from Gulf of Mexico beaches on summer weekends.
“Butler County has had one of the most terrible traffic accidents,” Sheriff Danny Bond wrote on Facebook.
The Tallapoosa County school system said counselors would be available Sunday at the 225-student Reeltown High School, where some of the ranch residents were students. Smith said the ranch, which is Christian-based, would likely have a memorial service later, asking for prayers as he began to cry.
A GoFundMe account was set up for Tallapoosa County Girls Ranch to help offset the costs of funeral expenses, medical costs for the injured and counseling for those impacted.
Gulley had worked with children for years, beginning when she and her husband were house parents at the ranch for seven years.
“During those years, there have been 74 girls that have come through our house and called us mom and dad,” she told the Opelika-Auburn News in August 2019. She said she then became a relief parent, working on fundraising and being involved in the community, before she became the ranch director.
“My heart goes out to the loved ones of all who perished,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.
Claudette was beginning to re-strengthen late Sunday, with the National Hurricane Center reporting top winds at 35 mph in a nighttime advisory. The depression was expected to return to tropical storm status today over eastern North Carolina before heading out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
(Jeff Amy&Amy Forliti, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission action comes after the demolition proposal almost fell apart last summer, but then a new agreement and additional funding revived it. Thursday’s ruling will allow the utility that runs the dams, PacifiCorp, to transfer its hydroelectric license jointly to the nonprofit Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Oregon and California.
Regulators still must approve the surrender of the license. Dam removal could start in 2023.
Tribes on the lower Klamath River that have watched salmon struggle applauded the decision. Salmon are at the heart of the culture, beliefs and diet of a half-dozen regional tribes, including the Yurok and Karuk — both parties to the agreement — and they have suffered deeply from that loss.
Last week, California accepted a petition to add Klamath-Trinity River spring chinook salmon to the state’s endangered species list.
The aging dams were built before current environmental regulations and essentially cut the 253-mile-long river in half for migrating salmon, whose numbers have been plummeting.
Coho salmon from the river are listed as threatened under federal and California law, and their population has fallen anywhere from 52 percent to 95 percent. Spring chinook salmon, once the Klamath Basin’s largest run, has dwindled by 98 percent.
Fall chinook, the last to persist in any significant numbers, have been so meager in the past few years that the Yurok Tribe canceled fishing for the first time in memory. In 2017, they bought fish at a grocery store for their annual salmon festival.
Another tribe, the Karuk, said in a statement that the regulators’ decision “reflects the hard work of our partnership with PacifiCorp, California, Oregon, and the Yurok Tribe. After this year’s massive fish kill, we need dam removal more than ever.”
The dams don’t store agricultural water, aren’t used for flood control and aren’t part of the 200,000-acre Klamath Project, an irrigation project farther north that straddles the Oregon-California border. Removing the structures would affect homeowners who live around man-made lakes created by the dams.
If the dams remained, PacifiCorp would likely have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit the structures to comply with today’s environmental laws. As it is, the utility has said the electricity generated by the dams no longer makes up a significant part of its power portfolio.
The demolition proposal foundered last summer after regulators initially balked at allowing PacifiCorp to completely exit the project.
The new plan makes Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with the Klamath River Renewal Corporation and adds $45 million to the project’s $450 million budget. The states and PacifiCorp, which is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, will each provide one-third of the additional funds.
(Derrick Bryson Taylor, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Maximum sustained winds decreased to 35 mph, with higher gusts, the National Hurricane Center said Saturday afternoon. “Claudette is expected to weaken a little more tonight,” the center said in an advisory. “However, it is forecast to become a tropical storm again when it moves across the Carolinas Sunday night or early Monday.”
Claudette was expected to produce additional rainfall totals of 3-6 inches, with some pockets getting as much as 8 inches, across eastern Alabama, northern Georgia, the Florida Panhandle, and South and North Carolina, the center said.
Isolated 15-inch rainfall totals could be recorded in southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the western Florida panhandle, it said.
On Saturday, Tillmans Corner, Ala., reported nearly 5 inches of rain; Slidell, La., reported more than 9 inches; and Diamondhead, Miss., reported nearly 12 inches, the Weather Prediction Center said.
Claudette also brought tornadoes to portions of Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.
A tornado in East Brewton, Ala., about 80 miles northeast of Mobile, touched down around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, injuring three people, authorities said.
Gov. Kay Ivey said on Twitter that about 50 homes in a mobile home park in the area were destroyed.
It is not unusual for tornadoes to develop within a hurricane system, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesperson and meteorologist with the center in Miami.
“You’ve got these bands of thunderstorms that are rotating around the center, and there is wind coming from all sorts of different directions, so they’ll spring up these tornadoes very quick,” he said.
The storm system caused power failures across the South, particularly in Florida, where more than 12,000 customers were without electricity as of Saturday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates live power data from utilities.
“We’re continuing to feel the effects of severe weather due to TS Claudette across Northwest Florida,” said Kimberly Blair, a spokesperson for Gulf Power Co., which had about 3,400 customers without power early Saturday afternoon.
In Alabama, nearly 3,000 customers were without power Saturday afternoon, according to Alabama Power, which said it was assessing damage from Claudette.
(Derrick Bryson Taylor, NEW YORK TIMES)
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The system, moving north toward Louisiana through the Gulf of Mexico carried tropical storm-force sustained winds of 45 mph but forecasters said it couldn’t be classified as a tropical storm because it lacked a single, well-defined center.
“This one is just a sloppy mess. There’s multiple circulations within this broad area of circulation,” said Benjamin Schott, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Slidell, La. Forecasters said the storm was likely to dump anywhere from 4 inches to 8 inches of rain along parts of the Gulf Coast — and up to 12 inches in isolated areas.
In Louisiana, the threat came a month after spring storms and flooding that were blamed for five deaths, and as parts of the state continued a slow recovery from a brutal 2020 hurricane season. That included Tropical Storm Cristobal that opened the season last June, hurricanes Laura and Delta that devastated southwest Louisiana, and Hurricane Zeta that downed trees and knocked out power for days in New Orleans in October.
The latest storm was expected to make landfall late Friday or early today, imperiling Father’s Day weekend commerce in tourism areas already suffering economic losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Of course, with weather like this, you know you can’t run, but weekends, holidays, that’s when tourists are coming down here,” said Louisiana swamp tour boat captain Darrin Coulon. He canceled tours Friday and hoped for better weather today and Sunday as he secured his boats in Crown Point.
Worries were similar for Austin Sumrall, the owner and chef at the White Pillars Restaurant and Lounge in Biloxi, Miss. He had 170 reservations on his books for Sunday, but was concerned that some patrons would cancel. “We saw, especially last year, the rug can get jerked out from under you pretty quickly,” he said.
A tropical storm warning extended from Morgan City, La., to the Okaloosa-Walton County line in the Florida Panhandle. Coastal surge flooding was possible and flash flood watches extended along the coast from southeast Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle and well inland into Mississippi, Alabama and into parts of central and northern Georgia.
Mayor Jeff Collier of Dauphin Island, off Alabama’s coast, said officials there had already contacted debris removal contractors and made sandbags available to residents. “We’re pretty well prepared to the extent that we can be,“ Collier said. “This is not our first rodeo.”
(Kevin McGill&Jeff Martin, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The record-breaking temperatures are a weather emergency, scientists and health care experts say, with heat responsible for more deaths in the U.S. than all other natural disasters combined. With more frequent and intense heat waves likely because of climate change and the worst drought in modern history, they say communities must better protect the vulnerable, like homeless people and those who live in ethnically and racially diverse low-income neighborhoods.
“This heat has an important effect on people and their health,” said Dr. Suganya Karuppana, chief medical director at the Valle del Sol community health clinics in Arizona.
People — along with plants and animals — need cooler temperatures at night to recover from the stress of high heat, scientists and doctors said. But with overnight temperatures in the 90s, that’s not happening.
Karuppana noted that many people she sees may have no car and have to take public transportation in the Phoenix heat, walking through neighborhoods with few trees and waiting at bus and light rail stops with no or little shade. Some people live in poorly ventilated mobile homes or without air conditioning. Or they may work outside in the sun as construction workers or landscapers.
Phoenix has been baking in temperatures above 115 degrees all week. The high Friday hit a record 117 degrees after breaking another Thursday at 118 degrees. Daily records also were set this week in places across the U.S. West, such as Nevada and California, including 128 degrees in Death Valley on Thursday.
Record-breaking triple-digit highs were also reported in the San Joaquin Valley. Hanford in Kings County hit 110 degrees, breaking the previous high for the day set in 1917. Southern California desert communities also broke or tied records. Palm Springs tied the all-time record high of 123 degrees.
Those who are vulnerable to high temperatures include the very young, the very old and people with heart or kidney disease, ailments that disproportionately affect communities of color.
“We are activated for Phoenix and monitoring it closely,” said Nicolette Louissaint, executive director of the Washington nonprofit Healthcare Ready, which was founded after Hurricane Katrina to help communities deal with natural disasters.
Louissaint said her organization has helped in heat emergencies by funding cooling centers that offer bottled water and shade or arrange transportation for older people without cars who need dialysis or heart checkups.
“Extreme heat really exacerbates those kinds of serious medical conditions,” she said. “It’s tough on people who don’t have a lot of money.”
Phoenix and other local governments around the Southwest remind people on social media to drink lots of water, stay out of the sun if possible and take frequent breaks on hot days. They warn people to not leave children or pets in vehicles, and they work with nonprofits like the Salvation Army to open facilities that allow people to cool off.
Scientists say the number of heat deaths in the U.S. West and the world over is only expected to rise.
As average temperatures rise worldwide, heat is becoming more extreme, said Gerald Meehl, senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
“As the average climate warms up from increasing human-produced greenhouse gases, we are seeing more intense, more frequent and longer lasting heat waves,” Meehl said.
A study last month that included about 200 U.S. cities found more than 1,100 heat deaths each year can be attributed to human-caused global warming.
(Anita Snow, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service says that the hot spot — southeast of Borrego Springs, near the border of Imperial County — hit 124 at an unspecified date in the past.
Ocotillo Wells is not an official weather service climate station, but the agency has been monitoring temperatures there for years.
Forecasters say that the highest climate station reading ever recorded in the county was 122 degrees, which occurred in Borrego Springs in 2016.
The temperature also hit 123 on Thursday in Palm Springs, tying the all-time high at that location.
Thursday also was notable for the extraordinary temperature disparity in greater San Diego. While it was 123 at Ocotillo Wells, it was 68 at Oceanside Harbor — a difference of 55 degrees.
“Temperatures will be similar on Friday,” said Stefanie Sullivan, a weather service forecaster. “There won’t be a big drop until Monday.”
California grid managers say the power system is holding up pretty well in the face of the heat wave that has blanketed most of the state. Nonetheless, the California Independent System Operator has issued a second consecutive request for consumers to voluntarily cut back on their energy use.
The grid operator, known as the CAISO, issued a Flex Alert, effective from 6 to 9 p.m. today. The notification comes one day after the CAISO issued its first Flex Alert of 2021 that went into effect from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday.
The Flex Alerts come as high temperatures have settled over large sections of the West. The National Weather Service announced more than 40 million people in the region are broiling under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency proclamation Thursday to free up additional energy capacity. The proclamation suspends some permitting requirements, allowing the use of backup power generation and frees up extra energy resources to help alleviate demands on the grid.
(Gary Robbins&Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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And for the first time this year, the California Independent System Operator — the nonprofit that manages about 80 percent of the state’s power grid, including the San Diego area — issued a Flex Alert.
Between 5 and 10 p.m. today, the grid operator — known as the CAISO — is asking consumers across the state to reduce energy use to help relieve stress on the electric system.
“The current forecast for shortages is relatively modest in magnitude and there’s a good chance we can resolve them across the course of the day,” said CAISO president Elliot Mainzer. “But in a preponderance of caution we have issued the Flex Alert and we really will need the help of consumers.”
Chief operating officer Mark Rothleder said in a briefing with reporters the CAISO estimates a shortage of about 300 megawatts today and issuing the Flex Alert “gives us that buffer to absorb that 300-megawatt shortfall.”
Through late Wednesday, temperatures were running 3 to 9 degrees cooler than a day earlier along the coast and in the western valleys, according to the National Weather Service.
The high in San Diego hit 72, a degree above normal. And Ocotillo Wells, in the desert, the figure was 108, several degrees lower than projected.
The slight respite was heavily influenced by a coastal eddy, or rotating column of air that brought cool winds ashore from the south. The eddy extended all the way from San Clemente Island to the county’s foothills.
At roughly the same time, moisture from the Gulf of California flowed into the low deserts, holding down temperatures. And the haze muted things further.
Forecasters say San Diego’s high will rise to the mid-to-upper 70s later this week while inland valleys and foothills will hit the mid-to-upper 90s. Borrego Springs and Ocotillo Wells could reach 119.
Such heat is worrisome for CAISO.
Last August, California experienced two consecutive days of rotating outages when the state’s grid wilted under an intense heat wave — the first rolling blackouts in the state in nearly 20 years.
Mainzer said the current bout of hot weather is not as severe as last August’s and he has “guarded optimism” the grid will hold up better this year.
“We do think we generally are in better position than last summer,” Mainzer said, “although we have been very clear about the fact that we still have residual risk.”
Notably, drought conditions throughout the state will lead to a reduction in the number of megawatts California’s hydroelectric facilities can deliver to the grid this summer.
The unusually early and long-lasting heat wave brought triple-digit temperatures to a large swath of the western U.S. Wednesday, raising concerns that such extreme weather could become the new normal amid a decades-long drought.
Phoenix, which is seeing some of the highest temperatures this week, tied a record for the second day in a row when it reached 115 degrees and was expected to hit 117 today and Friday, the National Weather Service said.
Scientists who study drought and climate change say that people living in the West can expect to see more of the same in the coming years.
“Heat waves are getting worse in the West because the soil is so dry” from the region’s megadrought, said Park Williams, a University of California, Los Angeles, climate and fire scientist who has calculated that soil in the western half of the nation is the driest it has been since 1895. “We could have two, three, four, five of these heat waves before the end of the summer.”
Triple-digit heat was also forecast in Denver, which saw a record high of 101 degrees Tuesday. The weather service issued an excessive heat warning for parts of western Colorado, most of which is experiencing extreme drought conditions.
In Nevada, Las Vegas hit 116 degrees, breaking the record of 114 degrees for the date set during a record hot spell on June 16, 1940.
The region is expected to remain at 113 degrees or hotter through Sunday, National Weather Service meteorologist John Salmen said, and still could top the all-time local high of 117 degrees, set June 20, 2017.
“This is pretty impressive. We’re seeing all-time records fall,” Salmen said.
In Montana, temperatures over 100 degrees have made it tougher to fight wildfires that have exploded in size, triggering evacuations and destroying an undetermined number of homes. Furious winds have stoked the flames and forced the crash-landing of a firefighting helicopter.
At least 14 new fires have been reported in Montana and Wyoming since Tuesday.
(Gary Robbins&Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE, with contributions from ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Some of the highest temperatures were seen in bone-dry Arizona, where the National Weather Service forecast a record high of 117 degrees in Phoenix. The previous high for the date was 115 degrees, set in 1974.
“It is kind of early to see temperatures this high, that’s for sure,” said Marvin Percha, senior forecaster at the weather service’s Phoenix office.
Percha said the high-pressure dome combined with the land’s lack of moisture caused by extreme drought has combined to create blistering heat expected throughout the entire week.
“What is unusual is the strength and the duration” of the high-pressure system, he said.
The temperatures in Phoenix also could break records the rest of the week, with highs expected to reach 116 Wednesday and 118 Thursday and Friday.
People were warned to stay inside, drink plenty of water and not leave children or pets unattended in vehicles.
The excessive heat stretched from southeast California across Arizona and Nevada and into New Mexico. Palmdale, in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, hit 107 degrees, breaking a record of 105 set in 1966.
The heat wave smashed daily temperature records in Montana and Wyoming and complicated the fight against several large wildfires. Strong winds with gusts up to 35 miles per hour were expected, threatening to stir up wildfires already burning and make it hard to stamp out new blazes.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A report released Tuesday by a group of researchers who study the link between global warming and weather events suggests that the April 6-8 frost in France was particularly damaging due to a preceding warm period in March.
The analysis conducted by the group World Weather Attribution used 132 climate models to simulate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on temperatures in the vineyard-rich Champagne, Loire Valley and Burgundy regions of France. The group uses widely accepted methodologies for its work, but the study hasn't yet been independently reviewed.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“It’s an alarming picture,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, who studies how global warming affects extreme weather events.
Across the region, reservoir levels are near record lows and mountain snowpack, which slowly releases water in the spring and summer, is largely depleted. In California, water restrictions are already in effect, with more widespread cuts expected. Dry soil conditions are already increasing fire risk.
The West is no stranger to drought, but climate change is making it worse. Severe dryness covered California and Nevada just five years ago, from 2012 to 2016, and the Southwest has been in drought for much of the past two decades, punctuated by rare wet years. Experts say this year is unusual because severe drought conditions are so widespread and have intensified quickly. They are likely to grow even worse.
The situation is especially dire in California and the Southwest.
Winter rain and snowfall usually bring most of California’s moisture for the year, but this winter was drier than usual, with warm temperatures arriving early this spring. The state is now in its dry season and is unlikely to see significant rainfall again until October.
“There’s a 100 percent chance that it gets worse before it gets better,” Swain said. “We have the whole long, dry summer to get through.”
In the Southwest, a late summer monsoon that usually provides about half of the region’s annual rainfall could bring some respite — if it materializes. Last year, the monsoon was more of a “nonsoon,” bringing only traces of rain.
Large swaths of the West saw record-low precipitation over the past year, matched by significantly higher-than-usual temperatures.
David Simeral, a climate scientist at the Desert Research Institute and an author for the U.S. Drought Monitor, said conditions over the past 12 months had contributed to the rapid intensification of the current drought. Brutal heat lashed much of the region last summer, the Southwest monsoon failed to deliver substantial rainfall, and many western states got less precipitation than usual this winter, too.
While the West has long experienced boom and bust years for precipitation, climate change is increasing volatility: It makes dry years drier and wet years wetter.
Higher temperatures have also directly contributed to the drought conditions and water shortages in recent decades. Warmer winters bring more precipitation in the form of rain rather than snow, decreasing snowpack, and more intense spring heat has caused the snow to melt earlier. Higher-than-usual temperatures also dry out vegetation and soil and can increase evaporation from reservoirs, putting added strain on the crucial Western water supplies.
Reservoir levels across the region are exceptionally low this year. So is mountain snowpack.
Lake Mead, the largest human-made reservoir in the United States, recently hit its lowest level since 1937, following years of decline. The lake, which sits on the border between Nevada and Arizona, is under growing pressure from the prolonged drought, climate change and growing population in the Southwest.
Across the region, reservoirs are struggling this year, especially in California.
Usually, melting mountain snowpack helps to replenish reservoirs, rivers and soils throughout the spring and summer. (You can think of snowpack as a sort of natural reservoir system that releases water over time.)
But in the Sierra Nevada of California and other parts of the lower West, snowpack melted early this year because of higher spring temperatures and other unfavorable conditions. Much of the runoff didn’t make it to reservoirs and streams at all because already-parched soil sucked up the water.
The agricultural sector in California has been particularly affected by water shortages, with federal and state allotments drastically cut. Farmers have had to destroy some water-intensive crops in hopes of saving others. At the California-Oregon border, the drought has pitted farmers against fish once more.
In some parts of the state, local officials have asked people to start conserving water. Big cities aren’t likely to see major water shortages this summer, but running out of water is a real possibility for some rural areas, especially those that depend on wells.
Jeanine Jones, the interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, said the current crisis exposes the need for drought forecasting and planning to consider the effects of climate change.
“We’ve now had two dry years,” she said, but “this is all occurring in the context of a longer period, a couple of decades, of generally dry and much warmer conditions.”
Last year, the West Coast saw its worst fire season on record, with megafires burning in Washington, Oregon and California. Dry conditions have set the stage for another bad fire year in 2021.
High temperatures and low precipitation have dried out grasses, shrubs and other greenery, and soils are extremely dry.
Already, twice as many acres have burned in California as during the same period last year. The state’s fire season — generally June through October — has expanded in recent decades, starting earlier and ending later than it used to.
“Not everything is predictable,” said Swain of UCLA, referring to events like the dry lightning strikes that ignited many major fires in 2020. “But of the predictable elements — how dry is the soil? And will it get better in the next months? — those are as bad as it can be.”
“Most of the West is at increased risk of large severe fires this year,” he said. “That may sound like a broken record, but maybe that’s the point.”
(Nadja Popovich, NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf loss accelerated in 2017, causing scientists to worry that with climate change the glacier’s collapse could happen quicker than the many centuries predicted. The floating ice shelf acts like a cork in a bottle for the fast-melting glacier and prevents its much larger ice mass from flowing into the ocean.
That ice shelf has retreated 12 miles between 2017 and 2020, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances. The crumbling shelf was caught on time-lapse video from a European satellite that takes pictures every six days.
“You can see stuff just tearing apart,” said study lead author Ian Joughin, a University of Washington glaciologist. “So it almost looks like the speed-up itself is weakening the glacier. And so far we’ve lost maybe 20 percent of the main shelf.”
“It’s not at all inconceivable that the whole shelf could give way and go within a few years,” Joughin said. “I’d say that’s a long shot, but not a very long shot.”
Joughin tracked two points on the main glacier and found they were moving 12 percent faster toward the sea starting in 2017.
“Pine Island and Thwaites (glaciers) are our biggest worry now because they are falling apart and then the rest of West Antarctica will follow, according to nearly all models,” said University of California Irvine ice scientist Isabella Velicogna, who wasn’t part of the study.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As any movie fan knows from the classic film “Chinatown,” California is an infamously thirsty place. But this year, even by its own standards, the state is shockingly, scarily parched. So far in 2021, the state has received half of its expected precipitation; that makes it the third driest year on record, according to California’s Department of Water Resources.
This past week, as temperatures from Sacramento up to the Oregon border topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the intense heat evaporated the remaining water at an astonishing pace, creating scenes more reminiscent of Hollywood-manufactured dystopias like “Mad Max” than the lush paradise Americans are used to envisioning on their West Coast.
At Folsom Lake, the enormous reservoir that supplies both drinking and irrigation water in the middle of the state, surface levels suddenly dropped to 68 feet below what they were at this time last year. By last week, boat slips that once floated were sitting on a dry lake bed with grass sprouting around them.
Folsom is hardly alone in its extremity. The long-lasting lack of precipitation is taxing reservoirs statewide.
On April 21, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency in two northern counties, Mendocino and Sonoma, where water levels had reached record lows. On May 10, Newsom extended the emergency declaration to encompass 41 of the state’s counties, which are home to roughly 30 percent of the state’s population.
And still the water supply shrinks.
Nicasio Reservoir outside of San Francisco has been reduced to a cracked dried mud flat, while green algae grows at the edges of the San Luis Reservoir, just south of San Jose.
While California has experienced dry spells before, scientists say this one has been amped up by climate change.
Drought has afflicted the American Southwest for nearly two decades — the period from 2000 to 2019 was the second-driest in the area since at least the year 800. Researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory estimated that man-made changes to the climate were responsible for 47 percent of the drought’s severity, in a study published in the journal Science last year.
Worse, the researchers predicted that the Southwest could be entering an era of mega-drought, a period when extreme water scarcity lasts for decades rather than years.
For agriculture-heavy California that spells big trouble, especially the water-intensive crops such as lettuces and almonds the state is famous for producing.
In Bakersfield, which is home to some of the country’s most productive lands, farmers are irrigating just-budding nut trees and hoping for the best.
The California Aqueduct is a series of canals and tunnels designed to bring water to the Central Valley from the Sierra Nevada, and is now a desperate lifeline for farmers who have already overdrawn groundwater supplies. During times of drought, the ground in the area can sink as much as 13.7 inches a year as water is pumped out of it.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack was just 59 percent of average on April 1, when it’s normally at its peak.
But there are already dark clouds on the horizon. Last year wildfires burned across more than 4 million acres of the state, setting a new yearly record. Already Cal Fire, the state fire agency, is reporting that it expects another active season.
In mid-May, a fast-growing brush fire erupted near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, prompting mandatory evacuations.
(Leslie Kaufman&Eugene Reznik, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The main shock struck shortly before 11 a.m. near the city of Calipatria at the southern end of the Salton Sea. Subsequent shocks of magnitude 4.1 and 3.6 were reported in the minutes after the main shock, with more recent aftershocks dropping to magnitude 2.5. Aftershocks could continue throughout the weekend, according to San Diego State University seismologist Tom Rockwell.
The area of the temblor, about 100 miles from San Diego, is a hot spot of geological activity, he added, and clusters of earthquakes occur there once every year or two.
That’s not necessarily cause for concern. The main worry is that one of these temblors could one day trigger a larger quake along the nearby San Andreas fault or the Imperial fault.
(Johnathan Wosen, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The sinkhole is situated in Santa María Zacatepec, Puebla state, and is around 20 meters deep, said state governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta at a press conference Monday.
Barbosa said the family that lives close to the sinkhole has been evacuated. No one has been injured so far, but the governor warned local residents to stay away from the area.
The sinkhole measured five meters in diameter when it first appeared then grew quickly in just a few hours, according to Beatriz Manrique, environmental secretary for the Mexico region.
"We think that it might be a combination of two factors: the softening of the field, the whole area was being cultivated, as well as the extraction of groundwater, which softens the subsoil," said Manrique.
Officials from public bodies including the national water commission will now carry out an investigation into what happened. This process includes soil studies, and could take up to 30 days.
The sinkhole first appeared on Saturday and is filled with water that is constantly moving around, reports CNN affiliate Televisa.
Sinkholes occur when ground can no longer support the land surface above it, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
This can happen for a number of reasons, including the erosion of rock beneath the land surface as groundwater passes through it, leaving a void which the surface collapses into.
In January 2021, a huge sinkhole swallowed several cars and forced the evacuation of a Covid-19 ward after opening up in the parking lot of a hospital in southern Italy.
And in January 2020, at least six people died and 16 others were injured after a massive sinkhole swallowed up a bus picking up passengers in northwestern China.
(Jack Guy&Kiarinna Parisi, CNN online)
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Forecasters said the storm Choi-wan was southwest of central Masbate province Wednesday with sustained winds of 40 mph and gusts of up to 56 mph. It was moving northwest and may weaken as it blows toward the South China Sea today, they said.
At least three people died, including a 14-year old villager who rushed with her father to a riverbank to rescue their farm animals in intense rain but were swept away by strong currents. The father remains missing, the Office of Civil Defense said.
More than 2,600 people were displaced, mostly by floods, in 18 southern villages.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The Visalia Times-Delta newspaper obtained a copy of the report that describes catastrophic destruction from the Castle fire, which charred 273 square miles of timber in Sequoia National Park.
Researchers used satellite imagery and modeling from previous fires to determine that between 7,500 and 10,000 of the towering species perished in the fire. That equates to 10 percent to 14 percent of the world’s mature giant sequoia population, the newspaper said.
“I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They’ve survived dozens of wildfires already,” said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks.
The consequences of losing large numbers of giant sequoias could be felt for decades, forest managers said. Redwood and sequoia forests are among the world’s most efficient at removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The groves also provide critical habitat for native wildlife and help protect the watershed that supplies farms and communities on the San Joaquin Valley floor.
Brigham, the study’s lead author, cautioned that the numbers are preliminary and the research paper has yet to be peer reviewed. Beginning next week, teams of scientists will hike to the groves that experienced the most fire damage for the first time since the ashes settled.
The newspaper said the extent of the damage to one of the world’s most treasured trees is noteworthy because the sequoias are incredibly well adapted to fire. The old-growth trees — some of which are more than 2,000 years old and 250 feet tall — require fire to burst their pine cones and reproduce.
“One-hundred years of fire suppression, combined with climate change-driven hotter droughts, have changed how fires burn in the southern Sierra and that change has been very bad for sequoia,” Brigham said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The sweeping new research, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, was conducted by 70 researchers using data from major projects in the fields of epidemiology and climate modeling in 43 countries. It found that heat-related deaths in warm seasons were boosted by climate change by an average of 37 percent, in a range of a 20 percent increase to 76 percent.
Some earlier studies have performed similar analysis for individual cities during particular heat waves, but the new paper applies these ideas to hundreds of locations and across decades to draw broader conclusions.
“It is a thoughtful, insightful, clever approach to try to understand how climate change is altering heat-related mortality,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor in the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study.
The planet has already warmed 1 degree Celsius over preindustrial times, and much more warming is predicted, with catastrophic results if global emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane can’t be brought under control.
In many locations studied, the authors found, “the attributable mortality is already on the order of dozens to hundreds of deaths each year” from heat attributed to climate change. Climate change has added to overall mortality from all causes by as much as 5 percent in some parts of the world, the scientists found; they detected increased mortality from climate-boosted heat on every inhabited continent.
While the differences in mortality among the places studied are complex and spring from varied factors that include access to health care as well as architecture, urban density and lifestyle, the research indirectly suggests a divide between rich and poor regions. North America and East Asia, the researchers found, tended toward a smaller proportion of climate-related deaths; some Central and South American nations saw a greater than 70 percent proportion of heat deaths attributable to warming.
The new paper comes amid a rush of recent research on heat stress and economic inequality, both in the U.S. and across the globe.
While people around the world are increasingly reliant on air conditioning, which could be holding down death rates while contributing to the emissions that heat the planet, climate change is also disrupting power grids, with failures increasing by 60 percent since 2015 in the U.S. alone. That means that the crutch of air conditioning could become less reliable over time.
Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, the lead author of the new paper and a researcher at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said the study showed that climate change was not just a problem for the future.
“We are thinking about these problems of climate change as something that the next generation will face,” she said. “It’s something we are facing already. We are throwing stones at ourselves.”
The future looks even more grim, she added.
“This burden will amplify,” she said. “Really, we need to do something.” Because the scientists were unable to gather reliable data in some parts of the world, including parts of Africa and South Asia, Vicedo-Cabrera was reluctant to say that the mortality average the researchers found could be applied worldwide.
Those gaps need to be filled, a commentary published alongside the paper argued.
“The countries where we do not have the necessary health data are often among the poorest and most susceptible to climate change, and, concerningly, are also the projected major hot spots of future population growth,” the commentary said. “Obtaining these data will be key for science to provide the information needed to help these countries adapt.”
(John Schwartz, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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After a fiery fissure ripped open on Saturday, sending a stream of lava rushing down the mountain’s rocky slopes toward Goma and killing more than two dozen people, scientists and local authorities warned that the danger had not passed.
Overnight Wednesday, they ordered as many as 1 million people to evacuate, even as a steady series of minor earthquakes rocked the city.
Just 2.5 miles beneath the unsteady ground, scientists detected a flow of magma, a lake of fire just beneath the city, and the fear was that the tectonic activity could trigger a new eruption.
A new fissure could rip open at any moment, said Benoît Smets, a geological hazards expert at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, who is part of an international team working to assist the Goma Volcano Observatory, the only monitoring station in the region.
“We have a very active volcano with a very dense and populated city at the foot of the volcano, so there is a huge risk of a disaster,” he said in a telephone interview.
What made Saturday’s eruption different from two past eruptions, the most recent in 2002, was that it came without warning, he said.
By the time the people living in Goma and the surrounding towns and villages knew they were in danger, the sky was already ablaze. For more than five hours, the night sky burned crimson red as lava poured out of the flanks of Mount Nyiragongo.
By morning, the lava flow had destroyed 17 communities in its path, according to relief agencies.
The U.N. refugee agency, citing local authorities, said 32 people had died in incidents related to the eruption, including seven people killed by lava flow and five asphyxiated by gases.
The lava stopped just short of the city center and nearly reached the airport.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Cyclone Yaas had already caused two deaths and damaged homes as heavy rain pounded Odisha and West Bengal states before it made landfall in the late morning.
Another person died in a house collapse in West Bengal state on Wednesday, said the state’s top elected official, Mamata Banerjee. The Press Trust of India news agency said two people were killed when they were hit by uprooted trees and another person died in a house collapse in Odisha state. There was no official confirmation of the report.
The “very severe cyclonic storm” packed sustained winds of up to 87 miles per hour and gusts of up 97 mph when it made landfall, the India Meteorological Department said. With the storm now almost fully on land, winds were expected to weaken.
In Bangladesh, thousands of people in 200 villages were marooned as their homes, shops and farms were flooded by tidal surges.
More than 20 villages in Rangabali were underwater after two river embankments were washed away, said Mashfaqur Rahman, the area’s top administrator. He said at least 15,000 people had taken refuge in cyclone shelters.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Cyclone Yaas has already caused two deaths and damage to homes as severe weather and rains affect Odisha and West Bengal states. It was due to make landfall around noon today.
The "very severe cyclonic storm" has sustained winds of up to 87 mph that are gusting up to 97 mph, the India Meteorological Department said today.
A tornado snapped electricity lines that electrocuted two people and damaged 40 houses in West Bengal's Hooghly district Tuesday, the top state elected official, Magmata Banerjee, said.
The cyclone dumped more that 6.5 inches of rain in Odisha state since Tuesday, the meteorological department said.
(U-T NEW SERVICES)
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The soil in the West is record dry for this time of year. In much of the region, plants that fuel fires are also the driest scientists have seen. The vegetation is primed to ignite, especially in the Southwest where dead juniper trees are full of flammable needles.
“It’s like having gasoline out there,” said Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona.
A climate change-fueled megadrought of more than 20 years is making conditions that lead to fire even more dangerous, scientists said. Rainfall in the Rockies and farther west was the second lowest on record in April, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It means that the dice are loaded toward a lot of forest fire this year,” said Park Williams, a UCLA climate and fire scientist, who calculated that soil in the western half of the nation is the driest it has been since 1895. “This summer we’re going into fire season with drier fuels than we were at this time last year.”
In addition, the western drought is deepening week by week.
In late March, less than one-third of California was suffering extreme or exceptional drought. Now more than 73 percent is, according to the National Drought Monitor, which is based on precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and streamflow measurements. A year ago, heading into the record-smashing 2020 fire year when more than 4 percent of California burned, just 3 percent of the state was in extreme or exceptional drought.
But the outlook is worse elsewhere.
“I think the Southwest is really primed for a bad fire season,” University of Utah fire scientist Phil Dennison said. That’s because last year’s normal monsoon season, which brings much of the year’s rainfall, never showed up.
A year ago, none of Arizona, Nevada and Utah was in extreme or exceptional drought, but now more than 90 percent of Utah, 86 percent of Arizona and 75 percent of Nevada is in those highest drought categories, according to the drought monitor. New Mexico jumped from 4 percent extreme or exceptional drought a year ago to more than 77 percent now.
UCLA meteorologist Daniel Swain, who also works for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and The Nature Conservancy, said key factors going into fire season are soil and plant wetness.
“So is soil moisture very low? Is vegetation extremely dry? Absolutely, yes. Unequivocally, yes. Pretty much everywhere in California and the Southwest,“ Swain said. “So that box is checked big time in a way that is going to massively increase the potential background flammability given a spark, given extreme weather conditions.”
This doesn’t necessarily ensure the 2021 fire season will be worse than 2020. Last year more than 15,800 square miles of the United States burned, an area about the size of Maryland and Delaware combined. Several scientists said last year’s fires were stoked not just by hot, dry conditions, but by unusual situations that made a bad year horrific:
The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the U.N. children’s agency said Sunday.
More than 170 children were feared missing Sunday, and UNICEF officials said they were organizing transit centers to help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.
Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction it suffered the last time the volcano erupted, in 2002. Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday was marked by grief and uncertainty.
Aline Bichikwebo and her baby managed to escape when the lava flow reached her village, but said both her mother and father were among those who perished. Community members gave a provisional toll of 10 dead in Bugamba alone, though provincial authorities said it was too soon to know how many lives were lost.
Bichikwebo says she tried to rescue her father but wasn’t strong enough to move him to safety before the family’s home was ignited by lava.
Elsewhere, authorities said at least five other people had died in a truck crash while they were trying to evacuate Goma, but the scale of the loss had yet to be determined in some of the hardest-hit communities.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There was no immediate word on any casualties, but witnesses said that lava already had engulfed one highway that connects Goma with the city of Beni in North Kivu province.
Mount Nyiragongo’s last eruption, in 2002, left hundreds dead and coated airport runways in lava. More than 100,000 people were left homeless in the aftermath.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said he would be returning home today from Europe earlier than planned in order to help coordinate relief efforts.
The government said an evacuation plan was being activated, but the official announcement came several hours after the sky turned red, and many already had fled on foot in hopes of crossing the Rwandan border. Rwandan immigration authorities reported that some 3,000 people already had crossed over.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A second, 7.3 magnitude quake hit early today in the southern part of Qinghai province in central China, about 621 miles north of the first quake, but there were no reports of casualties or damage in the sparsely populated area.
U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Jonathan Tytell said the two quakes were not related.
The Yunnan province seismological bureau gave the magnitude of Friday night's quake northwest of Dali as 6.4. It was centered 5 miles below the surface.
The earthquake caused strong shaking, but Chinese news reports showed relatively little damage. Three people died and 27 were injured, local authorities said today.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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It was all the more notable as it came during the worst global pandemic in a century.
Extreme weather events, mainly storms and floods, accounted for the vast majority of the displacement. While not all of those disasters could be linked to human-induced climate change, the center’s report made clear that global temperature rise, fueled by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, “are increasing the intensity and frequency of weather-related hazards.”
Last May, Cyclone Amphan alone displaced 5 million people in Bangladesh and India, as it whipped across the Bay of Bengal, downed trees and power lines, and destroyed thousands of buildings. In Bangladesh, weeks later, torrential rains upstream swelled rivers, submerging a quarter of the country and taking away the assets of its people — their homes built of mud and tin, their chickens and livestock, their sacks of rice stored for the lean times.
In November, two ferocious hurricanes, Eta and Iota, pummeled Central America in quick succession, washing away bridges, uprooting trees and causing widespread flooding and deadly mudslides. The 2020 hurricane season was the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, with 30 named storms, 13 of them hurricanes.
Last year’s displacement numbers come as this year’s Atlantic hurricane season approaches. Scientists have projected the season will see above-normal storm activity.
The largest numbers of displaced people, mostly weather-related, were in Asia, with 5 million in China, roughly 4.4 million each in Bangladesh and the Philippines, and 3.9 million in India. The United States recorded 1.7 million displacements. Conflict-related displacement was highest in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 2.2 million and Syria at 1.8 million.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Forecasters said 2 to 4 inches of rain could fall in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana today and Friday, two areas already hard hit. Flash flood watches stretched from southwest Louisiana and east Texas northward into Arkansas and Oklahoma Wednesday evening. The weather service said they would be in effect through this evening there and along the western and central Gulf of Mexico coast.
Rainy weather and flooding are suspected factors in at least four Louisiana deaths. And one person was missing after a car went into a canal.
In central Arkansas, at least 15 people were rescued from flash flooding after heavy rainfall late Tuesday and early Wednesday, emergency officials said. There were no reports of injuries.
Downpours earlier this week swamped vehicles and closed a major interstate highway in southwest Louisiana, including the Lake Charles area. It’s an area still recovering from back-to-back hurricanes last fall and a deep freeze in February. Twelve to 15 inches of rain fell in parts of Lake Charles in a 12-hour period Monday, the weather service said.
In Baton Rouge, La., piles of ruined furniture, carpet and clothing lined the street in a neighborhood where residents were beginning to clean up from the earlier storms, WBRZ-TV reported. One man, David Earl, told the station that so much water flowed into his home through cracks and a dog door that his furniture began to float.
Some schools in Louisiana were closed on Wednesday in anticipation of severe weather.
“It is mind-boggling,” said Patrick King of Lake Charles. He still hadn’t moved back into his house after it flooded during October’s Hurricane Delta, but recently had new furniture delivered to the home. Now it’s been flooded again.
Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that 400 to 500 structures flooded during Monday’s downpours. Hunter was mayor last year when the city was hit by Hurricane Laura on Aug. 27 and then six weeks later by Delta. Then in February, the deep freeze froze pipes and caused widespread drinking water problems.
Louisiana State Police said investigators believe an automobile crash that killed the driver and a toddler Wednesday may have been caused in part by driving too fast for the weather. It was raining when the car ran off U.S. 90 and hit a tree in St. Mary Parish, officials said.
Earlier, the Calcasieu Parish coroner said a 61-year-old man was found in a vehicle submerged under water. The body of 33-year-old Justin Blaine Thompson was found in a vehicle submerged in water under a Baton Rouge overpass, another coroner’s office said. And near Port Allen, 40-year-old Alvarado Morentes Hermelindo died and another person was missing after their car crashed into a canal Monday evening, Louisiana State Police said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Lake Charles was hammered once again by nature’s fury in a coastal zone still recovering from back-to-back hurricanes last fall and a deep freeze in February.
The National Weather Service said south Lake Charles in western Louisiana saw 12 to 15 inches of rain in a 12-hour period Monday, while elsewhere in the parish as much as 10 inches fell.
As the storm moved east, as much as 13 inches of rain fell overnight in Louisiana’s capital city of Baton Rouge, according to East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome.
By Tuesday the waters had largely receded, but more rain is expected across the region this week.
“It is mind-boggling,” said Lake Charles resident Patrick King. He was at a car rental office Tuesday after his truck was flooded Monday. He still hadn’t moved back into his house after it flooded during October’s Hurricane Delta but had recently had new furniture delivered to the home. Then it flooded again.
King spent Tuesday morning mopping the house and preparing for further rains.
“I picked up everything I could get off the floor and got it elevated,“ he said.
Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that 400 to 500 structures flooded during Monday’s downpours. Hunter was mayor last year when the city was hit by Hurricane Laura on Aug. 27 and then six weeks later by Delta. Then in February, a deep freeze settled over the region, freezing pipes and causing widespread drinking water problems. Layered on top of all those disasters has been the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are a very resilient people. We are a very strong population. But, you know, eventually you do kind of get to a point where you ask Mother Nature: What more can you do to us?” Hunter said Tuesday.
Some parents in Lake Charles picked up their children from school in kayaks Monday because the roads were impassable, and other residents reported on social media taking winding trips through town to avoid flooded roads.
The Baton Rouge Fire Department responded to more than 300 calls overnight of people either trapped in cars or in homes that were starting to flood, The Advocate reported.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference that there were two weather-related deaths.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Cyclone Tauktae, the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than two decades, came ashore in Gujarat state with heavy rain, a battering storm surge and sustained winds of up to 103 mph, the India Meteorological Department said.
Forecasters warned of possible extensive damage from high winds, heavy rainfall and flooding in low-lying areas.
Twelve people were reported dead before the storm hit land and hundreds of thousands were evacuated, a process complicated by the effects of coronavirus pandemic.
The massive storm came as India is battling a devastating coronavirus surge — and both the storm and the virus could exacerbate the effects of the other. The storm had already led to the suspension of some vaccination efforts and there is greater risk of virus transmission in crowded evacuation shelters.
In Gujarat, vaccinations were suspended for two days and authorities worked to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people to temporary relief shelters.
The state’s chief minister, Vijay Rupani, asked officials to ensure that oxygen supplies for hospitals are not disrupted.
In Maharashtra, six people were killed, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. The state’s capital, Mumbai, was lashed by heavy rain and strong winds, forcing authorities to suspend operations at the city’s main airport.
Fishing boats off the coast in both states returned to harbor and thousands of rescue and relief teams, along with ships and aircraft, were deployed for recovery operations.
Rain from the storm earlier killed six people in Kerala, Karnataka and Goa states over the weekend before it moved along the western coastline.
Virus lockdown measures, meanwhile, could slow relief work after the storm, and damage from the storm could destroy roads and cut vital supply lines for vaccines and medical supplies needed for virus patients.
The South Asia head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Udaya Regmi, said the cyclone is a “terrible double blow” for families that have already been hit by COVID-19 infections and deaths.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Heavy rainfall and winds from Cyclone Tauktae, which originated in the Arabian Sea, had already pounded some states along India’s western coast, causing power outages, downing trees and resulting in at least six deaths, according to the Reuters news agency. Four of the six deaths were in the southern state of Karnataka, where more than 70 coastal villages were affected, according to the state’s disaster management authority.
The cyclone, which was classified as a “very severe cyclonic storm” Saturday, was likely to intensify over the next day, the India Meteorological Department said in a briefing Sunday afternoon.
Forecasters said that it would reach the coast of Gujarat, one of India’s largest states, on Sunday, with winds gusting as high as about 115 mph.
The department said it expected a storm surge of up to 9 feet in some areas, with the heaviest rainfalls in some areas in Gujarat today. Gujarat government officials said almost 150,000 people were being evacuated from vulnerable areas on the coast by Sunday evening, Reuters reported.
Officials ordered the suspension of fishing operations in parts of the east central Arabian Sea and along the western coast in some areas of India, with fisherman being advised not to venture out into the sea near the Gujarat coast until today.
The cyclone comes as India is grappling with a devastating coronavirus surge driven by a newer variant of the virus that has left hospitals filled to capacity and sick people struggling to get care.
As of Saturday evening, 266,207 people in India had died from the virus, which experts say is almost certainly an undercount of the full death toll.
Officials have also effectively suspended vaccinations, including in the city of Mumbai, until Tuesday.
As the cyclone neared, dozens of disaster management teams have been deployed in several states, along with army, navy and coast guard units, the government said, adding in a statement Sunday that it was taking steps to ensure “zero loss of life.”
In Gujarat, officials on Sunday said arrangements had been made for patients at coronavirus centers to continue to receive treatment. Hospitals were sealing windows and doors to windproof them, and more than 170 mobile intensive care unit vans were being deployed to provide emergency care, according to local media.
Heavy rainfall Friday from Cyclone Tauktae has already led to the evacuation of 15,000 people from low-lying areas. They were temporarily relocated to camps in the southern state of Kerala, according to the Hindustan Times.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The cause of the fire near Topanga State Park has been deemed “suspicious” and is under investigation, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Arson investigators with the fire department and the Los Angeles Police Department identified one individual who was detained and released. Investigators detained a second suspect and were questioning them Sunday evening, according to a statement from fire department spokesperson Margaret Stewart.
Cool weather early in the day gave firefighters a break, but by afternoon flames starting moving again in steep terrain where tinder-dry vegetation hasn’t burned in a half-century, the fire department said.
No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported in the wildfire that broke out Friday in the Santa Monica Mountains. It smoldered for much of Saturday before erupting in the afternoon.
A thousand or so residents of the Topanga Canyon area were ordered to evacuate their homes as flames raced along ridges, sending a plume of smoke and raining ash across surrounding neighborhoods and the U.S. 101 freeway to the north.
By Sunday evening, the fire had charred a little over 2 square miles of brush and trees. There was no containment. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Lost Hills station said on Twitter that the evacuation orders will remain in effect throughout the night.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In what is shaping up to be the worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system. The agency announced last month that irrigators would get dramatically less water than usual, but a worsening drought picture means water will be completely shut off instead, the agency said.
The entire region is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to federal monitoring reports, and Oregon’s Klamath County is experiencing its driest year in 127 years.
“This year’s drought conditions are bringing unprecedented hardship to the communities of the Klamath Basin,” said Reclamation Deputy Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton, calling the decision one of “historic consequence.” “Reclamation is dedicated to working with our water users, tribes and partners to get through this difficult year and developing long-term solutions for the basin.”
The canal, a major component of the federally operated Klamath Reclamation Project, funnels Klamath River water from the Upper Klamath Lake just north of the Oregon-California border to more than 130,000 acres, where generations of ranchers and farmers have grown hay, alfalfa and potatoes and grazed cattle.
Only one irrigation district within the 200,000-acre project will receive any water from the Klamath River system this growing season, and it will have a severely limited supply, the Klamath Water Users Association said in a statement. Some other farmers rely on water from a different river, and they will also have a limited supply.
“This just couldn’t be worse,” said Klamath Irrigation District President Ty Kliewer. “The impacts to our family farms and these rural communities will be off the scale.”
At the same time, the agency said it would not release any so-called “flushing flows” from the same dam on the Upper Klamath Lake to bolster water levels downstream in the lower Klamath River. The river is key to the survival of coho salmon, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In better water years the pulses of water help keep the river cool and turbulent — conditions that help the fragile species. The fish are central to the diet and culture of the Yurok Tribe, California’s largest federally recognized tribe.
The tribe said this week that low flows from drought and from previous mismanagement of the river by the federal agency was causing a die-off of juvenile salmon from a bacterial disease that flourishes when water levels are low. Yurok fish biologists who have been testing the baby salmon in the lower Klamath River are finding that 70 percent of the fish are already dead in the traps used to collect them and 97 percent are infected by the bacteria known as C. shasta.
“Right now, the Klamath River is full of dead and dying fish on the Yurok Reservation,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “This disease will kill most of the baby salmon in the Klamath, which will impact fish runs for many years to come. For salmon people, a juvenile fish kill is an absolute worst-case scenario.”
Irrigators, meanwhile, reacted with disbelief as the news of a water shut-off in the canals spread. A newsletter published by the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents many of the region’s farmers, blared the headline, “Worst Day in the History of the Klamath Project.” Farmers reported already seeing dust storms that obscured vision for 100 yards, and they worried about their wells running dry.
About 30 protesters showed up Thursday at the head gates of the main dam to protest the shut-off and ask the irrigation district to defy federal orders and divert the water. The Herald and News reported that they were with a group called People’s Rights, a far-right organization founded by anti-government activist Ammon Bundy.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, have declared drought emergencies in the region, and the Bureau of Reclamation has set aside $15 million in immediate aid for irrigators. Another $10 million will be available for drought assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, urged his members to remain peaceful and not let the water crisis “be hijacked for other causes.”
The seasonal allocations are the region’s most dramatic development since irrigation water was all but cut off to hundreds of farmers in 2001 amid another severe drought.
The situation in the Klamath Basin was set in motion more than a century ago, when the U.S. government began drawing water from a network of shallow lakes and marshlands and funneling it into the dry desert uplands. Homesteads were offered by lottery to World War II veterans.
The project turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse — some of its potato farmers supply In N Out burger — but permanently altered an intricate water system that spans hundreds of miles from southern Oregon to Northern California.
In 1988, two species of sucker fish were listed as endangered under federal law. Less than a decade later, coho salmon that spawn downstream from the reclamation project, in the lower Klamath River, were listed as threatened.
The water necessary to sustain the coho salmon downstream comes from Upper Klamath Lake — the main holding tank for the farmers’ irrigation system. At the same time, the sucker fish in the lake need at least 1 to 2 feet of water covering the gravel beds they use as spawning grounds.
The drought also means farmers this summer will not flush irrigation water into a network of six national wildlife refuges that are collectively called the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuges, nicknamed the Everglades of the West, support up to 80 percent of the birds that migrate on the Pacific Flyway. The refuges also support the largest concentrations of wintering bald eagles in the lower 48 states.
(Gillian Flaccus, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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By aggressively responding to smaller fires, officials said they hope to minimize the number of so-called megafires that have become more common as climate change makes the landscape warmer and dryer.
A similar approach was taken last year, driven by the pandemic and a desire to avoid the large congregations of personnel needed to fight major fires. Nevertheless, 2020 became one of worst fire years on record with more than 10 million acres of land scorched and almost 18,000 houses and other structures destroyed, according to federal data and the research group Headwaters Economics.
California and the Pacific Northwest were especially hard-hit, including an unprecedented million-acre fire in northern California. Wind-driven conflagrations in Oregon and Washington state burned into urban areas and triggered massive evacuations.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told firefighting personnel Thursday to brace themselves for another challenging year amid what scientists describe as one of the West’s deepest droughts in more than 1,200 years.
Haaland and Vilsack wrote in a memo to fire leaders that 90 percent of the West is in drought.
“These conditions have not only increased the likelihood of wildfires but they have also strained water supplies and increased tensions in communities,” they wrote.
Officials also offered details on the Biden administration’s plan to “change the trajectory” of increasingly dangerous wildfires in the West, by vastly expanding the amount of land where tree thinning, controlled burns and other measures are used to reduce flammable material.
The Forest Service plans to at least double the amount of land receiving such treatments to 6 million acres annually — an area bigger than New Hampshire — and possibly up to 12 million acres, spokesperson Babete Anderson said.
Large fires were active Thursday in Arizona, California and New Mexico. More than a half-million acres already have burned this year nationwide. The year-to-date figure is well below the 10-year average. But the worsening drought is expected to bring increased fire danger that will spread from the Southwest into California, Nevada, the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains by summer, officials said.
“Our focus is on smart firefighting, aggressive firefighting, catching these fires when they are small,” said Patty Grantham, acting director of fire and aviation at the U.S. Forest Service.
A shortage of resources last year hobbled firefighting efforts for more than two months at the height of the season. Twelve people involved in firefighting efforts were killed as were at least 45 civilians in Oregon and California, federal officials said.
Firefighters are able to put out about 98 percent of fires before they get out of control, according to federal officials. It’s the remaining 2 percent that cause most damage in terms of homes destroyed, said Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire researcher at Bozeman, MT-based Headwaters Economics.
(Matthew Brown, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The EPA said Thursday it reviewed a rule issued by the Trump administration last year and found that it imposed procedural restrictions and other requirements that would have limited the EPA’s ability to use the best available science in developing regulations under the Clean Air Act.
“EPA has critical authority under the Clean Air Act to protect the public from harmful air pollution, among other threats to our health. Revoking this unnecessary and misguided rule” by the Trump administration is “proof positive” of the Biden administration’s commitment to science, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
Officials “will continue to fix the wrongs of the past and move forward aggressively” to deliver on President Joe Biden’s commitment to protect public health and the environment, Regan said.
The action on the so-called benefit-cost rule follows an executive order Biden signed on his first day in office, directing EPA to review all regulations and policies undertaken by the previous administration. The review concluded that the Trump-era rule, finalized in December, should be rescinded in its entirety.
The EPA said the previous rule imposed broad restrictions and requirements on when and how the agency conducts cost-benefit analyses, without explaining why the requirements were needed. The Trump rule was unnecessary to carry out provisions of the Clean Air Act, because the EPA already conducts cost-benefit analyses for clean-air rules, the agency said.
The previous rule was part of a wave of deregulatory actions under President Donald Trump, who rolled back dozens of environmental rules he considered overly burdensome on businesses. Many of the regulations were designed to protect the environment and public health, but were viewed by the Trump administration as costly and unnecessary.
Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Trump-era rule on costs and benefits increased transparency on how the agency analyzed the impacts of its rule-making, but environmental groups argued that the Trump administration was gaming cost-benefit calculations to loosen environmental and public health protections. The Trump-era rules would have justified rollbacks on emissions requirements for power plants, motor vehicles and other pollution sources, environmentalists said.
The interim rule proposed by Regan will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. The EPA said it invites public comments and intends to issue a final rule later this year.
(Matthew Daly, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Democratic governor said he is acting amid “acute water supply shortages” in northern and central parts of California as he called again for voluntary conservation. Yet the state is in relatively better shape than it was when the last five-year drought ended in 2017, he said, as good habits have led to a 16 percent reduction in water usage.
His emergency declaration now includes 41 of 58 counties, covering 30 percent of California’s nearly 40 million people, and he said a further expansion is likely as conditions worsen. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of the state and the American West is in extensive drought just a few years after California emerged from the last punishing multiyear dry spell.
“We’re staring down at what could be disastrous summer and fall, with the potential of communities running out water, and fires,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, who accompanied Newsom to the announcement made before a Central Valley reservoir with a deep bathtub ring of dry earth surrounded by browning grass.
Like most of the state’s extensive interconnected system of reservoirs and canals, the San Luis Reservoir is at less than 60 percent of its seasonal average as scarce winter rain and snow turns to a dry summer that Newsom said is imperiled by climate change.
Officials fear an extraordinarily dry spring presages a wildfire season like last year, when flames burned a record 6,562 square miles.
“The hots are getting a lot hotter in this state, the dries are getting a lot drier,” Newsom said. “We have a conveyance system, a water system, that was designed for a world that no longer exists.”
That requires the state to envision “a much more resilient, a much more vibrant, much more dynamic water delivery system,” he said, noting that the one largely constructed in the last midcentury to carry water from Northern California to the south, “helped us build the world’s largest middle class” by enabling the state’s population and agricultural growth.
The governor is asking lawmakers to approve what he said is a record $5.1 billion over four years for water projects, plus another $1 billion to help an estimated million Californians who are behind on their water bills in part because of the economic hardship of the pandemic.
His proposed water spending includes $1.3 billion for drinking water and wastewater systems, prioritizing smaller and poorer communities.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“We have to see what happens later in the week,” said Casey Oswant, a forecaster at the weather service office in Rancho Bernardo.
The storm, known as Andres, was moving northwest and producing 45 mph winds on Sunday. Those winds were expected to diminish to 35 mph today, then devolve further, turning the system into a tropical depression, possibly by early Tuesday.
The development caught forecasters a bit by surprise. The eastern Pacific hurricane season doesn’t start until May 15.
Oswant said it does not appear that Andres will guide significant amounts of moisture to Southern California, which is badly in need of rain. And the overall weather in San Diego County will stay fairly stable all week.
Forecasters say that San Diego will have a daytime high of 68 today and 69 on Tuesday. That’s roughly seasonal. The temperature will rise two to three degrees on Wednesday and Thursday. Inland valleys will be slightly warmer.
The surf will be in the 2-foot to 3-foot range at the start of the week and rise to the 3-foot to 5-foot range later in the week. Sea surface temperatures have slightly increased. They’re now in the 63- to 64-degree range.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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A statement from the department said existing regulations released in 2016 remain in effect and “are critical to ensuring adequate safety and environmental protections for this sensitive ecosystem and Alaska Naive subsistence activities.”
Leah Donahey, Alaska Wilderness League legislative director, said the rules that have been in place incorporated lessons learned from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She said there has not been a public push by companies showing interest in the region.
Changes to rules proposed under the Trump administration were not finalized.
According to conservation group Oceana, 37 exploratory wells have been drilled in the Beaufort andChukchi seas since the 1970s,with many of those drilled on leases that have since been relinquished.
(S.D. NEWS SERVICES)
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With heavy rains still falling in the Florida Panhandle, crews inland used shovels and heavy machines to remove downed trees, limbs and other debris that covered roads and bridges once floodwaters receded in metro Birmingham. Some schools in Alabama’s largest city opened late or held classes online because of high water.
Nearly the entire state of Alabama received at least half an inch of rain on Tuesday, and areas south of Birmingham got more than 7 inches, forecasters said. Rainfall totals of more than 1 inches were common across Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
Homes were damaged from Texas to Virginia, and about 100,000 homes and businesses remained without power at midday Wednesday. That was down from more than 240,000 outages earlier. Teams from the National Weather Service confirmed that three weak tornadoes had struck central Alabama, but no widespread damage occurred.
Storms have been responsible for at least three deaths and dozens of injuries this week. In Mississippi, forecasters confirmed 12 tornadoes Sunday evening and night.
The National Weather Service’s prediction center warned Wednesday morning that flash flooding could also now affect the central Gulf Coast with storms shifting southeast and rain continuing to soak much of the region. Forecasters issued flood warnings for rivers and streams throughout the region.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service issued the flash flood emergency for the Birmingham, Ala., area at the start of rush hour, warning that torrential rains — as much as 5 inches in some areas — had already fallen and another 2 inches were possible before the storm system continued eastward.
Jefferson County Emergency Management officials in the Birmingham area urged residents to stay off the roads because so many were flooded.
In the Birmingham suburb of Homewood, residents huddled on the second-floor balcony of an apartment complex that became flooded. Fire department rescuers in a small boat paddled through the parking lot past submerged cars, slowly removing at least 13 people from the flooding. Some were taken out with their pets.
Strong winds blowing behind a line of storms were toppling trees across central Alabama, where soil was saturated with water.
Parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as corners of Arkansas and Georgia were at enhanced risk for the worst weather, according to the national Storm Prediction Center.
That zone is home to more than 11 million people and includes Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham; Baton Rouge, La.; and Jackson, Miss., forecasters said.
“We’ll see all three threats as far as hail, wind and tornadoes on Tuesday,” said Mike Edmonston, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mississippi.
The storms have been responsible for three deaths this week and, as of Tuesday evening, more than 350,000 customers were without power from Texas to Maryland.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The motorist was pronounced dead after fire crews cut him from the vehicle in Douglasville, Ga., west of Atlanta, Douglas County spokesman Rick Martin told reporters. And in middle Georgia, 55-year-old Carla Harris was killed after a tree fell onto her Bonaire home, Houston County emergency officials said.
The weather first turned rough in Mississippi on Sunday, where just south of Yazoo City, Vickie Savell was left with only scraps of the brand-new mobile home where she and her husband had moved in just eight days ago. It had been lifted off its foundation and moved about 25 feet. It was destroyed.
“Oh my God, my first new house in 40 years and it’s gone,” she said Monday, amid tree tops strewn about the neighborhood and the roar of chainsaws as people worked to clear roads.
Savell had been away from home, attending church, but her husband, Nathan, had been driving home and hunkered down in the front of his truck as the home nearby was destroyed. From there, he watched his new home blow past him, he said.
Nearby, Garry McGinty recalled being at home listening to birds chirping — then dead silence. He looked outside and saw a dark, ominous cloud and took shelter in a hallway, he said. He survived, but trees slammed into his carport, two vehicles and the side of his house.
A line of severe storms rolled through the state Sunday afternoon and into the nighttime hours. Late Sunday, a “tornado emergency” was declared for Tupelo and surrounding areas.
Photos retweeted by the National Weather Service in Memphis showed several downed trees and power lines. Tupelo Middle School sustained some damage, as well as houses and businesses.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The retired school-bus driver said pruning the oak trees and dense shrubbery around their home isn’t just an aesthetic endeavor. Maintaining what’s commonly known in rural communities as “defensible space,” he explained, can be a matter of life and death.
“We actually saved our house by clearing that whole perimeter,” said Garant, recalling the ferocious Cedar fire in 2003 that burned down over 2,800 buildings but spared their home. “The only thing I lost was a hose.”
For many rural and suburban Californians, the approach of hotter, longer days is tinged with trauma and a persistent fear.
With a tinder-dry summer on the horizon, Gov. Gavin Newsom has released an unprecedented $1 billion blueprint for wildfire prevention, inking a deal with legislators in early April to fast-track more than half of the money.
The governor’s plan calls for clearing vegetation on half a million acres a year, up from the current annual pace of about 80,000 acres. The approach stems largely from anxiety over drought and invasive beetles, which killed nearly 150 million trees last decade in the Sierra Nevada.
However, a growing chorus of wildfire experts and environmental groups say Newsom’s plan shortchanges homeowners like the Garants — prioritizing logging and other projects ill-suited to stop the type of wind-driven blazes that have repeatedly devastated communities across the state.
That’s especially true, researchers say, in Southern California, where wildfires predominantly burn though chaparral and grasslands, blasting communities with ember storms, such as in the 2007 Harris fire in San Diego, and the 2017 Thomas and 2018 Woolsey fires in Santa Barbara and Ventura. But it also applies to the recent spate of blazes that have plagued northern parts of the state, including the Tubbs, Nuns and Camp fires.
“There is a pretty big disconnect between this budget and trying to do something about the loss of lives and homes,” said Max Moritz, a widely recognized wildfire expert with the University of California Cooperative Extension in Santa Barbara. “Those forest treatments, they don’t do barely anything to alleviate the risk to human communities.”
Newsom’s team was quick to point out that while the state spends billions on wildfire suppression, largely through Cal Fire, it has never dedicated such resources to prevention.
As part of this effort, the state plans to launch a pilot program with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide money for home retrofits, such as sealing off eaves and installing ember-resistant vents. The recently approved funding also provides some discretionary money that local groups will likely be able to use for programs such as defensible-space assistance and free wood chipping.
“This proposed budget really does represent a paradigm shift in the state’s approach on wildfire,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “This is a quantum-leap investment in upfront action to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.”
Still, critics say Sacramento’s spending priorities are backward. While landscape-scale vegetation treatments most appropriate for forests would receive more than $500 million, the governor’s budget ponies up just $25 million for the home-hardening pilot.
“This is the tragedy of those numbers,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College who has written extensively about wildfires. “We know that clearing defensible space is far, far cheaper and more efficient than the massive mechanical clearing that this proposal will fund.”
Fast-moving blazes
Fifteen of California’s 20 most destructive wildfires have occurred since 2015, following a pattern that overwhelmingly unfolds outside of the state’s most heavily forested areas.
In late summer and autumn, strong easterly gusts, often called Santa Ana or Diablo winds, have repeatedly whipped up fast-moving blazes through bone-dry vegetation, most commonly shrub lands. Those blazes blow embers into nearby communities, where homes explode into flames as firebrands torch unkempt landscaping, slip through vents to ignite attics, and land in gutters filled with dry leaves.
If just one untidy home in a community catches fire, it can be enough to put all the surrounding structures in danger. It’s not uncommon to find an entire subdivision burned to the ground while large pine trees loom nearby relatively unscathed.
Robert Garant knows this, and so does the Julian community. The 94-year-old recently had a pacemaker put in his chest. With his landscaping routine on hold, the couple fretted about the increasingly overgrown state of their property, especially as the days warmed.
“We tried to do it ourselves,” said Gladys Garant, 86. “He did the best he could every day. I used to drive the tractor and mow. It’s hard. That’s all I can say.”
The Garants said there’s no way they could afford to pay for the work on their limited income. The cost, which included removing numerous dead oak trees, topped $14,000.
Luckily, the couple lives next to a family that started the successful Pope Tree Service. The neighbors helped them qualify for a financial-assistance program, and a crew of workers overhauled their property a few weeks ago.
“I know what this means when they come over here and do this work,” Robert Garant said, still gripping an old chainsaw. “I pray to God, ‘Thank you for sending these guys.’ ”
The Garants were fortunate. But help is hard to come by.
Officials with the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County — which runs the region’s primary defensible-space assistance and free chipping program — says demand always exceeds its resources. In fact, the district doesn’t widely advertise because it so quickly goes through the roughly $250,000 it pulls in annually from San Diego Gas & Electric and the federal government to help homeowners.
“There’s never enough money for that type of work,” said Sheryl Landrum, the district’s executive director. “We’re always desperate for funds to help people keep their property clear.”
It’s unknown exactly how many homeowners in California require financial assistance with home hardening and defensible space. But the $25 million home retrofit program, which is expected to pull in another $75 million from FEMA, could eventually answer that question.
The pilot is required under a law spearheaded by Assembly member Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, who said he proposed the legislation in response to concerns from community members who’ve had direct experience with devastating wind-driven blazes, such as the 2017 Tubbs fire.
“It’s one thing to have adequate resources for wildfire preparedness, it’s another to carefully assess what’s needed in home hardening and defensible space,” Wood recently told the Union-Tribune. “We don’t exactly know what that need is, but we know it’s huge.”
About 15 percent of the roughly 160,000 homes Cal Fire inspected last year were initially in violation of defensible space rules. Inspectors routinely had to visit homes up to three or four times before homeowners cleared their property.
However, in about half of cases where a homeowner was in violation of the defensible space code, Cal Fire never returned for a follow-up visit, according to agency data.
Last year, the firefighting behemoth visited about 20 percent of the roughly 700,000 properties it has jurisdiction over. Record keeping shows that fewer than 1 in 5 homes had both sealed eaves and ember-resistant vents.
Dead trees
The debate around whether to log the Sierra Nevada in the name of wildfire prevention started around 2015, at the height of California’s worst drought in recorded history.
In September of that year, wind-driven blazes — already common to Southern California — brought previously unseen levels of destruction to northern parts of the state.
The incredibly fast-spreading Butte fire, for example, sparked when a tree fell on a Pacific Gas & Electric power line, burning through the rugged brush, timber and grass-covered hillsides of Amador and Calaveras counties. Fueled by triple-digit heat, dry conditions and ember-laden winds, the blaze destroyed more than 900 structures.
Just a few days later, faulty hot-tub wiring ignited grass around a home in the rural community of Cobb, starting the Valley fire. Erratic winds fanned flames mostly through shrub and grasslands, eventually destroying nearly 2,000 structures throughout Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties.
In October 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency due to unprecedented levels of dead and dying trees in the Sierra Nevada, creating the Tree Mortality Task Force. The call to action emphasized the idea that the forest die-off “significantly worsens wildfire risk.”
The federal government, which owns and manages more than half of the state’s forested lands, got to work removing trees that posed falling hazards along roadsides and power lines. The state’s task force and federal officials helped coordinate the removal of more than 1.5 million dead trees through the end of the decade.
Out of that effort grew the Forest Management Task Force, established in 2018 to “introduce a more holistic, integrated approach toward effective forest management.” Along with continuing to remove dead trees, the task force set its sights on thinning out overgrown forest.
Newsom established a shared target with the U.S. Forest Service last summer to scale up logging and fuel treatments on private, state and federal lands from about 330,000 acres a year to a million acres annually by 2025.
As calls for forest thinning have ramped up, so have questions about the extent to which such logging prevents wildfire.
Environmental activists have criticized the thinning projects for removing dead and dying trees that provide valuable habitat for birds, small mammals and other species that feed or make their home in the hollowed-out logs.
They’ve also pointed to an emerging body of scientific literature, largely from University of Colorado at Boulder, that found wind and drought conditions greatly overshadow any impact from beetle-killed trees.
Some scientists in California have pushed back on these findings, saying the science isn’t yet conclusive on the extent to which tree mortality drives massive wildfires. They’ve repeatedly expressed worries that logs are piling up across forest landscapes, providing huge amounts of dangerous fuel.
A February 2018 paper from researchers at UC Berkeley suggested the resulting firestorms could resemble the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, in World War II.
They’ve specifically pointed to last year’s Creek fire in Fresno and Madera counties as a prime example. Hot and dry conditions as well as large amounts of woody debris fueled the blaze, which burned 377,693 acres and destroyed 853 homes. The fire was so large it created its own powerful weather system.
The fire burned through parts of the Sierra National Forest that had recently seen vegetation and tree removal. While that didn’t stop the fire, officials said it lessened devastation.
“You had a lot of homes saved because of that fuel reduction work,” said Jessica Morse, deputy secretary for forest resources management at the California Natural Resources Agency. “You need strategic fuel breaks so that people can escape during fire. That’s often what saves a lot of lives.”
However, researchers have acknowledged that forest logging and other vegetation management projects often center less on preventing structure loss and more on protecting natural ecosystems.
A legacy of commercial logging and aggressive fire suppression have left mid- to lower-elevation conifer forests choked with younger trees competing for ever-more-scarce amounts of water. The concern is that large wildfires, exacerbated by these conditions, will increasingly destroy watersheds that supply agricultural and urban areas.
Malcolm North, a researcher at UC Davis and one of the state’s top authorities on forest ecology and fire, has defended the state’s approach. He said that, if done correctly, forest thinning should help protect the Sierra Nevada against the worst impacts of drought and invasive beetles.
“There’s too many straws in the ground,” he said. “You’re going to get a lot of dead trees unless you reduce the competitive demand for soil moisture.”
He also recently told the Union-Tribune that such projects do little to prevent blazes fueled by high winds and drought, such as the 2018 Camp fire. The state’s most deadly and destructive blaze burned 18,804 structures and killed 85 people, wiping out roughly 85 percent of the town of Paradise.
“It started in grass under power lines and got into basically chaparral,” North said. “If you had a bunch of dead trees, it’s hard for me to imagine it would have changed the hellacious conditions.”
The science
Every year, the state intentionally burns thousands of acres to thin forests — but those efforts pale in comparison to what nature once did on its own, before humans started fighting fires.
Scientists estimated that prior to the 1800s, wildfire scorched about 4.5 million acres a year throughout California. Today, thanks to billions of dollars spent on firefighting, the annual average is roughly a million acres, although 2020 saw more than 4.2 million acres goes up in smoke.
What’s changed most recently is how wildfire impacts humans. All but three of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires have occurred since the turn of the century, with an average of nearly 3,000 structures destroyed annually, according to Cal Fire data.
People have increasingly built homes in the most fire-prone landscapes in the state — rolling, canyon-riven hills covered in oak, chaparral and highly flammable grasses.
Humans also have been responsible for starting about 97 percent of wildfires, according to a study last year from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“The problem is humans igniting fire during wind events,” said Jon Keeley, a senior scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center.
Keeley and researcher Alexandra Syphard published a study in 2019 establishing that many fires throughout the state have little to do with overgrown forests and everything to do with hot, dry and windy conditions. The findings, which came in response to the call for increased forest management, attempted to highlight the need for home hardening and private landscaping.
While logging and other vegetation treatments may prove crucial for forests, researchers have found that clearing chaparral shrub lands can increase wildfire risks by inviting the spread of highly flammable invasive grasses.
A follow-up report from that year found that certain structural characteristics of a home were significantly correlated with surviving wildfire, most notably having closed eaves, screened vents and multi-paned windows.
Syphard, chief scientist for the La Jolla-based Sage Underwriters, said she has recently gathered data that bolsters those initial findings.
According to her most recent analysis, wildfire starts in grass, shrub and oak woodlands about 57 percent of the time, compared with just 14 percent in conifer forests. Perhaps that’s not surprising since forests make up less than 20 percent of vegetation in California.
Even more revealing, however, is that those three landscapes have accounted for more than 60 percent of all the area burned in wildfires that involved structure loss between 2000 and 2018 — compared with just 12 percent for forests.
“The fires that result in destroyed structures, a very small percentage of that is in conifer forests, which runs contrary to what most people think,” Syphard said.
(Joshua Emerson Smith, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Arizona stands to lose more than any other state in the Colorado River basin that also takes in parts of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. That’s because Arizona agreed long ago to be the first in line for cuts in exchange for federal funding for a canal system to deliver the water to Arizona’s major metropolitan areas.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Project, which manages the canal system, said the anticipated reductions will be painful, but the state has prepared for decades for a shortage through conservation, water banking, partnerships and other efforts.
“It doesn’t make it any less painful. But at least we know what is coming,” said Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project.
Farmers in central Arizona’s Pinal County, who already have been fallowing land amid the ongoing drought and improving wells to pump groundwater in anticipation of the reductions, will bear the brunt of the cuts. Most farms there are family farms that are among the state’s top producers of livestock, dairy, cotton, barley, wheat and alfalfa.
In Pinal County, up to 40 percent of farmland that relies on Colorado River water could be fallowed over the next few years, said Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projected earlier this month that Lake Mead, which delivers water to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, will fall below 1,075 feet for the first time in June. If the lake remains below that level in August when the bureau issues its official projection for 2022, Arizona and Nevada will lose water.
The two states already voluntarily have given up water under a separate drought contingency plan.
(Felicia Fonseca, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials announced the massive trucking operation on Wednesday, saying the effort is aimed at ensuring “the highest level of survival for the young salmon on their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean.”
“Trucking young salmon to downstream release sites has proven to be one of the best ways to increase survival to the ocean during dry conditions,” Jason Julienne, North Central Region Hatchery supervisor, said in a statement.
California is now in its second year of drought after a winter with little precipitation and it’s the state’s fourth-driest year on record, especially in the northern two-thirds of the state, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Illustrating the state’s risk of drought, record low reservoir levels led Gov. Gavin Newsom last week to proclaim a regional drought emergency for the Russian River watershed in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. And on Thursday, the state Legislature proposed a $3.4 billion plan to help combat drought conditions.
More than 16.8 million young salmon will be trucked to coastal sites around the San Pablo, San Francisco, Half Moon and Monterey bays.
Getting the fish transported means taking about 146 truckloads to the Pacific Ocean from four state hatcheries and one federal hatchery, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The state hatcheries began trucking the fish last week, and the federal hatchery will begin on Monday.
California’s iconic native chinook salmon need cold water to survive but dams have blocked their historic retreats to the chilly upper reaches of Northern California’s Sacramento River tributaries.
The fishing industry and Central Valley farmers are in a constant struggle over the same river water to sustain their livelihoods, with fish supporters lobbying for higher river water levels and farmers against it so that so they can draw water to irrigate crops.
John McManus, president of the Golden State Salmon Association, which advocates for anglers, told the Chronicle he appreciates the extra effort to save the fall-run chinook amid the drought.
But he said the underlying problem for salmon is that state and federal water officials have allowed too much water to be pulled from rivers and creeks for agricultural irrigation.
“These river conditions are made worse by decisions that put salmon last,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Some trucking is done every year to increase survival probabilities, but a program of this magnitude was last implemented in 2014. The situation so far isn’t as severe as it was then, officials said, because hatchery managers were able to release the majority of their juveniles upriver before the river conditions deteriorated and were deemed to dicey to proceed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But as the scientists on deck began interpreting sonar images gathered by two deep-sea robots, they were quickly overwhelmed. It was like trying to count stars in the Milky Way.
The dumpsite it turned out, was much, much bigger than expected. After spending two weeks surveying a swath of seafloor larger than the city of San Francisco, the scientists could find no end to the dumping ground. They could’ve kept going in any direction, they said, and uncovered even more.
“I was pretty shocked that it just kept extending as far as it did,” said Eric Terrill of University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who led the mission of 31 scientists and crew members. “We couldn’t keep up with the flow of data coming in.”
Terrill shared these findings Monday in a congressional briefing led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has been pushing for action since the Times reported last fall that the nation’s largest DDT manufacturer once dumped its waste into the deep ocean. As many as half a million barrels could still be underwater today, according to old records and a recent UC Santa Barbara study that provided the first photos of this pollution bubbling 3,000 feet under the sea.
“This mission confirms my worst fear: that possibly hundreds of thousands of barrels and DDT-laced sediment were dumped just 12 miles off our coast,” said Feinstein, who said she plans to ask the U.S. Justice Department to look into companies that may have illegally dumped waste into the ocean and whether they can be held accountable.
“I’m pleased the Biden administration shares my concern about this issue and took action quickly. It’s critical that this momentum continues,” she said. “We need everyone to come to the table with all the resources necessary to solve a problem of this size.”
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The fire, named the Flag fire, started Sunday and was raging in about 600 acres of the Hualapai Mountains, a mountain range in Mohave County, a county spokesman said Monday.
“All you see is a mountain on fire; it looks volcanic-like,” said Jessica Deihl, owner of Savon Bath Treats, a soap store in Kingman, Ariz., about 11 miles north of the mountain range. She said she had lived in the area for five years but had never seen a fire quite like this one.
“Last night, the glow from the fire was pretty intimidating,” she said Monday.
The fire is known as the Flag fire because it began near Flag Mine Road in the Hualapai Mountains, about 50 miles east of the California border.
About 200 homes in the mountaintop community of Pine Lake have been evacuated, as has the Hualapai Mountain Resort in Kingman and the cabins and trails at the 2,300-acre Hualapai Mountain Park, Roger Galloway, the spokesperson, said.
The fire was first reported shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday, according to a statement from Mohave County. Laurie Glass, who lives in Kingman, said she was on a mountain outing with friends with jeeps at the time and was among those who reported it. One by one, as each of the five Jeeps in her group turned a corner, the occupants spotted flames in the scrub brush about 100 yards in front of them, Glass said in an interview.
“We did some quick driving,” she said.
The smoke soon became so thick, Glass said, that she could not see the road. The trail leader in the first Jeep had to coach the other drivers on how to get through the smoke and around the fire.
“Keep pushing, keep pushing,” someone is heard saying in a video that Glass shared with The New York Times.
At one point, there was a steep drop next to the mountain evacuation road where they were driving. “It was a little nerve-wracking; I don’t wish to do it again,” Glass said.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The mayor of Mexico City said the drought was the worst in 30 years, and the problem can be seen at the reservoirs that store water from other states to supply the capital.
Some of them, like the Villa Victoria reservoir west of the capital, are at one-third of their normal capacity, with a month and a half to go before any significant rain is expected.
Isaias Salgado, 60, was trying to fill his water tank truck at Villa Victoria, a task that normally takes him just half an hour. On Thursday he estimated it was taking 3 1/2 hours to pump water into his 10,000-liter tanker.
“The reservoir is drying up,” said Salgado. “If they keep pumping water out, by May it will be completely dry, and the fish will die.”
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that as the drought worsened, more people have tended to water their lawns and gardens, which worsens the problem.
The capital’s 9 million inhabitants rely on reservoirs like Villa Victoria and two others — which together are at about 44 percent capacity — for a quarter of their water; most of the rest comes from wells within city limits. But the city’s own water table is dropping and leaky pipes waste much of what is brought into the city.
Farther to the west, in Michoacan state, the country is at risk of losing its second-largest lake, Lake Cuitzeo. About 75 percent of the lake bed is now dry, said Alberto Gomez-Tagle, a biologist and researcher who chairs the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Michoacan.
Michoacan Gov. Silvano Aureoles said so much of the lake has dried up that shoreline communities now suffer dust storms. He said communities might have to start planting vegetation on the lake bed to prevent the storms.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The target, confirmed by three people briefed on the plan, is timed to a global summit that Biden is hosting Thursday and Friday, which is aimed at sending a message that the United States is rejoining international efforts to fight global warming after four years of climate denial from the Trump administration.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the U.S. target.
The leaders of China, India and nearly 40 other countries are expected to join Biden virtually, and the U.S. hopes that the announcement of its new emissions goal will galvanize other nations to step up their own targets by the time nations gather again under United Nations auspices in November in Glasgow, Scotland.
The new U.S. goal nearly doubles the pledge that the Obama administration made to cut emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, although the country would have five more years to achieve it, according to the people familiar with the target who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.
Formally known as a “nationally determined contribution” under the Paris agreement, the 2030 target will be a range that will aim to cut emissions around 50 percent from 2005 levels. It will not include detailed modeling showing how the U.S. proposes to meet its pledge, one administration official said.
The goal is largely in line with what environmental groups and big businesses including McDonald’s, Target and Google have pushed for. They and others argued that cutting emissions at least 50 percent from 2005 levels by the end of the decade is the only way to put the U.S. on a path to elimination of fossil fuel pollution by the middle of the century.
On Tuesday, Gina McCarthy, Biden’s top climate change adviser, hinted that the United States would set that goal.
“I would argue that there’s opportunities for us to be able to be very aggressive, and we’re going to take that opportunity,” she said in an interview with NPR.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The fire was about 70 percent to 80 percent contained, although there was a danger that it could flare up again due to strong winds, said Philip Prins, fire manager for Table Mountain National Park. It began Sunday morning near the memorial to colonial leader Cecil Rhodes and quickly spread uncontrolled beneath Devil’s Peak in Table Mountain National Park in an area popular with weekend hikers and cyclists.
By Monday, winds approaching 30 mph had pushed the fire toward densely populated areas above downtown Cape Town, forcing the evacuation of residents living along some edges of the park.
A line of thick smoke billowed along the edge of Devil’s Peak toward the top of the mountain above the city for most of the day, engulfing office buildings and the Cape Town port in a choking white cloud.
More than 200 firefighters and emergency personnel battled the blaze.
At the University of Cape Town, known as UCT, officials inspected the damage to the historic Jagger Library, which contained rare collections of African books and archives.
“The library is our greatest loss,” the university’s vice chancellor, Mamokgethi Phakeng, told a local radio station. “Some of these cannot be replaced by insurance, and that is a sad day for us.”
Ujala Satgoor, executive director of UCT Libraries, described how “some of us watched, from on-site, with horror and helplessness” as the building burned.
Satgoor confirmed that “some of our valuable collections have been lost,” adding that “a full assessment can only be done once the building has been declared safe and we can enter.”
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The fire, fueled by strong winds, started Sunday morning near the memorial of colonial leader Cecil Rhodes and quickly spread uncontrolled beneath Devil's Peak in Table Mountain National Park in an area popular with weekend hikers and cyclists.
Heavy smoke engulfing the area forced the closure of a major highway and other nearby roads, as well as the evacuation of hikers and park visitors; the nearby Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden; and hundreds of students residing on campus.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Their mysterious presence led researchers to a startling discovery. A subset of leatherbacks that hatches on beaches in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands were migrating 7,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to the cold waters off the U.S. West Coast, where they gorged on jellyfish before swimming back. The epic journey stunned scientists.
“There are birds that go farther, but they fly. There’s a whale shark that might swim a little further, but it doesn’t have to come up for air. This animal is actually pushing water all the way across the Pacific Ocean,” said Scott Benson, an ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service in Monterey, who has studied the turtles for decades. “It’s just a majestic animal.”
But now, just as scientists are beginning to fully understand the amazing odyssey, the turtles are disappearing — and fast.
In less than 30 years, the number of western Pacific leatherbacks in the foraging population off California plummeted 80 percent, and a recent study co-authored by Benson shows a 5.6 percent annual decline — almost identical to the decline documented thousands of miles away on nesting beaches. About 1,400 adult females were counted on western Pacific nesting beaches, down from tens of thousands of turtles a few decades ago, and there are as few as 50 foraging off California, Benson said.
If nothing changes, scientists say, the leatherbacks — creatures that can weigh half as much as a compact car and have 4-foot-long flippers — could be gone from the U.S. West Coast within three decades, a demise brought on by indiscriminate international fishing, the decimation of nesting grounds and climate change.
“The turtles were there and we finally started paying attention,” said Jim Harvey, director of San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the study’s co-author. “We got into looking at the story just as the story was ending.”
The study provides critical, but devastating, new population information that doesn’t bode well for the leatherbacks, said Daniel Pauly, a fisheries professor at the University of British Columbia and an international expert on reducing commercial fishing’s impact on marine ecosystems.
“If you find the decline in one place, that might have a number of causes, but if you find the same estimate of decline in two places that indicates something much more serious,” said Pauly, who was not involved in the study. “They are really in big trouble.”
NOAA launched an aggressive initiative to save them in 2015 and will now release an updated action plan this month to inspire greater international cooperation in reducing the number of eggs pillaged on beaches and the number of Pacific leatherbacks entangled in commercial fishing gear.
“There is an opportunity right now to stop the decline, but we must seize that opportunity immediately,” said Benson.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Between 16,000 and 20,000 people have been evacuated from the island’s northern region, where the exploding volcano is located, with more than 3,000 of them staying at more than 80 government shelters.
Dozens of people stood in lines on Tuesday for water or to retrieve money sent by friends and family abroad. Among those standing in one crowd was retired police officer Paul Smart.
“The volcano caught us with our pants down, and it’s very devastating,” he said. “No water, lots of dust in our home. We thank God we are alive, but we need more help at this moment.”
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a news conference that St. Vincent will need hundreds of millions of dollars to recover from the eruption but did not give any details.
He added that no casualties have been reported since the first big blast from the volcano early Friday. “We have to try and keep that record,” he said. Gonsalves said some people have refused to leave communities closest to the volcano and urged them to evacuate.
Falling ash and pyroclastic flows have destroyed crops and contaminated water reservoirs. Garth Saunders, minister of the island’s water and sewer authority, noted that some communities have not yet received water.
“The windward (eastern) coast is our biggest challenge today,” he said of efforts to deploy water trucks. “What we are providing is a finite amount. We will run out at some point.”
The prime minister said people in some shelters need food and water, and he thanked neighboring nations for shipments of items including cots, respiratory masks and water bottles and tanks. In addition, the World Bank has disbursed $20 million to the government of St. Vincent as part of an interest-free catastrophe financing program.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Athens University's Geodynamic Institute said the undersea quake struck at 11:28 p.m. local time and had a depth of 10 miles. The earthquake was felt in several nearby islands in Greece's Dodecanese chain.
Earthquakes are very common in Greece, which is one of the world's most seismically active areas. In 1999, a quake near Athens killed 143 people and caused extensive damage to buildings.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Experts called it a “huge explosion” that generated pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and southwest flanks.
“It’s destroying everything in its path,” Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press. “Anybody who would have not heeded the evacuation, they need to get out immediately.”
There were no immediate reports of injuries or death, but government officials were scrambling to respond to the latest eruption, which was even bigger than the first eruption that occurred Friday morning. Roughly 16,000 people who live in communities close to the volcano had been evacuated under government orders on Thursday, but an unknown number have remained behind and refused to move.
Richard Robertson, with the seismic research center, told local station NBC Radio that the volcano’s old and new dome have been destroyed and that a new crater has been created. He said that the pyroclastic flows would have razed everything in their way.
“Anything that was there, man, animal, anything they are gone,” he said. “And it’s a terrible thing to say it.”
Joseph said the latest explosion is equivalent to the one that occurred in 1902 and killed some 1,600. The volcano last erupted in 1979. Ash from the ongoing explosions has fallen on Barbados and other nearby islands.
One government minister who toured the island’s northeast region on Sunday said he saw an estimated two or three dozen people still remaining in the community of Sandy Bay alone, prompting Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves to urge people to leave.
“It is over time for you to leave,” he said. “It is dangerous.”
Emergency management officials warned they would arrest all who are caught inside the red zone without police permission. Communities in the red zone are those closest to the volcano.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The eruption Friday of La Soufrière prompted many people to evacuate their homes, and others who had remained in place sought shelter elsewhere Sunday.
The volcano’s rumbles were heard in the capital of Kingstown, about 20 miles south.
“I’m just here wondering when it’s going to calm down,” resident Kalique Sutherland said.
The eruption could continue for some time, said Richard Robertson, the lead scientist at the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Center.
Elford Lewis, a 56-year-old farmer who evacuated his home on Sunday morning, said the ongoing eruption is worse than the last big one in 1979.
“This one is more serious,” said Lewis, who witnessed the big eruption decades ago.
An eruption of the 4,003-foot volcano in 1902 killed roughly 1,600 people.
About 16,000 people have had to flee their ash-covered communities with as many belongings as they could stuff into suitcases and backpacks. However, there have been no reports of anyone being killed or injured by the initial blast or those that followed.
Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of the 32 islands that make up the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has said people should remain calm and keep trying to protect themselves from the coronavirus. He said officials were trying to figure out the best way to collect and dispose of the ash, which covered an airport runway near Kingstown, and fell as far away as Barbados, about 120 miles to the east.
About 3,200 people took refuge at 78 government-run shelters, and four empty cruise ships stood ready to take other evacuees to nearby islands.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The eruption Friday of La Soufrière — its first large one since 1979 — transformed the island’s lush towns and villages into gloomy, gray versions of themselves. A strong sulfur smell was unavoidable Saturday and ash covered everything, creeping into homes, cars and noses, and obscuring the sunshine that makes the island so popular with tourists.
Chellise Rogers, who lives in the village of Biabou, which is in an area of St. Vincent that’s considered safe, said she could hear continuous rumbling.
“It’s exhilarating and scary at the same time,” she said. “(It’s the) first time I am witnessing a volcano eruption.”
Scientists warn that the explosions could continue for days or even weeks, and that the worst could be yet to come.
“The first bang is not necessarily the biggest bang this volcano will give,” Richard Robertson, a geologist with the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, said during a news conference.
About 16,000 people have had to flee their ash-covered communities with as many belongings as they could stuff into suitcases and backpacks. However, there have been no reports of anyone being killed or injured by the initial blast or those that followed. Before it blew, the government ordered people to evacuate the most high-risk area around the 4,003-foot volcano after scientists warned that magma was moving close to the surface.
Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of the 32 islands that make up the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said on local station NBC Radio that people should remain calm, be patient and keep trying to protect themselves from the coronavirus. He said officials were trying to figure out the best way to collect and dispose of the ash, which covered an airport runway near the capital of Kingstown, about 20 miles south, and fell as far away as Barbados, about 120 miles to the east.
“It’s difficult to breathe,” the prime minister said, adding that although the volcano was venting less, a big plume of ash remained. “What goes up, must come down.”
Although Gonsalves said it could take up to four months for life to return to normal, he’s confident it will.
“Agriculture will be badly affected, and we may have some loss of animals, and we will have to do repairs to houses. But if we have life and we have strength — we will build it back better, stronger, together,” he said.
People who didn’t heed the initial evacuation order hurried to do so Saturday. At least a few ash-covered evacuees escaped in small boats and headed to other parts of the main island, which makes up 90 percent of the country’s total land.
About 3,200 people took refuge at 78 government-run shelters, and four empty cruise ships stood ready to take other evacuees to nearby islands, with a group of more than 130 already taken to St. Lucia. Those staying at the shelters were tested for COVID-19, with anyone testing positive being taken to an isolation center.
The ash has forced the cancellation of several flights, and poor visibility limited evacuations in some areas. Officials warned that St. Lucia to the north and Grenada to the south could get light ash fall, though most of it was expected to head northeast into the Atlantic Ocean.
(Kristin Deane&Danica Coto, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.0 quake struck off the island’s southern coast at 2 p.m. local time. It was centered 28 miles south of Sumberpucung town of Malang District in East Java province, at a depth of 51 miles.
Rahmat Triyono, the head of Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami center, said in a statement the undersea temblor did not have the potential to cause a tsunami. Still, he urged people to stay away from slopes of soil or rocks that have the potential for landslides.
This was the second deadly disaster to hit Indonesia in a week, after Tropical Cyclone Seroja caused a severe downpour Sunday that killed at least 174 people and left 48 still missing. Some victims were buried in either mudslides or solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November, while others were swept away by flash flooding. Thousands of homes were damaged.
Saturday’s quake caused falling rocks that killed a woman on a motorcycle and badly injured her husband in East Java’s Lumajang district, said Raditya Jati, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
He said dozens of homes were damaged across the district, and rescuers had retrieved two bodies from under the rubble in Kali Uling village. Two people were also confirmed killed in an area bordering Lumajang and Malang districts, while one person found dead under rubble in Malang.
Television reports showed people running in panic from malls and buildings in several cities in East Java province.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The volcano, known as La Soufrière, on the northern tip of the main island of St. Vincent, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, had started showing signs of renewed activity in late December. It moved into an “explosive state” on Friday morning, the National Emergency Management Organization said in a Twitter posting.
“It was a very, very loud bang,” said Shaquille Hadaway Williams, 22, a St. Vincent resident, describing the moment the volcano erupted. Soon the smell of sulfur permeated the air, he said, followed by clouds of ash, with stones falling on roofs and flashes of volcanic lightning in the sky. “You never see something like this,” he said.
The country’s emergency management agency said that the ash fall had been registered as far as the country’s international airport on the southern part of the island — more than 12 miles away — and an ash plume had billowed 20,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.
The morning eruption was followed about six hours later by a “second explosive eruption” that was not as extensive, the agency said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the eruptions, and the extent of any damage in the surrounding area was unclear.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The island’s emergency management office switched the alert level to red as officials began to evacuate people who live near La Soufriere volcano to soon place them aboard cruise ships, send them to nearby islands or take them to shelters elsewhere in St. Vincent that are outside the danger zone.
Roughly 16,000 people live in the red zone and will need to be evacuated, Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, said.
Evacuation efforts could be hampered by the pandemic.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a news conference that people have to be vaccinated if they go aboard a cruise ship or are granted temporary refuge in other nearby islands.
Government officials tweeted that the dome of the volcano on the island’s northern region could be seen glowing by nightfall. The alert follows days of seismic activity around La Soufriere.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The scenic highway snaking through California’s rugged coastal cliffs has been closed since Jan. 28, when heavy rain triggered a landslide that carried a chunk of roadway into the sea. The washout left a 150-foot gap along the picturesque driving route.
Crews began to fill the canyon below with compacted dirt in early March. They are expected to establish the base of a new road on top of the fill, then pave and stripe it by the end of the month thanks to favorable weather conditions, Caltrans said.
“Reopening Highway 1 at Rat Creek just three months after a washout of this magnitude is great news for residents, recreationalists, business owners, and those who move goods through this region,” Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin said in a statement. “Caltrans has been focused on the emergency work needed to increase the resiliency of this highway section to extreme weather, and the fixes made will allow for safe travel.”
After reopening, crews will replace the main drainage system above the fixed roadway to help withstand future debris flows, rising sea levels and coastal erosion, Caltrans said. They will also work on landscaping and installing guardrails throughout the early summer.
The work was estimated to cost $11.5 million, the agency said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The proposal, which the Legislature could send to the governor’s desk as soon as Monday, marks an early agreement by the governor and lawmakers to spend more than half of the $1 billion in wildfire funding Newsom called for in his state budget proposal in January. The gravity of the issue became clear last week after state officials reported the water content in the Sierra Nevada snowpack stood at 59 percent of the average for early spring.
“The science is clear: Warming winter temperatures and warming summer temperatures across the American West are creating more challenging and dangerous wildfire conditions,” said Wade Crowfoot, the governor’s secretary of natural resources.
According to an outline provided by legislative staff, more than $350 million will be spent on fire prevention and suppression efforts, including prescribed fires and other projects designed to reduce the vegetation growth that has fueled California’s most devastating fires. The package also includes $25 million for fortifying older homes that weren’t built using fire-resistance methods required during construction over the last decade.
“More suppression strategies, more prevention strategies, more regional, long-term, medium-term strategies,” Newsom said during an event in Fresno County. “And a greater sense of urgency than ever in contemporary California history.”
The agreement between Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, more than doubles the funds in the governor’s original plan for new fire prevention grants administered by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — and includes instructions that some of the money be prioritized for “projects that protect a larger population base,” according to bill language introduced Thursday. That provision could ensure a focus on fire threats across Southern California.
Paul Mason, vice president of policy and incentives for the Pacific Forest Trust, said the focus on regionalism is important.
“What we want to do in the forests of Northern California, where fires are driven by fuel, versus the chaparral of Southern California, where fires are driven by wind, are very different,” he said.
The new proposal adds significant muscle to that approach, Mason said.
“This is a huge amount of money,” he said of the $536 million package. “This is at least double what we’ve ever done as a state in the past.”
Lawmakers also significantly boosted funding for the Newsom administration’s plan to construct more fuel breaks across the state, replacing existing vegetation in fire-prone areas to change the speed or path of fire. And they added $36 million for fire resiliency and recovery efforts across conservancies from the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Diego River.
“For every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention, our state saves $6 to $7 in damage,” Atkins said in a written statement.
“But it’s not just about saving money — this is about saving Californians’ lives, their homes, and their livelihoods.”
Newsom toured a fuel break site Thursday near Shaver Lake, a location near where the massive Creek fire scorched almost 380,000 acres beginning last September. On hand were National Guard crews deployed as part of a state fire prevention effort that began in 2019. The governor has also sought to boost the ranks of Cal Fire crews, announcing last month that almost $81 million in emergency funds would be used to hire close to 1,400 additional firefighters.
“It requires hand crews, it requires more personnel, but it requires intentionality, it requires a plan. And we have a plan,” the governor told reporters Thursday.
While the agreement to spend more than half a billion dollars came quickly by Sacramento standards, the state’s fire season is already under way. On Monday, firefighters responded to a brush fire in the Angeles National Forest, the third small blaze in the area since last weekend.
“This actually is an emergency, and we need to treat it as such,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “What we see is a front-loading of spending, which I think is absolutely essential.”
More than 4 million acres were burned by wildfires in California last year, according to Cal Fire statistics. The year saw five of the six largest blazes in the state’s recorded history, none larger than the lightning-sparked blazes that became known as the August Complex fire — scorching more than 1 million acres in Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, Tehama, Glenn, Lake and Colusa counties.
Fire conditions this year could be even worse. Many of California’s largest reservoirs are only half full, and winter snow and rain in Northern California have been below their average level.
Most of the money earmarked in the proposal unveiled Thursday would come from California’s general fund, the state’s main bank account for government programs. Better-than-expected tax collections have already produced a multibillion-dollar windfall.
The proposal relies on a smaller amount of money from proceeds of the state’s cap-and-trade program, in which companies pay for greenhouse gas emission credits.
Although a number of lawmakers want more of the climate change funds to be used for fire prevention efforts, the new agreement sidesteps the politically volatile issue and the likelihood that it might slow preparations for this fire season.
Though significant, Wara said Californians should view Thursday’s agreement as a good starting point. But he noted that Newsom’s push for $1 billion by the time this year’s budget negotiations are complete is unlikely to be enough to manage even 1 million acres of threatened lands in the year to come, with at least 10 million acres across California requiring fire prevention treatments.
“This is a good start, but this is only Year One,” he said. “We need sustained funding at this scale and maybe even larger for a decade.”
(John Myers, LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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East Flores district on Adonara island suffered the highest losses with 67 bodies recovered so far and six missing. Mud tumbled down from surrounding hills early on Sunday, catching people while they slept. Some were swept away by flash floods after overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks.
On nearby Lembata island, the downpour triggered by Tropical Cyclone Seroja sent solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November to crash down on more than a dozen villages, killing at least 32 and leaving 35 unaccounted for, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
Hundreds of police, soldiers and residents dug through the debris with their bare hands, shovels and hoes searching for those buried. Relatives wailed Wednesday as they watched rescuers pull out a mud-caked body and take it away for burial.
In all, landslides and flooding have killed at least 126 across several islands in Indonesia as well as 27 people in neighboring East Timor. Thousands of homes have been damaged and thousands of people displaced by the weather, which is expected to continue until at least Friday as the storm moves south toward Australia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The nation’s largest utility denied that it committed any crimes even as it accepted that its transmission line sparked the blaze.
The Sonoma County district attorney charged the utility with five felony and 28 misdemeanor counts in the October 2019 Kincade fire north of San Francisco, including recklessly causing a fire that seriously injured six firefighters. Among the unidentified firefighters were a member of an inmate fire crew and at least two out-of-state contractors, one of whom suffered second- and third-degree burns to his legs and torso.
Fire officials said a PG&E transmission line sparked the fire, which destroyed 374 buildings and caused nearly 100,000 people to flee as it burned through 120 square miles. It was the largest evacuation in the county’s history, prosecutors said, including the entire towns of Healdsburg, Windsor and Geyserville.
The charges and related enhancements accuse the company of destroying inhabited structures and emitting air contaminants “with reckless disregard for the risk of great bodily injury” from toxic wildfire smoke and related particulate matter and ash, thereby endangering public health. They allege that the utility failed to maintain facilities including transmission lines, among the numerous related misdemeanor charges.
District Attorney Jill Ravitch said she and other investigators went to the fire’s ignition site as soon as it was safe, and since then have been working with state and independent experts to determine the cause and responsibility for the blaze.
Ravitch said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported to her office in July that the fire was sparked when a cable on a transmission tower broke in high winds and caused an electrical arc when it touched the tower. That caused molten material to drop into the dry vegetation below and ignite a fire that took 15 days to contain, she said.
She said her office’s own investigation included interviews with dozens of witnesses, search warrants and reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Prosecutors also consulted with other law enforcement and regulatory agencies and independent experts.
PG&E said in a statement that it accepts the findings that its transmission line in the Geysers Geothermal Field northeast of Geyserville caused the fire “in the spirit of working to do what’s right for the victims,“ though it hasn’t seen the report or evidence from state fire investigators.
“However, we do not believe there was any crime here,” the company said in a statement. “We remain committed to making it right for all those impacted and working to further reduce wildfire risk on our system.”
Tuesday’s charges are latest in a series of similar problems for the utility that serves more than 16 million people across much of Northern California.
PG&E’s alleged criminal negligence in the Sonoma County wildfire occurred while the company was mired in a bankruptcy triggered by a series of deadly infernos that were ignited by the utility’s crumbling equipment during 2017 and 2018.
The most lethal, in Butte County, wiped out the entire town of Paradise in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s recorded history. PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter for the fire last June.
Although PG&E’s then-chief executive Bill Johnson appeared in court to enter the guilty pleas before some of the surviving families, no one from the company went to prison. Instead, the company paid the maximum penalty of $4 million.
PG&E emerged from bankruptcy protection shortly after those guilty pleas and settlements to cover the damages caused by its fraying grid. The settlements include a $13.5 billion fund for wildfire victims that recently started distributing some of the money to help people rebuild their lives.
State investigators last month said a Northern California wildfire that killed four people and destroyed more than 200 buildings last year was sparked when tree branches came into contact with the utility’s power lines. The wind-driven Zogg fire blazed through rural communities in Shasta and Tehama counties last September and October.
The Sonoma County wildfire also raised the hackles of a federal judge overseeing PG&E’s ongoing criminal probation for a 2010 explosion in its natural gas lines that blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno, a suburb south of San Francisco.
U.S. District William Alsup, who has repeatedly lambasted PG&E for its shoddy maintenance of its equipment, is considering ordering changes that could result in the utility being forced to turn off its power lines during dry and windy conditions even more frequently than it has in recent years.
(Don Thompson, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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San Diego International Airport has recorded only 4.36 inches of rain since the official water year began on Oct. 1. That’s more than 4 inches below normal. The airport averages 10.33 inches of rain from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
The county occasionally gets significant rain in April. In fact, it happened last year when the airport reported 3.68 inches. But it is usually quite dry. And the federal government’s latest spring and summer forecasts call for dry weather with above average temperatures.
“If that happens and we get strong winds we could end up with severe wildfire conditions,” said Alex Tardy, a forecaster at the weather service office in Rancho Bernardo.
“Things should be lush right now but they aren’t. Some of the (vegetation) fuels are already at record dry levels.”
Santa Ana winds are most common during October, November and December. But they can happen at any time of the year. The dry, offshore winds were responsible for the record temperatures that were reported across the county last week.
The rest of California also is unusually dry.
The state Department of Water Resources conducted its annual snow survey last week in the Sierra Nevada and found that the region — which is crucial to California reservoirs — had received only half of its normal precipitation. The depth of the snow was 49.5 inches, which equates to 21 inches of water. Those figures tie for the third driest on record.
Forecasters say greater San Diego is dry because weather patterns steered many storms away from Southern California, particularly during January, February and March, which are typically the wettest months.
| year | rainfall |
| 2001/02 | 3.30 in |
| 2017/18 | 3.34 in |
| 1960/61 | 3.44 in |
| 1876/77 | 3.63 in |
| 2006/07 | 3.85 in |
| 2020/21 | 4.36 in (through Monday) |
With the deployment of more than two dozen pumps and other equipment, fears have eased that the reservoir from an old phosphate fertilizer plant would burst through its earthen walls and cause widespread flooding in Manatee County, just south of Tampa.
The reservoir initially held about 480 million gallons of contaminated water, but much has been drained away once the leak was discovered.
“The mandatory evacuation orders have been lifted,” said Scott Hopes, the county administrator. “We believe the risk has been mitigated and controlled.”
Earlier, officials announced that a major highway near the site, U.S. 41, would be reopened.
The decisions on Tuesday come as Florida lawmakers are proposing to spend up to $200 million to clean up and close the wastewater reservoir. But it was not immediately clear how officials plan to tackle what would be a huge engineering challenge.
The state Senate president, Republican Wilton Simpson, said a legislative committee will take up an amendment today to use federal money for the project.
“This has been a catastrophe waiting to happen for too long,” Simpson said in a statement. “We don’t want to be talking about this problem again in five, 10 or 20 years.”
A House committee is also expected to consider a similar bill today.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A magnitude 4.0 earthquake was reported at 4:44 a.m. Monday near Inglewood, less than half an hour after two smaller foreshocks hit the same area.
The larger quake was felt across Southern California, including some areas of San Diego County. A magnitude 3.3 temblor that preceded it hit the same area at 4:15 a.m., while a magnitude 2.5 shaker struck at the same time about 2 miles away.
The main earthquake was centered near Prairie and Century boulevards. It occurred less than a mile from Lennox, less than a mile from Hawthorne and one mile from Los Angeles.
By 8 a.m., nearly 40 aftershocks had rattled the Inglewood and Lennox area, according to Paul Caruso, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado.
The main shock was “pretty deep for California,” at about 12 miles down, he said, noting that quakes in the area are typically about three miles deep. Deeper earthquakes are felt less strongly on the surface.
“We cannot predict earthquakes, but certainly there will be more aftershocks,” he added.
Earthquake expert Lucy Jones said on Twitter that the magnitude 4.0 quake was strong enough to be “felt by most people awake in LA.” She added it was likely not on any mapped faults.
The foreshock and flurry of aftershocks occurred at about the same depth, Jones said.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican, toured the area by helicopter Monday and said federal resources were committed to assisting the effort to control the 77-acre Piney Point reservoir in Manatee County, just south of the Tampa Bay area.
Among those are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, Buchanan said at a news conference.
“I think we are making some progress,” Buchanan said. “This is something that has been going on too long. Now, I think everybody is focused on this.”
Fears of a complete breach at an old phosphate plant led authorities to evacuate more than 300 homes, close portions of a major highway and move several hundred jail inmates nearby to a second floor of the facility.
The primary concern is that a total breach of the reservoir would cause major flooding to nearby homes and businesses, officials said. The pumps are meant to slowly drain the water and divert it to Tampa Bay, which could lead to negative environmental consequences such as fish kills and algae blooms.
Melissa Fitzsimmons lives with her husband and 19-month-old daughter in Palmetto, Fla., on the edge of the evacuation zone. Fitzsimmons said that for the past four days she has been terrified since she found out about the leak. While her house is on a hill and may not be directly affected by the water if the leak continues to grow, Fitzsimmons said her family is preparing for the worst.
“Within 24 hours it escalated to like a catastrophic evacuation, and we really didn’t know anything until we saw that there was an evacuation and then suddenly an evacuation within the block of our house,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’re not in the full on evacuation zone so we didn’t make the decision to leave, but we are certainly ready to go, I would say within like a 10-second notice, we can be out the door.”
Scott Hopes, the Manatee County administrator, said the additional pumps should increase the capacity for a controlled release of the water from about 35 million gallons a day to between 75 million and 100 million gallons a day.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says the water in the pond is primarily salt water mixed with wastewater and storm water. It has elevated levels of phosphorous and nitrogen and is acidic, but not expected to be toxic, the agency says.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 550 yards long and about a half-mile from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.
The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It said there was no imminent danger to life.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Manatee County officials say the latest models show that a breach at the old phosphate plant reservoir has the potential to gush out 340 million gallons of water in a matter of minutes, risking a 20-foot-high wall of water.
“What we are looking at now is trying to prevent and respond to, if need be, a real catastrophic flood situation,” DeSantis said at a news conference after flying over the old Piney Point phosphate mine.
Authorities have closed off portions of the U.S. Highway 41 and ordered evacuations of 316 homes. Some families were placed in local hotels.
Manatee County sheriff’s officials began evacuating about 345 inmates from a local jail about 1 mile away from the 77-acre pond first floor on Sunday afternoon [sic], the Tampa Bay Times reported. Manatee County Administrator Scott Hopes said models show the area could be covered with between 1 foot to 5 feet of water, and the second floor is 10 feet above ground.
Officials first announced that they would move people and staff to the second story and put sandbags on the ground floor, but Sheriff Rick Wells later said moving all the inmates to the second floor posed a security risk.
County officials say well water remains unaffected and there is no threat to Lake Manatee, the area’s primary source of drinking water.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says the water in the pond is primarily saltwater mixed with wastewater and storm water. It has elevated levels of phosphorous and nitrogen and is acidic, but not expected to be toxic, the agency says.
Crews have been discharging water since the pond began leaking in March. On Friday, a significant leak that was detected escalated the response and prompted the first evacuations and a declaration of a state of emergency on Saturday. A portion of the containment wall in the reservoir shifted, leading officials to think a collapse could occur at any time.
Hopes, the county administrator, said Sunday that with new state resources, crews will be nearly doubling the amount of water being pumped out of the pond and taken to Port Manatee.
Currently about 22,000 gallons of water are being discharged per minute, and Hopes said he expects the risk of collapse to decrease by Tuesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Mud tumbled down from surrounding hills onto dozens of homes in Lamenele village shortly after midnight on Adonara island in East Nusa Tenggara province. Rescuers recovered 38 bodies and at least five people were injured, said Lenny Ola, who heads the local disaster agency.
Flash flooding killed at least 17 people elsewhere and at least 42 are missing, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Relief efforts were hampered by power cuts, blocked roads covered in thick mud and debris as well as the remoteness of the area on an island surrounded by choppy seas and high waves, said the agency’s spokesperson, Raditya Jati.
The bodies of three people were recovered after being swept away by floods in Oyang Bayang village, where 40 houses were also destroyed, Ola said. Hundreds of people fled submerged homes, some of which were carried off by the floodwaters.
In another village, Waiburak, three people were killed and seven missing after overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks, sending muddy water into large areas of East Flores district, Ola said. Four injured people were being treated at a local health clinic.
The death toll reached 55 by this morning after the rains caused cold lava to tumble down the slopes of Ili Lewotolok volcano and hit several villages, Jati said.
That disaster on Lembata island killed at least 11, while at least 16 others were still buried under tons of cold lava, Jati said. The lava was left after the volcano had erupted in November.
Hundreds of people were still involved in the rescue efforts as of late Sunday, Jati told a news conference. At least six villages have been affected by flash floods and a landslide that cut five bridges on the island, he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The United States already has an embargo on imports of shrimp from the upper Gulf of California. Also known as the Sea of Cortez, the body of water is the only place where the vaquita lives, and as few as 10 remain.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and two other groups said in an open letter that Mexico has failed to enforce a ban on fishermen using gill nets, which trap vaquitas. The nets are set to catch totoaba, an endangered fish whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in China and is worth thousands of dollars.
“Only the strongest international pressure will force Mexico to get lethal fishing nets out of the water before these little porpoises disappear forever,“ wrote Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
There was no immediate comment from Mexico’s government.
In March, a government body raised criticism by announcing it would consider several proposals that would almost certainly harm the vaquita. The government has not announced whether those proposals will be accepted.
The Mexican inter-agency group said it is considering lifting endangered-species protection on the totoaba. Opening up legal fishing of totoaba would probably increase the deaths of vaquitas, but would provide a windfall for some fishermen in Mexico.
The group also said it is considering reducing the protection area for the vaquita, which would open up more areas to gill nets used for totoaba and other species. The nets trap and drown vaquitas.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Nashville received more than 7 inches of rain, the second-highest two-day rainfall total ever recorded, Mayor John Cooper said at a news conference Sunday.
Ebony Northern said a normally tame creek running through her Nashville apartment complex swiftly rose after heavy rain started late Saturday night. Within an hour or so, she could see some first-floor units in other parts of the complex being flooded. She said people moved to the second floor and she also heard calls for boats come in over the fire department scanner.
“The units are a mess. Some of the outside air conditioning units have floated off,” she said Sunday morning.
She said the American Red Cross arrived to assist her neighbors.
Nashville Fire Chief William Swann said swift-water teams were placed on standby in anticipation of the storms. At least 130 people were rescued from cars, apartments and homes, while about 40 dogs were moved from a Nashville boarding kennel, Camp Bow Wow, to another location.
To the south in Williamson County, over 34 swift water rescues were carried out, according to county Emergency Management Agency Director Todd Horton. As many as 18 homes in one neighborhood had to be evacuated.
A portion of Interstate 40 was temporarily shut down due to high water that stranded a vehicle and its driver. The driver was able to get out of the vehicle and to safety, the Tennessee Highway Patrol in Nashville tweeted. First responders also told drivers to avoid part of I-24 south of Nashville.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said three bodies were found after Seven Mile Creek flooded.
Many rivers and creeks were at or near their highest level since 2010, according to the National Weather Service.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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At least five fatalities and an unknown number of injuries were reported. All of the deaths happened in eastern Alabama’s Calhoun County, Coroner Patrick Brown said.
Forecasters warned of the threat of a possible outbreak of tornadoes as severe thunderstorms moved through a swath of the Southeast. Days after a similar bout of destructive weather, officials in several states urged residents to brace for hail, powerful winds and possible flash floods.
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, urging residents facing the most imminent danger to “take cover now.” Forecasters warned of storms with a high risk of tornadoes, as well as flash floods, in other portions of those states, as well as in Tennessee and Mississippi. A tornado watch was in effect until 8 p.m.
The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down shortly after 1 p.m. in an area southwest of Birmingham, Ala., and warned that it was moving toward the city and its suburbs.
In and around Birmingham, homes were destroyed by the tornado. Police in Pelham, Ala., a suburb south of Birmingham, said some roads were left impassable by downed trees and utility lines. More than 35,000 customers were without electricity on Thursday evening.
“Our priority at the moment is identifying those citizens in need of emergency medical attention,” John Samaniego, the sheriff in Shelby County, said in a statement, adding that there had been “significant tornado damage,” including residences that had been destroyed.
He added, “This search and outreach effort will continue throughout the night and into the early morning hours.”
On Thursday morning, Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama declared a state of emergency in more than 20 counties and pressed residents “to closely monitor the weather system,” especially if their areas were under high risk.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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The majority of the deaths are associated with hypothermia, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. And the dramatic number of new victims is still a potential undercount, as officials continue investigating deaths that happened around the time the storm knocked out power to more than 4 million customers in Texas.
Many homes went without power or drinkable water for days after subfreezing temperatures, failing power plants and record demand for heat pushed Texas’ electric grid to the breaking point.
Texas officials this month put the initial tally of deaths at 57 but warned it would increase. The toll now exceeds that of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which was blamed for 68 deaths in Texas.
The list of victims from the February snowstorm cut a wide swath across the state of 30 million people: Some fatalities were nearly as far north as Oklahoma, while others were close to the U.S.-Mexico border. State officials said the causes of “multiple deaths” included motor vehicle accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning, medical equipment failures, exacerbation of chronic illness, lack of home oxygen, falls and fire.
The most confirmed deaths occurred around Houston, where Harris County officials have reported at least 31 victims.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Nearly 20,000 Australians have been forced to evacuate, and more than 150 schools have been closed. The storms have swept away the home of a couple on their wedding day, prompted at least 500 rescues and drowned roads from Sydney up into the state of Queensland 500 miles north.
Shane Fitzsimmons, the resilience commissioner for New South Wales — a new state position formed after last year’s fires — described the event as another compounding disaster. Last year, fires combined into history-making infernos that scorched an area larger than many European countries. This year, thunderstorms have fused and hovered, delivering enough water to push rivers like the Hawkesbury to their highest levels since the 1960s.
Scientists note that both forms of catastrophe represent Australia’s new normal. The country is one of many seeing a pattern of intensification — more extreme hot days and heat waves, as well as more extreme rainfalls over short periods.
It is all tied to a warming Earth, caused by greenhouse gases. Because global temperatures have risen 1.1 degrees Celsius, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, over preindustrial levels, landscapes dry out more quickly, producing severe droughts, even as more water vapor rises into the atmosphere, increasing the likelihood of extreme downpours.
“There is a very strong link between global warming and that intensification in rainfall,” said Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of New South Wales. “There’s good scientific evidence to say extreme rain is becoming more extreme due to global warming.”
Australia’s government — resistant to aggressive action on climate change that might threaten the country’s fossil fuel industry — has yet to make that link.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered funds for those forced to flee and several dozen areas have been declared disaster zones.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Arizona State University astronomers reported this past week that the strange 148-foot object appears to be made of frozen nitrogen, just like the surface of Pluto and Neptune’s largest moon, Triton.
The study’s authors, Alan Jackson and Steven Desch, think an impact knocked a chunk off an icy nitrogen-covered planet 500 million years ago and sent the piece tumbling out of its own star system, toward ours. The reddish remnant is believed to be a sliver of its original self, its outer layers evaporated by cosmic radiation and, more recently, the sun.
It’s named Oumuamua, Hawaiian for scout, in honor of the observatory in Hawaii that discovered it in 2017.
Visible only as a pinpoint of light millions of miles away at its closest approach, it was determined to have originated beyond our solar system because its speed and path suggested it wasn’t orbiting the sun or anything else.
The only other object confirmed to have strayed from another star system into our own is the comet 21/Borisov, discovered in 2019.
But what is Oumuamua? It didn’t fit into known categories — it looked like an asteroid but sped along like a comet. Unlike a comet, though, it didn’t have a visible tail. Speculation flipped back and forth between comet and asteroid — and it was even suggested it could be an alien artifact.
“Everybody is interested in aliens, and it was inevitable that this first object outside the solar system would make people think of aliens,” Desch said in a statement. “But it’s important in science not to jump to conclusions.“
Using its shininess, size and shape — and that it was propelled by escaping substances that didn’t produce a visible tail — Jackson and Desch devised computer models that helped them determine Oumuamua was most likely a chunk of nitrogen ice being gradually eroded, the way a bar of soap thins with use.
Their two papers were published Tuesday by the American Geophysical Union.
Not all scientists buy the new explanation. Harvard University’s Avi Loeb disputes the findings and stands by his premise that the object appears to be more artificial than natural — in other words, something from an alien civilization, perhaps a light sail. His newly published book “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” addresses the subject.
Given that Oumuamua is unlike comets and asteroids — and something not seen before — “we cannot assume ‘business as usual,’ as many scientists argue,” Loeb wrote in an email Wednesday. “If we contemplate ‘something that we had not seen before,’ we must leave the artificial origin hypothesis on the table and collect more evidence on objects from the same class.”
(Marcia Dunn, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Weather service and agriculture officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to wheat crops.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official spring outlook, released Thursday, sees an expanding drought with a drier than normal April, May and June for a large swath of the country from Louisiana to Oregon, including some areas hardest hit by the most severe drought. And nearly all of the continental United States is looking at a warmer-than-normal spring — except for tiny parts of the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska — which makes drought worse.
“We are predicting prolonged and widespread drought,” National Weather Service Deputy Director Mary Erickson said. “It’s definitely something we’re watching and very concerned about.”
NOAA expects the spring drought to hit 74 million people.
Several factors go into worsening drought, the agency said. A La Niña cooling of parts of the central Pacific continues to bring dry weather for much of the country, while in the Southwest heavy summer monsoon rains failed to materialize. Meteorologists also say the California megadrought is associated with long-term climate change.
The national Drought Monitor shows almost 66 percent of the nation is in an abnormally dry condition, the highest mid-March level since 2002. And forecasters predict that will worsen, expanding in parts of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota, with small islands of relief in parts of the Great Lakes and New England.
More than 44 percent of the nation is in moderate or worse drought, and nearly 18 percent is in extreme or exceptional drought — all of it west of the Mississippi River. Climate scientists are calling what’s happening in the West a “megadrought” that started in 1999.
“The nearly West-wide drought is already quite severe in its breadth and intensity, and unfortunately it doesn’t appear likely that there will be much relief this spring,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who writes the Weather West blog and isn’t part of the NOAA outlook. “Winter precipitation has been much below average across much of California, and summer precipitation reached record low levels in 2020 across the desert Southwest.”
The dry, warm conditions in the upcoming months likely will bring “an enhanced wildfire season,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of NOAA’s prediction branch.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A 288-foot-long seawall will be built to replace the one that collapsed in late February. Since then, because of safety restrictions, passenger trains crossing the bluffs can travel no faster than 15 mph and freight trains are limited to 10 mph.
The slow speeds delay traffic on a vital component of the only north-south rail corridor between San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo. Together, Amtrak’s Surfliner intercity passenger trains and Coaster commuter trains serve 7.6 million passengers a year on what’s often called the LOSSAN corridor, according to the San Diego Association of Governments, the regional planning agency.
The rail line also carries freight trains, usually at night, from the Port of San Diego and other destinations within San Diego County. Loaded with new automobiles, construction supplies and other goods, freight trains contribute $1 billion annually to the region, SANDAG says.
The threat of losing that link in the coastal rail route has planners, engineers and geologists working overtime, nights and weekends, to protect the route on the Del Mar bluffs.
The original seawall, built in 1910, was about 60 feet long and 18 feet high, and held back soft material used to fill a canyon or ravine when the railroad was constructed. Soil in that section remains loose and hazardous.
“It’s very poorly compacted soil,” said John Haggerty, director of engineering and construction for the San Diego Association of Governments in a presentation Thursday to the North County Transit District’s board of directors.
The entire section of fill material will have to be dug out, replaced and compacted again before the reinforcement structures can be added, Haggerty said.
Also, about 18 vertical concrete-and-steel support columns, or soldier piles, will be installed parallel to the tracks at the top of the bluffs and as deep as 60 feet into the ground. The piles will be tied into horizontal anchors into the soil and connected at the top by concrete band just below the surface.
Work began with grading the slope on March 13 and 14 during one of the transit district’s regularly scheduled “all work windows,” when train service is suspended for the weekend to provide access for maintenance and construction. Another rail service suspension is planned for today and Sunday.
“We will work nights and weekends, and we may ask for additional work windows,” Haggerty said. The work schedule is limited by the need to accommodate daily passenger and freight trains. Also, high tides reach the base of the bluff and prohibit access from the beach for several hours a day.
A schedule outlined Thursday calls for additional preparation at the track level this weekend to prepare for the solider piles’ installation, which is expected in April and May, Haggerty said. Construction of the seawall, final grading and replanting with native vegetation will take place in June and July.
Much of the proposed emergency work was originally planned to occur in the fifth phase of the ongoing bluff stabilization project. The project began about 20 years ago, and the fourth phase was completed in January. The fifth phase was previously scheduled to start in 2023, but much of the work has been moved ahead because of the collapse.
Together, the fifth and sixth phases of bluff stabilization project are expected to cost about $100 million. The stabilization work is intended to protect the tracks on the bluffs until a new route can be built, possibly a tunnel bored beneath the streets and homes of Del Mar. Construction of a new route will cost at least $3 billion.
Earlier this month, a subcontractor hired by SANDAG began taking soil samples along the possible inland routes being considered.
Planning, design, and engineering, along with securing funding for an inland route are likely to take 10 years, officials have said. Construction could take an additional 10 years.
Completion of a new route will take widespread support from the public and their elected officials, especially if a countywide ballot measure is needed to raise the money required. In the past, the Del Mar City Council has publicly supported the idea, but at least one new council member said Friday he’s not on board.
“There needs to be much more critical discussion about the very low ridership numbers of the Coaster and Surfliner and their future ridership projections in light of the pandemic, post-pandemic remote working trends, the arrival of self-driving electric vehicles and transportation-as-a-service, and the potential of such vehicles to operate as a clean and dynamic point-to-point mass transit system on our highways and roads,” said Del Mar Councilman Dan Quirk, elected in November and the city’s new representative on the NCTD board.
Ridership on the Coaster is down 90 percent from a year ago because of the pandemic travel restrictions, said Kimberly Tucker, NCTD director of service and planning. However, district officials expect riders to start returning as more people are vaccinated.
District officials plan to restore some of the trains in April that were canceled during the pandemic, with hopes to fully restore service to pre-pandemic levels in June.
And while rail freight may bring the region $1 billion a year, that may not be worth the cost of drilling a tunnel beneath the city of Del Mar, Quirk said.
“Rail freight is minimal and accounts for about 0.5 percent of all freight in San Diego County,” Quirk said, quoting numbers from SANDAG. “The other 99 percent-plus is effectively on the highways.”
Quirk suggested the “highest and best use” for the train tracks from San Diego to San Luis Obispo is a pedestrian trail, an idea that has proved successful on a number of old rail lines in other parts of the United States.
That proposal does not fit with SANDAG’s Five Big Moves, announced by Executive Director Hasan Ikhratra in 2019.
Ikhrata said the county should spend less money on highway and freeway improvements so it can invest billions of dollars in mass transit, expanding rail lines and increasing train service. The coastal rail route is a key part of that plan.
His strategy has been a hard sell, especially in North County and East County areas where, until the pandemic, freeways were crowded with commuters. For the past year, like riders on passenger trains, the idea has stalled.
(Phil Diehl, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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There were scary moments. In High Point, N.C., WGHP-TV meteorologist Van Denton ordered everyone off the set during the 5 p.m. broadcast and into a makeup room for a few minutes after a storm with a tornado warning moved right over the station.
“I’ve never heard the roof rattle like that. We’ve never had to leave the studio during a broadcast,” said anchor Neill McNeill, who has been with the station 37 years.
But no serious damage or injuries were immediately reported in North Carolina from the storms near High Point and Charlotte, which both had tornado warnings.
In southwest Alabama, at least two people were hurt Wednesday when a tornado destroyed a house. Pieces of homes and twisted metal laid amid broken trees in the hardest-hit areas, but no one died and the region appeared to escape the kind of horrific toll many feared after ominous predictions of monster twisters and huge hail.
“Overall, we have a lot to be grateful for, as it could have been much worse,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said.
Forecasters issued a string of tornado warnings Thursday morning around the region where Alabama, Georgia and Florida intersect, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.
Forecasters worried the storms would intensify as they moved into South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday afternoon, but they mostly stayed below severe limits.
In South Carolina, the severe weather threat led the state Senate president to caution senators to stay home Thursday while urging staff to work remotely for their safety. House Speaker Jay Lucas kept his promise from the day before to meet less than an hour Thursday so members could beat the severe storms home.
In Alabama, between Montgomery and Birmingham in Chilton County, a storm destroyed at least three homes and roofs were yanked off houses in Moundville. Additional damage was reported in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi, where video showed an apparent tornado at Brookhaven.
More than 70,000 homes and businesses were without power at one point from Texas to Alabama.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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While nearly 16 million people in the Southeast could see powerful storms, the Storm Prediction Center said, a region of about 3 million stretching from southeastern Arkansas and northeastern Louisiana across Mississippi into Alabama was at high risk for big twisters that stay on the ground for miles, winds up to 80 mph and destructive hail.
Possible tornadoes knocked down trees, toppled power lines and damaged homes in rural Chilton County and the Alabama communities of Burnsville and Moundville, where power was out and trees blocked a main highway.
“Downtown Moundville got it. Some roofs and stuff got taken off houses,” said Michael Brown, whose family owns Moundville Ace Hardware and Building. “There’s a lot of trees down. I guess it had to be a tornado; it got out of here pretty fast.”
Additional damage was reported in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi, where video showed an apparent tornado at Brookhaven. High winds blew down signs and and trees in northeast Texas, and hailstones the size of baseballs were reported near the Alabama-Mississippi line, the weather service said.
More than 70,000 homes and businesses were without power from Texas to Alabama, and radar showed additional storms moving across the region as initial cleanup work began.
Storms were possible all the way from northern Texas in the west to northern Illinois and as far east as the Carolinas, the forecasters said, and the weather service issued more than 50 tornado warnings in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. Tornado watches included parts of seven states.
Dozens of school systems in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi canceled classes, switched to online learning or dismissed students early. Large vaccination clinics were canceled in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. In the Mississippi capital of Jackson, state employees were warned to head to stairwells if they hear weather sirens.
At least two waves of storms were likely, forecasters said, with the worst possibly coming overnight.
Gov. Kay Ivey placed Alabama under a state of emergency, and communities across the South used social media to share the location of tornado shelters.
Elsewhere, the severe weather threat led the South Carolina Senate president to caution senators to stay home today while urging staff to work remotely for their safety. House Speaker Jay Lucas said that chamber would meet less than an hour today to take up routine motions to be able to debate a budget next week — then adjourn.
Nearly all of South Carolina is under a moderate risk of severe storms with forecasters also saying there could be a few strong tornadoes.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The technology will be added to the county’s network of wildfire detection cameras that monitor California’s backcountry to spot the first outbreak of flames. Many of the cameras are affixed to existing radio communication towers.
“This early detection technology will provide emergency managers and first responders with round-the-clock monitoring, a sophisticated addition we are excited to add to our alert and warning toolkit,” Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins said.
Sonoma County, in the heart of Northern California’s wine country, has been hit hard by devastating wildfires in recent years. In 2017, a blaze caused thousands of people to flee, destroyed more than 5,000 homes, wiped out whole residential blocks in the city of Santa Rosa and killed 24 people.
The system will send a text or email to emergency crews when a possible fire is spotted, and the responding agency would then confirm whether a fire has started.
This month the county awarded a $300,000 contract to South Korea-based Alchera Inc., which specializes in visual AI algorithm development and deployment, officials said.
County officials say Alchera has been working on smoke and fire detection sensors since 2018 through the ALERTWildfire camera system, the existing network of 746 high-tech cameras.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Crews didn’t expect to reopen some highways for another day, though Interstate 25 reopened south of Wyoming’s capital, Cheyenne, for the first time since Saturday.
The weekend storm dumped more than 30 inches of snow on Cheyenne, snarling streets with 4-to-5-foot drifts that even four-wheel drive trucks couldn’t clear. Many side streets will remain impassable for cars for several more days, city officials warned.
Firefighters used an enclosed snow machine called a snowcat to get doctors to an operating room for a patient’s emergency surgery.
“Those guys are heroes,” said one of the surgeons, Elias Kfoury. “The first responders and how they stepped up to the occasion essentially resulted in saving somebody’s life.”
Volunteers using snowmobiles helped other people get to a hospital for crucial treatment, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported.
It was the city’s worst blizzard since at least 1979 and officials announced that schools in the area would be closed for a third straight day today.
Highway crews resorted to using bulldozers in addition to plows to move snow off interstates, including Interstate 80 between Cheyenne and Laramie. The 50-mile stretch includes the highest point along the coast-to-coast route, an 8,640-foot pass called the Summit that’s known for hairy weather even in less intense storms.
The Wyoming Legislature, which has been meeting for a month in an annual session already disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, didn’t convene for the second day in a row.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The winds are expected to last into early today and to keep San Diego’s daytime high from climbing out of the upper 50s. The temperature hit 58 Monday at San Diego International Airport — a reading that was 7 degrees below average.
“The winds are moving over cold water,” said Mark Moede, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Rancho Bernardo. “That will keep things cool.”
Through 3 p.m. Monday, the system dropped the following amounts of rain across the county:
| Lake Cuyamaca | 0.58 inches |
| Palomar Mountain | 0.45 inches |
| Otay Mountain | 0.37 inches |
| Vista | 0.22 inches |
| Encinitas | 0.22 inches |
| Kearny Mesa | 0.22 inches |
| Fallbrook | 0.21 inches |
| Oceanside | 0.20 inches |
| San Diego International Airport | 0.17 inches |
| Mount Laguna | 69 mph |
| Palomar Mountain | 55 mph |
| Volcan Mountain | 55 mph |
| Boulevard | 43 mph |
| Julian | 38 mph |
| Ranchita | 38 mph |
| Pine Valley | 36 mph |
| Mission Beach | 34 mph |
| Solana Beach | 27 mph |
The 27 inches that had fallen by the end of Sunday at Denver International Airport on the plains east of downtown made it the fourth biggest snowfall in the city’s history, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.
The storm system, fueled by moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, had moved out of the region and into northeastern Nebraska by Monday, said Evan Direnzo, a meteorologist for the weather service in Boulder.
“It’s definitely behind us,” he said of the storm’s snow and wind.
There was still plenty of digging out to do. Denver’s airport runways were closed just before noon on Sunday due to blowing snow and poor visibilities, and some stranded passengers spent the night at the airport. With the sun shining Monday, over 200 plows worked to clear the snow and ice and reopen four of the airport’s six runways, enough to meet demand following a number of flight cancellations, airport spokesperson Emily Williams said.
In Wyoming, the National Weather Service warned that driving would remain dangerous for the next several days there because of slick and snow covered roads.
Some trucks and other travelers were stranded in eastern Wyoming, where several major roads remained closed Monday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Midday Sunday, the snowstorm was raging, with winter storm warnings active in Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins in Colorado, and blizzard warnings in Cheyenne and Laramie in Wyoming. Snowfall totals of 12 to 20 inches were expected in northern Colorado through Sunday night, with 20 to 30 inches in southeastern Wyoming.
Heavier amounts, topping 3 feet, are possible in some of the highest terrain. Through early afternoon, 28.5 inches of snow had fallen near Buckhorn Mountain about 20 miles west of Fort Collins.
Cheyenne had received 25.8 inches of snow through noon local time, clinching a record for its biggest two-day snow total. In Cheyenne and throughout southeastern Wyoming, the National Weather Service forecast “difficult to impossible travel conditions” with “snow-packed roadways and whiteout conditions.”
Wind gusts had topped 50 mph in Cheyenne. Ten inches fell in four hours before sunrise, according to the National Weather Service. Weather radar indicated a lightning strike southwest of Cheyenne, where thundersnow occurred. The National Weather Service office in Cheyenne described the deteriorating conditions as “incredibly dangerous” in its morning forecast discussion.
In Colorado, about 8 to 15 inches had fallen in the Denver area through midday and 15 to 17 inches in Fort Collins.
Denver International Airport, which reported 11.1 inches early Sunday morning, shut down all runways midday after five hours of moderate to heavy snow, winds gusting between 20 and 40 mph, and a visibility of one-quarter mile or less.
A special bulletin from the National Weather Service early Sunday highlighted the potential for snowfall rates of up to 2 to 3 inches per hour in northern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska through early afternoon.
In some areas, the water content of the snow was bringing down trees and power lines.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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About 50 members of the Guard will be available for search and rescue, Polis said in a news conference as he encouraged residents to prepare by getting water and gas.
“I urge you to stay home if it’s going to snow hard in your area,” he said on Twitter.
Polis said some clinics had canceled COVID-19 vaccinations this weekend, and he asked residents to check directly with their provider.
In the Denver area, where a winter storm warning goes into effect early this morning through early Monday, up to 2 feet of snow is predicted, with wind gusts as high as 35 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Areas near Boulder and Fort Collins could see up to 30 inches of snow.
The storm is expected to hit hardest just west of Denver, including the Front Range mountains and foothills, where forecasters predict up to 4 feet of snow.
Travel will become difficult as gusty winds combine with heavy snowfall that could produce near blizzard conditions, the weather service said. The snow is expected to be both heavy and wet, increasing the chance of power outages and tree damage.
“If you can stay safe in your home or in another location, especially during the peak of this storm, please do so,” Shoshana Lew, executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, said in a news conference. “It gives our crews greater ability to do their jobs, keep essential travel possible for as long as possible and return our state roadways to normal as safely and as quickly as possible.”
Parts of Nebraska and Wyoming will also see considerable amounts of snow and ice, according to the weather service. Southeast Wyoming will be under a winter storm warning over the weekend. Snow accumulations in the area could reach 34 inches, with wind gusts up to 50 mph.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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March storms often dart through the region. But a mass of cold air that formed in the Gulf of Alaska continues to slowly sink through Southern California, blanketing mountains with heavy snow and wild bursts of rain.
The San Diego mountains had 12 to 18 inches of snow through late Thursday. By this morning, the figure could be 2 feet. Skies might clear by the afternoon, making the peaks visible from far away. Fresh snow reflects most sunlight, giving it a natural brilliance.
“I’m a transplant from Maine and I thought I wouldn’t care if I ever saw snow again,” said Scott Paulson, who works at UC San Diego’s Geisel Library. “But it’s been a long COVID winter and I’m really looking forward to seeing those not-so-distant mountains. It’ll be beautiful.”
Greater San Diego is in the home stretch of a three-day phenomenon that also has dropped 2.5 inches of rain in some areas. James Brotherton, a forecaster at the National Weather Service, was asked Thursday to give it a poetic spin.
“I’m a meteorologist, not a poet,” he said.
Brotherton added: “There was a little buckle in the jet stream that broke off a chunk of cold air that sank down here, bringing us all this snow.
“We’re getting a little taste of Alaska. This is Mother Nature at her finest,” he said. “There are people who’ve lived in California all of their lives and have never gone out to the mountains to see this kind of snow.”
And they probably should not do it early today.
It might still be snowing. Chains will be required in the mountains. Roads will be slippery. And some of the rain that is expected to fall before dawn could freeze.
Parts of Interstate 8 east of Alpine will look like they need a touch-up by a Zamboni.
Everywhere else, the landscape will sort of be gurgling, trying to absorb the rain that began to cycle ashore early Wednesday.
San Diego County covers about 4,500 square miles, so not every spot got a good soaking this week. But many places did.
Henshaw Dam, a reservoir southeast of Palomar Mountain, reported 2.49 inches of precipitation through Thursday afternoon. Rancho Bernardo, home of the weather service office, got 1.22 inches. Fashion Valley got about an inch.
In Carlsbad, about 0.60 inches fell, giving the ranunculus a rinsing at the Flower Fields along Interstate 5.
Those totals were expected to rise. Rain cells resembling rotating commas were forecast to continue, on and off, into this morning.
Alex Tardy, one of Brotherton’s colleagues at the weather service, was thankful but not overly impressed.
“This is only the fifth or sixth good storm we’ve had this winter,” Tardy said. “We usually have eight to 12. And we’re definitely going to need more. This isn’t going to undo the rain deficit we’ve had all winter.”
Through Thursday afternoon, San Diego International Airport had recorded about 4.13 inches of precipitation since the rainy season began on Oct. 1. That’s roughly 4 inches below average. And a system that’s about to take shape in the northwest Pacific looks like it will bypass San Diego early next week instead of slaking the region’s thirst.
The nature of this week’s storm is part of the problem.
Its moisture was guided by winds that sent it flowing up the face of the local mountains.
The air aloft was unusually cold, causing much of the moisture to condense into snow. If the system had been warmer, more water would have fallen in reservoirs, and the byways that feed them.
“We really haven’t gotten the atmospheric rivers and pineapple expresses we needed to avoid drought,” Tardy said.
Instead, the county has gotten an unusual amount of hail, including some that pinged the region on Thursday. People aren’t used to seeing it.
That wasn’t on Paulson’s mind Thursday. He was thinking about going to the top of Geisel Library to change the clock chimes so that they sync up with daylight saving time, which begins on Sunday.
“I’ll take extra time on the roof to look at the not-too-distant snow-capped mountains while atop the library,” Paulson said.
“Not only do I feel in control of time, but I also get a chance to become at one with snow again.”
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Mud coursed down Orange County’s rustic Silverado Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains, filling the yards of homes and trapping some cars in hubcap-deep muck.
No injuries were reported, but with more rain expected the Orange County Sheriff’s Department ordered Silverado and two other canyons evacuated.
Winter storm warnings were in effect in the southern Cascades, down the length of the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Southern California. Caltrans urged drivers to check for chain controls.
Conditions included showers, downpours, thunderstorms, hail and low-elevation snow.
For a time, the California Highway Patrol had to escort Interstate 5 traffic over Tejon Pass in the mountains north of Los Angeles.
To the east, heavy snow was reported on Interstate 15 in the high desert, Caltrans said.
In the Eastern Sierra, the Mammoth Mountain ski resort reported 13 inches to 15 inches of new snow, with more expected.
The Sierra snowpack is an important part of California’s water supply, but at the start of March its water content was about half the average normally recorded on April 1, when it is typically at its most robust.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Two key ingredients came together in Hawaii in recent days to deliver the rain: an upper-level disturbance and extra moisture in the lower layers of the atmosphere.
Meteorologists on Wednesday extended a flash flood watch for the entire state through Friday because of the potential for more rain and because the ground was already saturated.
The onslaught destroyed and heavily damaged two Maui bridges, along with at least half a dozen homes on the island.
The rain filled a 138-year-old reservoir once used to irrigate sugar plantation fields that has recently been kept empty as its owners prepare to dismantle it this summer. So much water accumulated that it started overflowing from the 57-foot-tall structure at one point Monday, and county officials ordered people downstream to evacuate amid fears the earthen dam could breach. Ultimately, the reservoir didn’t fail, and water levels dropped as the rain let up.
The National Weather Service reported 13.2 inches fell over eight hours in the vicinity of the dam in Haiku on Maui’s north coast.
“This is really an example of climate change in the present day,” Suzanne Case, the head of the state agency that regulates the dam, the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said in a statement. “We have a flood emergency because of the heavy rain bomb. And we’re seeing these more and more across the island chain — more frequent and more extreme events.”
On Oahu, flooding covered roads and yards in towns on the eastern coast. Rising waters in the Opaelua Stream, which carries waters from the mountains down to the ocean, set off an evacuation order for the small town of Haleiwa, a mecca for big-wave surfers.
Overall, Hawaii has had less rain in recent decades and at times has been battling drought. A 2010 report from the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant College Program said rainfall declined 15 percent over the prior 20 years. Yet the same report said between 1958 and 2007, rain events with the heaviest downpours increased 12 percent, underscoring that more intense rainstorms are growing in number.
Pao-Shin Chu, a University of Hawaii professor and the state’s climatologist, said theoretical studies suggest that for every 1-degree Celsius increase in sea surface temperatures, there is likely to be a 7 percent increase in atmospheric moisture.
Hawaii is experiencing some of this increased moisture already. In 2018, Kauai set a national record for the amount of rain recorded in a 24-hour period when 49.69 inches fell from April 14 to April 15.
(Audrey McAvoy, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“We’ll continue to get an assembly line of rain cells and hail and maybe some lightning,” said Mark Moede, a forecaster at the National Weather Service. “And this is going to be a very big snow-maker.”
The system moved ashore 10 days before the start of spring, canceling in-person classes in at least three school districts and leading to a rare snow day at Julian High School, a community also whipped by 30 mph winds. The temperature never got above 38.
Forecasters say that some coastal areas could receive an inch of rain by late today while areas east of Interstate 15 get soaked with 1.5 inches or more of precipitation in what has been a very dry winter.
More lightning and hail is expected. The air temperature over Southern California was about 5 degrees at 20,000 feet before the storm arrived. Today, it will fall to minus 24 degrees, which also will keep the snow falling in the mountains. The snow level will drop to 3,500 feet.
Sunrise Highway was still passable at 4 p.m. Wednesday, but snow was falling steadily. And motorists will be required to use chains in the mountains. Driving also will continue to be hazardous on Interstate 8, east of Alpine.
The system unfolded largely as forecast, bringing widespread showers before dawn Wednesday, then becoming intermittently stronger. Pine Valley got an inch of rain and San Ysidro got 0.83 inches through 2:30 p.m. Oceanside got about a half-inch.
The storm largely bypassed downtown San Diego through mid-afternoon, allowing operations to continue at the COVID-19 vaccination site near Petco Park. But managers were keeping an eye on the radar as unstable air moved in. A similar storm on March 3 produced lightning that briefly forced the station to close.
Three school districts in the backcountry announced plans to provide distance learning for all students Wednesday because of the storm. Schools in the Julian Union Elementary School District, Mountain Empire Unified School District and Warner Unified School District did not have any in-person instruction Wednesday, the county Office of Education said.
The storm could produce showers into Friday, which would give the region the kind of slow soaking that helps reduce the risk of wildfires. But the county’s seasonal rainfall remains way below average. San Diego International Airport has recorded only 3.78 inches of rain since Oct. 1. That’s close to 4.5 inches below normal.
Forecasters say it’s possible that a significant storm will move into California early next week, and another system could follow. But it’s too early to estimate rainfall.
(Gary Robbins&Karen Kucher, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The quake was the largest in a series of temblors that hit the region over several hours, including two earlier quakes that registered magnitude 7.4 and magnitude 7.3.
While the quakes triggered warning systems and caused traffic jams and some chaos in New Zealand as people scrambled to get to higher ground, they did not appear to pose a widespread threat to lives or major infrastructure.
That’s because of the remoteness of where they hit. The largest struck about 620 miles off the coast of New Zealand.
One of the earlier quakes hit much closer to New Zealand and awoke many people during the night as they felt a long, rumbling shaking.
“Hope everyone is ok out there,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote on Facebook.
After the largest quake, civil defense authorities in New Zealand told people in certain areas on the East Coast of the North Island that they should move immediately to higher ground and not stay in their homes. They said a damaging tsunami was possible.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System also cautioned that it could cause tsunami waves of up to 10 feet in Vanuatu and up to 3 feet in Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia and as far away as Mexico and Peru.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered in the remote Kermadec Islands at a depth of 12 miles.
The USGS said the magnitude 7.4 quake was likely a “foreshock” that contributed to the larger quake but that the first quake that hit closer to New Zealand was too far away in time and distance to have directly contributed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities said some empty houses, which had been abandoned by their inhabitants after suffering damage Wednesday, collapsed but no injuries were reported.
According to the Athens Geodynamic Institute, the aftershock struck as night fell Thursday outside the central town of Elasona, some 225 miles northwest of the Greek capital.
Local authorities advised people in the area to remain outdoors for a second night.
the army set up tents in the area Wednesday after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake jolted the region.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Residents in the city of 160,000 are still being warned to boil any water that does come out of the faucets.
“I pray it comes back on,” Jackson resident Nita Smith said. “I’m not sure how much more of this we can take.”
Smith has had no water at home for nearly three weeks.
Smith is concerned about her mother who has diabetes. Her mother and most of the other older people on her street don’t drive, so Smith has been helping them get water to clean themselves and flush their toilets.
A key focus of city crews is filling the system’s water tanks to an optimal level. But, public works director Charles Williams said Wednesday that fish, tree limbs and other debris have clogged screens where water moves from a reservoir into a treatment plant. That caused pressure to drop for the entire water system.
“Today was not a good day for us,” Williams said.
He said about a fourth of Jackson’s customers remained without running water. That is more than 10,000 connections, with most serving multiple people.
City officials on Wednesday continued distributing water for flushing toilets at several pick-up points. But they’re giving no specific timeline for resolving problems. Workers continue to fix dozens of water main breaks and leaks.
The crisis has taken a toll on businesses. Jeff Good is co-owner of three Jackson restaurants, and two of them remained closed Wednesday. In a Facebook update, Good said the businesses have insurance, but he’s concerned about his employees.
“We will not be financially ruined,” Good wrote. “The spirits of our team members are my biggest concern. A true malaise and depression is setting in.”
Mississippi’s capital city is not alone in water problems. More than two weeks have passed since the cold wave shut down the main power grid in Texas, leaving millions in freezing homes, causing about 50 deaths and disabling thousands of public water systems serving those millions.
Four public water systems in Texas remained out of commission Wednesday, affecting 456 customers, and 225 systems still have 135,299 customers boiling their tap water, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Also, 208 of the state’s 254 counties are still reporting public water system issues.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The shallow, magnitude 6.0 quake struck near the central city of Larissa. One man was hurt by falling debris but no serious injuries were reported.
Officials reported structural damage, mainly to old houses and buildings that saw walls collapse or crack. One of them was a primary school, stone-built in 1938, in the quake-hit village of Damasi where 63 students were attending classes.
“The teachers kept their cool and the pupils stuck to the emergency drill, and everyone got out OK,” headmaster Grigoris Letsios said while on a video call with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “The building will be condemned now. We’ll need a new school.”
The army set up tents and meal counters at a nearby soccer field as local officials urged people to remain outside their homes until they could be inspected. A series of powerful aftershocks of up to 5.2 magnitude kept many residents on edge.
“Have you seen how trees move when the wind blows? That’s how the houses moved,” Damasi resident Vangelis Mouseris said.
“I stood still like a statue. ... I’ve never felt something like this before.”
The quake struck at 12:16 p.m. and was also felt in neighboring Albania and North Macedonia, and as far north as Kosovo and Montenegro.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Wind advisories and a few high-wind warnings still blanketed most of New England on Tuesday. Wind chill advisories had been hoisted overnight, as well as falling temperatures combined with the blustery breezes.
The short-lived blast should be over by today, however, when afternoon highs should be as much as 20 degrees warmer.
Blustery winds fringed the Mid-Atlantic, too, but gusts in most places remained below 40 mph and did not meet wind-advisory criteria.
In Boston, the cold front came through Monday evening, scouring a saturated atmosphere riddled with mist and drizzle to the east and replacing it with bone-dry air. Monday started with temperatures in the 40s and 100 percent relative humidity, coupled with rain and fog. The dew point, a measure of how much moisture is present in the air, sat at 41 degrees.
By 5 p.m., winds were gusting to near 40 mph at Logan International Airport as the humidity fell. The dew point had made it to minus-3 by midnight, around the same time that winds were gusting between 45 and 50 mph. Boston had made it down to 13 degrees for Tuesday morning’s low, with winds still gusting over 45 mph as recently as 9 a.m.
(Matthew Cappucci, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Surveys of the Sierra snowpack, which normally supplies about 30 percent of California’s water, are a key element of the department’s water supply forecast. December, January and February are typically the wettest part of the so-called “water year,” which starts on Oct. 1 each year.
“As California closes out the fifth consecutive dry month of our water year, absent a series of strong storms in March or April we are going to end with a critically dry year on the heels of last year’s dry conditions,” Karla Nemeth, the department’s director, said in a statement.
Department chief Sean De Guzman manually surveyed an area at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe, where measurements date to 1941. He found a snow depth of 56 inches and a “snow water content” of 21 inches, translating to a water content 86 percent of average to date and 83 percent of the April 1 average.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The collapse reached within 35 feet of the edge of the railroad ties at the closest point, said Sean Loofbourrow, the North County Transit District’s chief of safety.
“One train was delayed approximately 7 minutes, Amtrak 768, for the initial inspection,” Loofbourrow said by email Monday. “There is a speed restriction in place (15 mph for passenger trains) while NCTD and SANDAG (the San Diego Association of Governments) determine the scope and timing of any potential repair.”
The collapse occurred just south of Fourth Street near Del Mar’s border with Torrey Pines State Beach. Drone video shot afterward showed a wide section of the cliff sheared off from the railroad level to the beach, leaving a pile of sandstone and rubble at the high-tide line.
Sheriff’s deputies cordoned off the beach near the collapse, and rescue dogs were brought in to search for anyone buried in the rubble. Nothing was found, and there were no reports of anyone injured or missing.
NCTD and SANDAG officials met Monday afternoon to discuss ways to safeguard the bluff-top tracks.
“We are working with SANDAG and our consultants to determine the scope and timing of repairs,” said NCTD Executive Director Matt Tucker in an email.
SANDAG, a regional planning agency, has been working with the NCTD and other agencies for decades to stabilize the 1.7 miles of track on the Del Mar bluffs, where the cliffs are increasingly threatened by coastal erosion.
Studies show that the bluffs disappear at an average rate of 6 inches per year. However, episodic events are the greatest threat, in which large sections break off, sometimes in perfect weather with no warning. Three women in a family sitting at Grandview Beach in Encinitas were killed by a collapse in August 2019.
Stormwater runoff during the heavy rains of Thanksgiving week in 2019 caused a failure that threatened the tracks and delayed trains until repairs could be completed a month later in a section just north of Sunday’s collapse.
Officials initially requested $5 million for the emergency construction, but only a portion of the money was spent, mostly to build a steel-reinforced concrete retaining wall that took several days. Some of the repair work was held over for a previously scheduled bluff stabilization project that was completed in 2020.
The stretch of tracks in Del Mar was originally installed more than 100 years ago.
Studies are under way, including soil samples to be taken this month, for a new inland route to be built through tunnels beneath the city. However, rerouting the tracks is expected to cost several billion dollars and require decades to complete.
A six-stage project to stabilize the tracks where they are began more than 20 years ago. The fourth phase of that work, completed in December, included the installation of additional concrete-and-steel support columns called soldier piles, bringing the total to more than 230. It also involved the replacement of a drainage channel atop the bluff and other work.
No support columns were visible in the area that collapsed Sunday morning.
The fifth phase of bluff stabilization work, with more support columns, drainage structures and bluff armoring, is expected to begin in 2023. No starting date has been scheduled for the sixth phase, which is designed to delay bluff retreat until an alternate route can be built.
Del Mar is the weak link in the 351-mile rail corridor between San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo. Much of the corridor has been double-tracked, with a second set of tracks to allow trains to pass each other. But Del Mar is one of the few sections where there is no room for a second line, creating a bottleneck where trains go slowly.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called LOSSAN corridor carried 7.6 million passengers and $1 billion in goods and services annually. Freight trains coming from the port at San Diego, usually traveling at night, carry 10 percent of all new foreign cars sold in the western United States.
Transit officials say the number of trains on the corridor will double by 2030, increasing the need for a safe and swift passage through Del Mar.
Most of the funding for the bluff stabilization projects comes from state and federal grants.
The California Transportation Commission awarded $108 million in December to SANDAG and NCTD as partial funding for several projects on the LOSSAN corridor in San Diego County including the Del Mar bluff stabilization, the construction of a Coaster passenger platform at the San Diego Convention Center, and other rail improvements.
(Phil Diehl, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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San Diego International Airport has recorded only 2.88 inches of precipitation since the latest rainy season began on Oct. 1. That’s 4.16 inches below average.
February has proven to be a near-total bust. Forecasters say the airport will finish the month with 0.10 inches of rain, making this the 15th driest February since record keeping began in 1855. San Diego averages 2.77 inches in February.
“It’s going to be dry this weekend,” said Liz Schenk, a forecaster for the National Weather Service. “We’re keeping an eye on a system for next week, but the timing is uncertain and it only looks like light precipitation.”
The situation is being made worse by the Santa Ana winds, which have been very persistent since early fall. The latest round whipped through North San Diego County, Orange County and the Inland Empire on Thursday, gusting more than 50 mph in some areas.
The winds have made the region dry out faster than usual. San Diego County was categorized as abnormally dry in a report released Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska.
There’s a chance that San Diego will rebound. There have been many years in which the city has gotten soaked in March, partially or fully wiping out deficits. In 1992, the city got 4.42 inches, which helped slay a major drought.
And occasionally, April turns out to be wet as well. Last April, the airport got 3.68 inches, which contributed to a wetter-than-normal year in San Diego.
But don’t count on it.
“There’s a chance it could get wet — but it’s only a chance,” said Mark Moede, a weather service forecaster.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The California Geological Survey is creating regulatory fault zones where developers of residential, commercial and public buildings may be required to show that their projects do not sit on top of active faults or are located a safe distance away from such systems.
The zones, which are expected to be adopted this summer, are part of the so-called Alquist-Priolo Act, which is meant to minimize the sort of death and destruction that can occur when an earthquake ruptures the Earth’s surface.
About 7,000 parcels located in and around La Jolla, Old Town, San Diego International Airport and downtown San Diego will be placed in the new fault zones.
The law generally does not pertain to minor structures such as retaining walls and swimming pools. But CGS says the regulations will apply to major projects that are currently being considered but have yet to be permitted, such as the redevelopment of Seaport Village.
The CGS wants to reduce the chances that people will be hurt or killed by activity on the Rose Canyon fault, which comes ashore in La Jolla, cuts through the city, and goes back offshore along the Silver Strand.
The fault is not as dangerous as the infamous San Andreas system, off to the east. But Rose Canyon produced a magnitude 6.0 quake in San Diego in 1862 that caused damage locally and generated shaking as far away as Los Angeles.
The strike-slip system is capable of producing a 6.9 quake that could damage 100,000 residences in greater San Diego and displace 36,000 households, according to a 2020 study by the San Diego chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. In a strike-slip system, one side of a fault moves horizontally in relation to the other when a quake occurs.
“A 6.0 quake could occur at any time and a much bigger one — something in the 6.8 to 6.9 range — appears to occur every 700 to 800 years,” said Tom Rockwell, a San Diego State University seismologist who has been studying the Rose Canyon system for decades.
“The last really big one happened between 1700 and 1750, but we shouldn’t relax. Rose Canyon is an active system that could produce something big during our lifetimes.”
The entire fault was once thought to be inactive. But scientists have learned otherwise, partly from conducting geological studies tied to the development of the city’s trolley system, renovation and expansion at the airport, and reviews of Seaport Village, which is targeted for major redevelopment.
The new regulatory fault zones being created in San Diego arise from a catastrophe that occurred 50 years ago this month — the 6.6 San Fernando Valley earthquake in Los Angeles County, which killed 64 people, heavily damaged freeways and inflicted at least $500 million in losses. The temblor also caused the spectacular collapse of the Olive View Community Hospital in Sylmar.
The earthquake ruptured the Earth’s surface in many areas, which made it clear that more needed to be done to avoid constructing buildings — particularly those that house people — on the top of active faults.
In 1972, the tragedy led to passage of the Alquist-Priolo Act, which identifies areas where active faults are known or thought to exist.
The state created one of the zones in La Jolla in 1991 and one in Point Loma in 2003. The city of San Diego created its own fault zone in the downtown area about 20 years ago.
The laws have not hobbled growth.
Since 2000, the population of San Diego has grown by about 175,000, to roughly 1.4 million. During that same period 60 buildings over eight stories in height were built in downtown San Diego and seven more are under construction, according to the city’s Development Services Department.
To a degree, such growth has been a boon to science, leading to geological studies throughout the city, including the area where Petco Park was built.
“We’ve learned that the Rose Canyon fault is more spread out, more distributed, than we knew and some of its strands are active,” Rockwell said.
It’s impossible to precisely quantify the threat posed by the fault. Scientists cannot accurately forecast when and where a fault will break, how long the rupture will be and whether it will trigger other faults, making things worse.
But that doesn’t stop them from producing estimates. And the one that the San Diego chapter of the EERI issued in 2020 is chilling.
The engineers ran computer programs that simulated a 6.9 quake on the Rose Canyon system. The algorithms led scientists to conclude that such a quake could knock out gas and water service between La Jolla and the Silver Strand for months, shut down the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and cause important municipal buildings to collapse. In some places, the surface would shift 6 to 7 feet and parts of Mission Bay would sink about one foot.
“We’ve been working on this study for five years, and it’s been a real wake-up call for stakeholders,” Jorge Meneses, the president of EERI-San Diego, told the Union-Tribune last March.
“But they have time to make San Diego more resilient to the kind of damages that could occur.”
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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In Texas, 7 million people were under orders to boil tap water before drinking it because low water pressure could have allowed bacteria to seep into the system. A man died at an Abilene health care facility when a lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible.
About 260,000 homes and businesses in the Tennessee county that includes Memphis were told to boil water because of water main ruptures and pumping station problems. Restaurants that can’t do so or don’t have bottled water were ordered to close. And water pressure problems prompted Memphis International Airport to cancel all incoming and outgoing Friday flights.
In Jackson, Miss., most of the city of about 161,000 had no running water. Crews pumped water to refill city tanks but faced a shortage of chemicals for treatment because icy roads made it difficult for distributors to deliver them, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said.
The water woes were the latest misery for people across the South who went without heat or electricity for days after the ice and snow storms earlier in the week, forcing rolling blackouts from Minnesota to Texas.
Texas electrical grid operators on Friday said electricity transmission had returned to normal for the first time since historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge in demand for electricity to warm up home — buckling the state’s power grid and causing the widespread blackouts.
Smaller outages remained, but Bill Magness, president of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said the grid now can provide power throughout the entire system.
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation into the failure for a state known as the U.S. energy capital.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In Texas on Thursday, about 325,000 homes and businesses remained without power, down from about 3 million a day earlier, though utility officials said limited rolling blackouts were still possible.
The storms also left more than 320,000 homes and businesses without power in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. About 70,000 power outages persisted after an ice storm in eastern Kentucky, while nearly 67,000 were without electricity in West Virginia.
And more than 100,000 customers remained without power Thursday in Oregon, a week after a massive snow and ice storm. Maria Pope, the CEO of Portland General Electric, said she expects power to be restored by tonight to more than 90 percent of the customers still in the dark.
Meanwhile, snow and ice moved into the Appalachians, northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, and later the Northeast. Back-to-back storms left 15 inches of snow in Little Rock, Ark., tying a 1918 record, the National Weather Service said.
The extreme weather was blamed for the deaths of more than four dozen people, some while trying to keep warm. In the Houston area, one family died from carbon monoxide as their car idled in their garage. A woman and her three grandchildren were killed in a fire that authorities said might have been caused by a fireplace they were using.
Utilities from Minnesota to Texas implemented rolling blackouts to ease strained power grids. Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities covering 14 states from the Dakotas to the Texas Panhandle, said rolling blackouts were no longer needed, but asked customers to conserve energy until at least Saturday night.
Texas’ remaining outages were mostly weather-related, rather than forced blackouts, according to the state’s grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin said rotating outages could return if electricity demand rises as people get power and heating back, though they wouldn’t last as long as outages earlier this week.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that state residents “are not out of the woods,” with temperatures still well below freezing statewide, south central Texas threatened by a winter storm and disruptions in food supply chains.
Adding to the state’s misery, the weather jeopardized drinking water systems. Authorities ordered 7 million people — a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — to boil tap water before drinking it, following record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and pipes.
Water pressure dropped after lines froze, and because many people left faucets dripping to prevent pipes from icing over, said Toby Baker, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Abbott urged residents to shut off water to their homes to prevent more busted pipes and preserve pressure in municipal systems.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said he expects that residents in the nation’s fourth-largest city will have to boil tap water before drinking it until Sunday or Monday.
President Joe Biden has declared emergencies in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana and vowed to send aid. FEMA sent generators to support water treatment plants, hospitals and nursing homes in Texas, along with thousands of blankets and ready-to-eat meals, officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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This winter, it’s Texas experiencing shutoffs because of extreme cold — but the effects are much more widespread.
An arctic blast hammered the Lone Star State over the Valentine’s and Presidents Day weekend, sending temperatures to record lows. Snow covered the state capitol in Austin and even towns in the Rio Grande Valley reported temperatures in the single digits. Some called it the hardest freeze since the 1940s.
With residents turning up the heat in their homes, demand surged and overwhelmed the power grid run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which oversees the system for about 90 percent of the state. Orders for utilities to shed load to maintain reserve margins were quickly followed by outages that left as many as 4.4 million customers without power.
The cold front has only slightly relented. On Wednesday morning, 2.7 million homes were still blacked out. At least 10 people in the Houston area alone have died due to weather-related incidents.
The outages in Texas have some similarities to last summer’s outages in California — but there’s also some striking differences. Most notably, the scope of the Texas outages is significantly larger.
The outages in California spanned two days. On Aug. 14, about 491,600 customers statewide lost power, including 59,000 in the San Diego Gas & Electric service territory. The next day, about 321,000 were without power across California, including 17,000 in SDG&E’s territory.
The duration was much shorter, too — no more than 2 1/2 hours, opposed to some Texas customers who have reported outages lasting days.
The sheer persistence of the extreme weather offered another similarity. In mid-August, a heat wave settled over nearly all of California for days, stressing the grid statewide and offering no chance to shift load from areas not sweltering to areas that were.
And the heat wave did not just blanket California but spread across the West. About 25 percent of California’s power mix comes from neighboring states, such as Nevada and Arizona. But with their own customers ramping up demand, energy resources from other states shriveled up, exacerbating California’s grid woes.
While the problem in Texas is cold, not heat, the story is familiar. The arctic chill has extended throughout large portions of the U.S. and is not expected to abate for days. The ERCOT reported Wednesday a power emergency in the Midwest meant the grid operator could not import about 600 megawatts of power from that part of the country, enough to power about 120,000 homes during periods of peak demand.
In the months after last summer’s outages, the California Energy Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Independent System Operator released a root cause analysis. The report did not blame a single cause for the blackouts but pointed to multiple reasons that were made worse by the heat.
For example, the natural gas fleet is one of the workhorses of the California grid but plants do not run as efficiently when the weather is extremely hot and they underperformed last August. Similarly, there was little to no breeze during the heat wave so generation from wind farms lagged.
At this point, it appears some similar things happened in Texas — only with sub-freezing conditions exacerbating things.
Power-generating sites in Texas are built to withstand hot weather and have not installed the equipment to ward off freezing temperatures like those installed in cold weather locales.
Wind turbines that dot the landscape of west Texas and the Panhandle froze up. Wind accounts for about 23 percent of the power mix in Texas and an official with the ERCOT estimated 16,000 megawatts of renewable generation — most of it wind — were offline Tuesday.
Some critics of renewable energy blamed wind’s lack of production for the outages but it appears just about every power sector fell short. Even a nuclear power plant in south Texas went down for a short time due to icy water.
Of about 45,0000 megawatts of power that was offline at the peak, about two-thirds of the generation was from “thermal” power plants — natural gas, coal and nuclear. Instruments seized up at gas and coal plants and gas wells froze shut, squeezing flows.
Another similarity — just as the outages last August angered Gov. Gavin Newsom, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was similarly agitated. “The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours. This is unacceptable,” Abbott said Tuesday, no doubt aware that power outages can prove politically fatal for governors, regardless of party.
Gov. Gray Davis of California was ousted in a recall election in large part due to the rolling blackouts during the state’s energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.
The outages represent a blow to the pride Texas takes in calling itself the country’s energy leader, especially after some Lone Star State politicians took jabs at California last August.
The California Independent System Operator, which manages the electric grid for about 80 percent of the state, took to Twitter on Tuesday, asking Californians to help out Texas and other states until the cold snap subsides.
The CAISO asked energy users to consider voluntarily conserving energy in the evening hours by unplugging small appliances and electronics, “reversing your fan blades to produce a gentle updraft” and putting computers in sleep and hibernate modes.
Texas has a separate energy grid than California but officials said the conservation measures can help facilitate energy imports and exports among states across the country.
“It’s always a good idea to conserve, but freeing up supplies for other areas is paramount right now,” said CAISO spokeswoman Anne Gonzales.
(Rob Nikolewski, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Nearly 3.4 million customers around the U.S. were still without electricity, and some also lost water service. Texas officials ordered 7 million people — a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — to boil tap water before drinking it following days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes.
The latest storm front was certain to complicate recovery efforts, especially in states that are unaccustomed to such weather — parts of Texas, Arkansas and the Lower Mississippi Valley.
“There’s really no letup to some of the misery people are feeling across that area,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service, referring to Texas.
The system was forecast to move into the Northeast today. More than 100 million people live in areas covered by some type of winter weather warning, watch or advisory, the weather service said.
This week’s extreme weather has been blamed for the deaths of more than 30 people, some of whom perished while struggling to keep warm inside their homes. In the Houston area, one family succumbed to carbon monoxide from car exhaust in their garage. Another family died while using a fireplace to keep warm.
Weather-related outages have been particularly stubborn in Oregon, where some customers have been without power for almost a week.
The worst U.S. outages by far have been in Texas, where 3 million homes and businesses remained without power as of midday Wednesday. More than 200,000 additional customers were in the dark in four Appalachian states, and nearly that many in the Pacific Northwest, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outage reports.
The president of the Texas power grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said he hoped many customers would see at least partial service restored later Wednesday or today.
Dashawn Walker, 33, was thrilled to find the power back on in his Dallas apartment. He stayed at a suburban hotel Tuesday night after being without power since Sunday, but said he was charged $474 for one night.
“It’s crazy,” Walker said. “I mean why would y’all go up on the hotels in the middle of a crisis?”
Water pressure has fallen across the state because lines have frozen, and many residents are leaving faucets dripping in hopes of preventing pipes from freezing, said Toby Baker, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Utilities from Minnesota to Texas implemented rolling blackouts to ease the burden on strained power grids. The Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities covering 14 states, said the blackouts were “a last resort to preserve the reliability of the electric system as a whole.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Progressive California has long been a leader in combating climate change, requiring solar panels on new homes and passing a law to make the nation’s most populated state rely entirely on renewable energy by 2045.
But environmental groups say California officials have long had a blind spot for the oil and gas industry, which has wielded its immense political power many times to kill or weaken legislation aimed at curtailing production.
That could be changing. Last year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced steps to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars and called on lawmakers to go further by banning fracking, a technique to extract oil and gas embedded in rock deep beneath the surface that climate groups say harms the environment and threatens public health.
Two state senators answered that call Wednesday, announcing a measure that would halt new fracking permits or renewals by Jan. 1 and ban the practice altogether by 2027. Democratic state Sens. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Monique Limon of Santa Barbara also say they will change the bill next month to halt new oil and gas permits within 2,500 feet of homes or schools by Jan. 1.
“This is real. It is harming so many people, and the time to deal with it in the future is over. We need to deal with it now,” Wiener said.
The oil and gas industry quickly pushed back. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president and CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association, said the legislation was “so broad and ambiguous” it would “lead to a total (oil) production ban in California.”
California was among the top oil-producing states in the country, reaching a peak of 394 million barrels in 1985. But by 2017, production had dropped significantly — the industry has exhausted much of California’s easily extractable oil reserves — and it now ranks behind Texas, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Alaska, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As of early Tuesday, San Diego International Airport had recorded 0.10 inches of rain for the month, and forecasters say it appears that the city will receive little or no precipitation for the rest of the February.
So this could turn out to be one of the 20 driest Februaries on record. Each of those 20 Februaries produced 0.20 inches or less of rain, dating back to 1855.
There have been three Februaries in which San Diego didn’t get any precipitation. They occurred in 1871, at a time when the U.S. only had 37 states, in 1914, the year John Spreckels unveiled the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park, and in 1967, the year snow fell on the San Diego coastline.
The February rainfall average is 2.27. The city’s wettest February occurred in 1884, when it got 9.05 inches of precipitation.
There is no rain in the current 10-day forecast. Meteorologist Stefanie Sullivan says some precipitation “could happen on the last day of February; we’ll have to see.”
On the upside, San Diego is expected to hit 70 or higher on Thursday for the first time in more than two weeks.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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When Houston police officers entered the property, responding to a welfare check, they found the two adults and two children, the police said in a statement Tuesday.
The woman and the girl did not survive, and the man and the boy were transported to the hospital.
The deaths are among a rising number of reports of people suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning in Texans during a storm that brought record-low temperatures and demands for electricity that overwhelmed the state’s electric grid, leaving millions of people in the dark and with no heat for more than 24 hours.
As more reports of poisoning emerged Tuesday, government officials sounded the alarm.
“SPREAD THE WORD: The number of people being admitted to local hospitals for carbon monoxide is rising at a disturbing rate. Do not bring any outdoor appliances (grills, etc) inside, or run your car inside the garage,” tweeted Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the equivalent of a county executive.
The Cy-Fair Fire Department, which provides emergency services to the Cypress-Fairbanks area outside Houston in Harris County, reported Tuesday afternoon that it had been receiving carbon monoxide poisoning calls, and that at least 23 people that included 12 children, in several different incidents, have been transported to hospitals for CO poisoning in the past 24 hours.
All of the incidents had resulted from people using charcoal grills to heat their homes and combat freezing temperatures, the department said, launching a warning against the use of ovens, grills and generators inside their homes.
“We are in a super dire situation, with power outages, no water and historic low temperatures people are desperately trying to keep their loved ones warm,” said Daniel Arizpe, public information officer at the Cy-Fair Fire Department.
The department was concerned that with the weather forecast for Tuesday night signaling below freezing and more ice and storms expected, the outages will most likely continue, leaving people even more desperate and leading to more cases of CO poisoning, Arizpe said.
At least 300 cases of poisoning were reported in Harris County since the beginning of the storm, including 90 calls to the Houston Fire Department and 100 cases treated in emergency rooms, the Houston Chronicle reported.
(Paulina Villegas, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The announcement by the National Energy Control office marked the third day that winter storms in Texas cut the supply of imported natural gas on which northern Mexico depends for generating much if its electricity.
Blackouts on Monday hit 5.9 million households and businesses in 23 states, while the rolling blackouts Tuesday hit all but six states, affecting 8 percent of all the country’s customers. On Tuesday, 540,000 customers in the northern states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas were without power for extended periods.
Authorities said they were trying to keep the rolling blackouts to 15 to 30 minutes apiece, but also said they would be random and thus unpredictable.
The export-oriented National Council of the Maquiladora Industry said hundreds of plants — perhaps as many as 1,600 — were shutting down due to the lack of power, throwing hundreds of thousands out of work.
The council complained that authorities were announcing the blackouts over Twitter with no warning or coordination. Council president Luis Hernandez called for organizing the blackouts, perhaps as predictable time blocks so industries could at least plan shutdowns.
“You can’t just be telling people, ‘Look on Twitter,’” he said.
Rosalinda Torres, head of the maquiladora council in the border city of Matamoros, said all the factories there were closed.
“The losses are going to run into the millions,” she said.
Much of the north remains without reliable power, and the rolling blackouts Tuesday were also hitting millions in Mexico’s central industrial heartland and states as far south as Guerrero.
Starting late Sunday, freezing weather in Texas led to a chain of events that left large swaths of northern Mexico without power.
Mexico’s government-owned utility, the Federal Electricity Commission, said its operations were left short as the winter storm in Texas froze natural gas pipelines. Private plants supply about 80 percent of power in northern Mexico, and most of those are gas-fired.
Overall, Mexico uses gas to generate about 60 percent of its power, compared to about 40 percent in the United States. Mexico built pipelines to take advantage of cheap natural gas from the U.S., often obtained by fracking in Texas, but Mexico does not allow fracking in its own territory.
The utility said it was seeking to make up for the shortfall by bringing on line more electricity from hydroelectric and coal-fired plants as well as gas supplied by tanker ships. But the energy control office said Mexico is still short by about 2,200 megawatts of power, forcing authorities to adopt rolling blackouts.
Many Mexicans questioned why their country is so dependent on U.S. supplies and why Mexico does not have backup stores of gas for more than a few hours of power generation.
Authorities knew the storm was coming, columnist Javier Tejado wrote in the newspaper El Universal, but “despite that, the Federal Electricity Commission did not want to, or could not, make provisions so that millions of Mexicans wouldn’t go without power during such cold weather.”
It was the latest embarrassing failure for the government utility, which has become a pet project for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who wants to reduce the role of private power generation.
In January, the utility acknowledged it had presented a falsified report on a Dec. 28 blackout, which it had blamed on a purported brush fire beneath transmission lines that caused the two-hour power failure affecting one-fourth of Mexico’s customers.
Lopez Obrador has not only defended the state-owned company, but he is seeking to eliminate competition from cleaner, privately built generating plants and renewable energy. Lopez Obrador is likely to use the cutoff of imported fuel to plug his plans for increased domestic production of dirtier coal, fuel oil and diesel to help make Mexico more self-sufficient.
In January, he proposed a bill that would put cleaner, natural gas and renewable private plants — many built with foreign investment — last in line for electricity purchases. The private and renewable energy plants were encouraged by Lopez Obrador’s predecessors in order to reduce carbon emissions.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm that overwhelmed power grids and immobilized the Southern Plains carried heavy snow and freezing rain into New England and the Deep South and left behind painfully low temperatures. Wind-chill warnings extended from Canada into Mexico.
In all, at least 20 deaths were reported. Other causes included car crashes and carbon monoxide poisoning. The weather also threatened to affect the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination effort. President Joe Biden’s administration said delays in vaccine shipments and deliveries were likely.
North Carolina’s Brunswick County had little notice of the dangerous weather, and a tornado warning was not issued until the storm was already on the ground.
The National Weather Service was “very surprised how rapidly this storm intensified and at the time of night when most people are at home and in bed, it creates a very dangerous situation,” Emergency Services Director Ed Conrow said.
In Chicago, a foot and a half of new snow forced public schools to cancel in-person classes on Tuesday. Hours earlier, along the normally balmy Gulf of Mexico, cross-country skier Sam Fagg hit fresh powder on the beach in Galveston, Texas.
The worst U.S. power outages were in Texas, as the storm forced the state’s power grid to the brink of collapse and left millions of residents submerged in darkness and bitter cold. The strain revealed the vulnerabilities of a distressed system and set off a political fight as lawmakers called for hearings and an inquiry into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the operator managing the flow of electricity to more than 26 million customers.
The storm, among the worst in a generation in Texas, led to the state’s grid becoming overwhelmed as supply withered against a soaring demand. Record-breaking cold weather spurred residents to crank up their electric heaters and pushed the need for electricity beyond the worst-case scenarios planned for by grid operators. At the same time, many of the state’s gas-fired power plants were knocked offline amid icy conditions, and some plants appeared to suffer fuel shortages as natural gas demand spiked nationwide.
“No one’s model of the power system envisioned that all 254 Texas counties would come under a winter storm warning at the same time,” said Joshua Rhodes, an expert on the state’s electric grid at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s putting major strain on both the electricity grid and the gas grid that feeds both electricity and heat.”
Bill Magness, the president and chief executive of the Electric Reliability Council, said Tuesday that the agency was “trying to get people’s power back on as quickly as possible,” while also balancing the need to “safely manage the balance of supply and demand on the grid” to avoid larger collapses in the power system.
Officials said that the council was moving quickly to return power. At one point, 400,000 homes had their electricity restored in a one-hour span. But in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, council officials could not give an estimate on how long it would take to fully restore service.
The consequences of the frigid weather, and the loss of electricity and natural gas, rippled across the state. In Harris County, which includes Houston, there were more than 200 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, which often occurs when generators are used indoors or without proper ventilation. A woman and a girl died after a car was left running in a garage to generate heat, Houston police said.
The operation of farms and ranches was also disrupted, potentially leading to “a food supply chain problem like we’ve never seen before,” said Sid Miller, the state agriculture commissioner.
Across the state, highways were iced over and not drivable. Cars slid through intersections in San Antonio, where Interstate 10 was closed, prompting the authorities to redirect 18-wheeler trucks along surface streets. A line of vehicles snaked down the road at one of the few open gas stations. Snacks and bottled water had been sold out, as many grocery stores remained closed.
Electric company officials across the state said the storm had created dueling challenges: the physical damage to infrastructure as trees snapped and power lines fell and also the surge in demand, which prompted rotating blackouts on homes and businesses. Officials said transformers were failing as they were operating with a level of demand usually seen on 100-degree summer days.
But instead of a managed package of rolling blackouts intended to be no more than 15 to 45 minutes, millions of Texans went without power for hours or more than a day. Some communities in the Rio Grande Valley, in South Texas, lost power Sunday night and still had not had it restored by Tuesday night.
“We know this has been very hard — it’s freezing outside,” Kerri Dunn, a spokesperson for Oncor, the state’s largest electric utility, said in a briefing with Dallas County officials. “But ultimately, we’re doing everything we can to protect the integrity of the grid and make sure this doesn’t come into a cascading blackout or anything with more disastrous proportions.”
The crisis in Texas also displayed a costly burden confronting electric utilities and operators across the country as climate change threatens to intensify heat waves, droughts, floods and other calamities that stand to further test the nation’s electric systems.
Texas’ main electric grid, which largely operates independently from the rest of the country, is primarily designed to handle the state’s most predictable weather extremes: soaring summer temperatures that spur millions of Texans to crank up their air conditioners.
While freezing weather is more rare, grid operators in Texas have long known that electricity demand can also spike in the winter, particularly after severe cold snaps in 2011 and 2018 strained the system.
“This is unacceptable,” Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday as he demanded an investigation into the failures that precipitated the outages this week.
More than 250,000 people also lost power across parts of Appalachia, and another 200,000 were without electricity following an ice storm in northwest Oregon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outage reports. Four million people lost power in Mexico.
Texas officials requested 60 generators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and planned to prioritize hospitals and nursing homes. The state opened 35 shelters to more than 1,000 occupants, the agency said.
More than 500 people sought comfort at one Houston shelter. Mayor Sylvester Turner said other warming centers were closed because they lost power.
Utilities from Minnesota to Texas implemented rolling blackouts to ease the burden on power grids straining to meet extreme demand for heat and electricity.
Blackouts lasting more than an hour began Tuesday morning for Oklahoma City and more than a dozen other communities, stopping electric-powered space heaters, furnaces and lights just as temperatures hovered around minus 8 degrees.
Oklahoma Gas & Electric rescinded plans for more blackouts but urged users to set thermostats at 68 degrees Fahrenheit, avoid using major electric appliances and turn off lights or appliances not in use.
However, Entergy began rolling blackouts Tuesday night in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Southeast Texas at the direction of its grid manager, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, “as a last resort and in order to prevent more extensive, prolonged power outages that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid,” according to a statement.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES; ASSOCIATED PRESS; NEW YORK TIMES)
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Beyond that, “it is too early to establish a timeline,” Caltrans spokesman Kevin Drabinski said. Though Monterey County officials partially lifted a storm-related evacuation order in the area last week, the debris flow in some places “is still active.”
The biggest problem is a 150-foot-long chasm where the highway used to run at Rat Creek, 2 miles south of the Esalen Institute. That area, authorities noted, lies below the “burn scar” left by the Dolan fire, which blackened about 125,000 acres last August.
In addition to the Rat Creek damage, authorities said about 60 points along the highway suffered damage. Many “need to dry out and stabilize before we can get in there and do full repairs and cleanup,” Drabinski said.
Until the coast route reopens, the only way from Southern California to the dramatic coastline of Big Sur is to drive up U.S. 101 to Salinas, then loop back along the coast through Carmel.
Once Caltrans has reset the highway closures, northbound drivers on Highway 1 will still be able to reach San Simeon, Hearst Castle (which is closed because of COVID-19 restrictions), Ragged Point and Gorda, crossing the line from San Luis Obispo County into Monterey County. But the coast road is to be closed 11.1 miles past the county line.
Southbound visitors from the Bay Area and other points north can still access Big Sur’s restaurants, lodgings, shops and parks, most of which remain open. For them, southbound traffic will stop near South Coast Center at milepost 34, about 2 miles south of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and the iconic scenery of McWay Falls.
The hillside saturation and slide took place Jan. 28 and 29 as rains were soaking much of the state.
Caltrans officials say that last Thursday, road crews found debris flows had washed out the southbound lane of the two-lane highway. When the crews returned the next morning, officials said, more flows had washed out the northbound lane as well.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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As nightfall threatened to plummet temperatures again into single digits, officials warned that homes still without power would likely not have heat until at least today as frustration mounted and the state’s electric grid came under growing demand and criticism.
“Things will likely get worse before they get better,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county of nearly 5 million people around Houston.
Temperatures nosedived into the single digits as far south as San Antonio, and homes that had already been without electricity for hours had no certainty about when the lights and heat would come back on, as the state’s overwhelmed power grid began imposing blackouts that are typically only seen in 100-degree summer days.
The storm was part of a massive system that brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to the southern Plains and was spreading across the Ohio Valley and to the Northeast.
The Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities across 14 states, called for rolling outages because the supply of reserve energy had been exhausted.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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At least 25 people have been killed in avalanches in the U.S. this year — more than the 23 who died last winter. Typically, 27 people die each year.
Avalanche forecasters say they have rarely seen the danger as high as it is now — and it will grow as more snow moves into the Rockies, adding weight and stress on a weak, granular base layer of snow that’s susceptible to breaking apart and triggering wide slides on slopes.
The main culprit is that ground layer of snow that dropped in October. A dry November weakened it, which is anywhere from several inches to several feet thick, and despite more snow falling, it’s stayed the consistency of granular sugar, said Dave Zinn, an avalanche forecaster for the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in Montana.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“Typically, we just don’t have quite this much cold air in place that far south,” said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
The storm has prompted officials in Houston to advise residents to prepare for power outages and hazardous roads that could be similar to those experienced in a Category 5 hurricane.
Chenard said significant ice and up to 12 inches of snow were expected across parts of the southern Plains into today.
The Dallas area had a covering of snow by Sunday morning, with flakes still falling, and as much as 6 inches was forecast.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued a disaster declaration for all of the state’s 254 counties, warned on Saturday: “All of Texas is facing an extremely dangerous winter storm.”
In a statement Sunday night, President Joe Biden also declared an emergency in Texas and ordered federal assistance to aid state and local response efforts. The declaration allows the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance, equipment and resources to those affected by the storm.
The weather was affecting operations at airports across the area, with more than 760 flights canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and at Dallas Love Field most of the nearly 200 flights for Southwest Airlines, the airport’s main carrier, were canceled.
American Airlines said about 345 of their flights were canceled at DFW Airport, its hub, by early Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest, tens of thousands of people were without power after a winter storm blanketed the region with ice and snow.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The earthquake left nearly 1 million households without power across the Fukushima region and forced the closure of roads and suspension of train services. While rattled residents braced for aftershocks, a landslide cut off a chunk of a main artery through Fukushima prefecture.
As of this morning, no deaths had been reported from the quake, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said. But more than 100 people were injured, according to the state broadcaster, NHK.
Japan’s meteorological service reported the quake’s magnitude as 7.3, up from the initial assessment of 7.1, but said there was no danger of a tsunami.
Coming a little less than a month before the 10th anniversary of what is known as the Great East Japan earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster, the quake rattled an area that stretched as far north as Hokkaido to the Chugoku region in western Japan.
The greater Tokyo area felt the quake for about 30 seconds starting at 11:08 p.m., but the shaking was felt most powerfully in Fukushima and Miyagi.
The strong quake was an unnerving reminder of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in 2011, killing more than 16,000 people*. After the subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, 164,000 people fled or were evacuated from around the plant.
Saturday’s quake struck as Tokyo and nine other large prefectures are under a state of emergency to contain the coronavirus.
The prime minister’s office immediately set up a crisis management office and the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, which operates the nuclear plants, said it was checking its monitoring posts in Fukushima to ensure that there were no radiation leaks.
Shortly after midnight, public broadcaster NHK reported that Tepco had detected “no major abnormalities” at any of the Dai-ichi reactors where the meltdowns occurred in 2011 or at the Dai-ni plant a few miles away in Fukushima.
There was no immediate information about the hundreds of tanks filled with contaminated water stored on the Dai-ichi site. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant on the west coast had suffered no damage, NHK reported.
According to Katsunobu Kato, chief Cabinet secretary to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, about 950,000 households were left without power across the affected areas. He said that two thermal power plants in Fukushima prefecture had been taken offline. Several bullet train lines were suspended. People in dozens of households were evacuated to shelters in several cities in Fukushima.
NB: as of today, the official death toll is 15,901 though 2529 are missing, making for a probably death toll of 18,500.
(Motoko Rich, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Freezing rain left roads, power lines and trees coated in ice in the Portland, Ore., region, and by Saturday morning more than 270,000 people were without power. The extreme conditions, loss of power and transportation problems prompted Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to declare a state of emergency Saturday afternoon.
“Crews are out in full force now and are coordinating with local emergency response teams on communications for emergency services, such as warming centers,” Brown said in a statement. “I’m committed to making state resources available to ensure crews have the resources they need on the ground.”
Winter storms and extreme cold affected much of the western U.S., particularly endangering homeless communities. Volunteers and shelter staffers were trying to ensure homeless residents in Casper, Wyo., were indoors as the National Weather Service warned of wind chill reaching as much as 35 degrees below zero over the weekend. Authorities in western Washington and western Oregon opened warming shelters in an effort to protect homeless residents from the wet and cold.
The power outages in the Portland region could extend throughout the weekend for some, said Elizabeth Lattanner, a spokeswoman for PGE, one of the major electricity providers in the region.
“In storms like these, restoration takes time given all of the challenges our crews face in getting to restoration sites and repairing those outages,” Lattanner said. “We have more than 600 PGE and contract personnel responding to the storm — it’s all hands on deck.”
Many ice-laden trees snapped under the weight, falling on power lines and causing transformers to blow out in showers of blue and orange sparks. By noon Saturday, more than 1,200 PGE power lines were down, Lattanner said.
Some Washington state residents were also socked in by the weather, with snow falling throughout the Seattle region on Saturday morning and freezing rain falling along the coast in Grays Harbor County.
Heavy snowfall also led to dangerous driving conditions in parts of eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho, with Malheur County, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho, expected to get as much as 6 inches of snow by Saturday afternoon.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Acting Interior Secretary Scott de la Vega rescinded a November order from former Secretary David Bernhardt that had been criticized by Republicans and Democrats, who said the Trump administration ignored their wishes when it changed a program that’s paid for billions of dollars in conservation work over more than five decades.
“Interior’s actions today affirm our support for one of America’s most successful and popular conservation programs,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Shannon Estenoz in a statement. “We look forward to further strengthening this successful program to ensure that all communities — from hikers and sportsmen to urban and underserved communities — have access to nature and the great outdoors.”
In November, officials announced that $125 million in congressionally authorized spending under the conservation program would buy up private property inside the boundaries of places including Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, Kentucky’s Green River National Wildlife Refuge and Florida’s Everglades region.
Besides giving local officials veto power, Bernhardt’s order also limited land acquisitions to property inside the existing boundaries of parks and refuges, rather than expanding their footprint.
In a separate action affecting public lands, Interior officials said Thursday they were delaying for 60 days a Trump administration rule finalized in January that would have allowed companies to pay less money for extracting oil and gas from government-owned reserves.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Multiple people were also trapped in their vehicles by the crashes, which took place just after 6 a.m. along Interstate 35W in Fort Worth and included cars and 18-wheeler trucks, according to the Fort Worth Fire Department. Videos broadcast by local TV stations showed cars piled on top of one another, tractor-trailers rolled onto their sides and other vehicles spun out along the roadway as firefighters worked the scene.
Thirty-six people were taken to hospitals, including three who were in critical condition at the scene, said Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar Mobile Healthcare, an emergency services agency working with the Fort Worth Police and Fire departments.
Sixty-five others sought medical care from area hospitals throughout the day, and the numbers were expected to increase, officials said. Among those injured were four officers, who were treated at area hospitals and released.
The Fire Department said in a statement that more than 100 vehicles were involved in the accident. At a news conference, Officer Daniel Segura of the Fort Worth Police described the crash as “a massive accident pileup” and said that the scene extended about 1 mile.
A spokesman for the Fire Department said that crews had to use tow trucks to disentangle the cars and that they went vehicle by vehicle to make sure that drivers and passengers had been extricated from the wrecks.
All northbound lanes of the interstate were closed because of “a major accident due to weather,” the Police Department said, and the highway was backed up in both directions for long distances.
“Seek alternate route,” the department urged travelers in a tweet.
Neil Noakes, chief of the Fort Worth Police Department, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that ice was a factor in the crash, which remained under investigation.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.7 quake southeast of the Loyalty Islands did not cause significant damage on loans.
Small tsunami waves of about 4 inches were detected in Vanuatu and New Caledonia early this morning. No damage was reported.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The findings ease concerns that increased emissions of the gas, CFC-11, would slow progress in the decades-long environmental struggle to repair the ozone layer, which filters ultraviolet radiation from the sun that can cause skin cancer and damage crops.
“We see a huge decline both in global emission rates and what’s coming from eastern China,” said Stephen Montzka, a research chemist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author of one of the studies. Work by Montzka and others three years ago first revealed the illegal emissions.
Matthew Rigby, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Bristol in England and an author of the second study, said that if emissions had not declined, “We could be seeing a delay in ozone recovery of years.” As of now, full recovery is still expected by the middle of the century.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The attack in Oldsmar, a city of 15,000 people in the Tampa Bay area, was caught before it could inflict harm, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County said at a news conference Monday. He said the level of sodium hydroxide — the main ingredient in drain cleaner — was changed from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million, dangerous levels that could have badly sickened residents if it had reached their homes.
“This is dangerous stuff,” Gualtieri said, urging managers of critical infrastructure systems, particularly in the Tampa area, to review and tighten their computer systems. “It’s a bad act. It’s a bad actor. It’s not just a little chlorine, or a little fluoride — you’re basically talking about lye.”
In a tweet, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the attempt to poison the water supply should be treated as a “matter of national security.”
Authorities said the plot unfolded Friday morning, when an employee noticed that someone was controlling his computer. He initially dismissed it because the city has software that allows supervisors to access computers remotely. But about 5 1/2 hours later, the employee saw that different programs were opening and that the level of lye changed.
The intrusion lasted between three and five minutes, the sheriff said.
Though the hack was mitigated before it could reach the drinking supply, the scenario — a cyberattack on a water treatment facility — has long been feared by cybersecurity experts. Across the nation, water plant operators, plus those at dams and oil and gas pipelines, have accelerated the transformation to digital systems that allow engineers and contractors to monitor temperature, pressure and chemical levels from remote work stations.
But experts have warned that the same remote access can be exploited by hackers looking to do harm.
As stay-at-home orders went into effect in Israel last year, Israeli officials reported that hackers affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard made a failed attempt to hack the country’s water supply. Israel retaliated in kind, with a disruptive cyberattack on an Iranian port.
Such attacks on critical infrastructure date back to at least 2007, when the U.S. and Israel famously conducted a joint attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility that took out roughly 1,000 uranium centrifuges.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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More than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups and police have been taking part in search-and-rescue operations in the northern state of Uttarakhand after Sunday’s flood, which destroyed one dam, damaged another and washed homes downstream.
Officials said the focus was on saving 37 workers who are stuck inside a tunnel at one of the affected hydropower plants. Heavy equipment was brought in to help clear the way through a tunnel and reach the workers, who have been out of contact since the flood.
Authorities fear many more people are dead and were searching for bodies downstream using boats.
The flood was caused when a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier snapped off Sunday morning, releasing water trapped behind it. Experts said the disaster could be linked to global warming and a team of scientists was flown to the site Monday to investigate what happened.
The floodwater rushed down the mountain and into other bodies of water, forcing the evacuation of many villages along the banks of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers. Video showed the muddy floodwaters tumbling through a valley and surging into a dam, breaking it into pieces with little resistance before roaring on downstream.
A hydroelectric plant on the Alaknanda was destroyed, and a plant under construction on the Dhauliganga was damaged. Flowing out of the Himalayan mountains, the two rivers meet before merging with the Ganges River.
The trapped workers were at the Dhauliganga plant, where on Sunday 12 workers were rescued from a separate tunnel.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Video from India’s northern state of Uttarakhand showed the muddy, concrete-gray floodwaters tumbling through a valley and surging into a dam, breaking it into pieces with little resistance before roaring on downstream. The flood turned the countryside into what looked like an ash-colored moonscape.
More than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups and police took part in the search-and-rescue operation, including soldiers expert in mountaineering, working into the night under bright halogen lights, authorities said.
The flood was caused when a portion of Nanda Devi glacier snapped off in the morning, releasing water trapped behind it, authorities said. It rushed down the mountain and into other bodies of water, forcing the evacuation of many villages along the banks of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers.
A hydroelectric plant on the Alaknanda was destroyed, and a plant under construction on the Dhauliganga was damaged, said Vivek Pandey, a spokesman for the paramilitary Indo Tibetan Border Police. Flowing out of the Himalayan mountains, the two rivers meet before merging with the Ganges River.
Pandey said at least 42 workers were trapped in two tunnels at the Dhauliganga project. Twelve were rescued from one of the tunnels, while at least 30 others remained stranded inside the other, he said.
“The rescuers used ropes and shovels to reach the mouth of the tunnel. They dug through the debris and entered the tunnel. They are yet to come in touch with the stranded people,” said Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, Uttarakhand’s top elected official.
An additional 140 workers at the two plants were missing, Pandey said. Surjeet Singh, a police official, said at least nine bodies were recovered.
Anjal Prakash, research director and adjunct professor at the Indian School of Business who has contributed to U.N.-sponsored research on global warming, said that while data on the cause of the disaster was not yet available, “this looks very much like a climate change event as the glaciers are melting due to global warming.“
Uttarakhand Police Chief Ashok Kumar said officials immediately alerted residents in the area and evacuated them to safer places. Downstream, popular tourist spots on the banks of the Ganges were shut, and all boating activities were stopped.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Sixteen of those fatalities were skiers or snowboarders, in 13 avalanches since Dec. 18, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, and 14 of those fatalities have occurred since Monday.
On Saturday in Montana, an avalanche in the Swan Range east of Kalispell caught several snowmobilers, killing a 60-year-old man from Kalispell, the Daily Interlake reported, in the state’s first avalanche-related fatality this season. The man’s identity was not immediately available.
The four who died Saturday in Utah were part of a group of eight experienced skiers in their early 20s to late 30s skiing the backcountry in groups of five and three, Unified police Sgt. Melody Cutler told The Salt Lake Tribune. The four who survived had minor injuries and managed to dig out the others. Those killed were Sarah Moughamian, 29; Louis Holian, 26; Stephanie Hopkins, 26; and Thomas Louis Steinbrecher, 23. All are from the Salt Lake City area.
All were carrying beacons, shovels and probes, Cutler said, while skiing where the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) had labeled as high-risk and had tweeted a warning of “large natural avalanches overnight. Dangerous avalanche conditions. Keep it [the slope] low angle.”
Some sophisticated equipment can be no match for an avalanche.
“It’s more like being in a car accident — it happens really quickly and it’s really violent,” Toby Weed, a forecaster for the UAC, warned Friday. “Nobody wants to get caught, much less buried, in an avalanche. It’s a horrible thing to live through and to die doing.”
According to Drew Hardesty of the UAC, the agency was aware of nearly 40 avalanches over the past week in the mountains east of Salt Lake City, but he said the “actual number is likely much higher.”
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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By early afternoon, 5 to 7 inches had already fallen in parts of northwestern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut. New York’s Central Park reported about 3 inches. The highest total was recorded in West Whiteland Township, west of Philadelphia, where about 9 inches had fallen.
The National Weather Service predicted up to 8 inches of snow in New York City and 2 to 4 inches in Washington, D.C. Up to a foot was projected to fall on some areas along the Connecticut coastline.
Large, fluffy flakes began falling in Rhode Island late Sunday morning, prompting local governments to enact street parking bans and warn of poor travel conditions for the rest of the day. A heavy band of snow heading northeast had dumped 5 inches in the towns of Sharon and Uxbridge, southeast of Boston, by 2 p.m.
Weather service forecaster Bob Oravec said a mix of snow and rain would move northward up the East Coast. “It is a fast-moving storm,” Oravec said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The stakes — and anxiety — are sky high.
The United Arab Emirates’ orbiter reaches Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will arrive on the scene a week later, on Feb. 18, to collect rocks for return to Earth — a key step in determining whether life ever existed at Mars.
Both the UAE and China are newcomers at Mars, where more than half of Earth’s emissaries have failed. China’s first Mars mission, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth’s orbit.
All three spacecraft rocketed away within days of one another last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that occurs only every two years. That’s why their arrivals are close together.
The rover Perseverance will dive in straight away for a harrowing sky-crane touchdown similar to the Curiosity rover’s grand Martian entrance in 2012. The odds are in NASA’s favor: It’s nailed eight of its nine attempted Mars landings.
Perseverance’s $3 billion mission is the first leg in a U.S.-European effort to bring Mars samples to Earth in the next decade.
Perseverance is aiming for an ancient river delta that seems a logical spot for once harboring life. This landing zone in Jezero Crater is so treacherous that NASA nixed it for Curiosity, but so tantalizing that scientists are keen to get hold of its rocks.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire had razed 22,200 acres of farm and woodland in hills east of Perth by early today, authorities said.
Western Australia state’s Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm said the number of houses destroyed had jumped to 71 overnight, and conditions would remain difficult for firefighters with no rain forecast until Sunday. The jump was from 59 houses late Tuesday.
“We’re into day three of this fire today and it’s going to continue to be a challenging fire for us for at least the next three or four or five days,” Klemm said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Some officials said that since vaccine supplies were thin to begin with, they didn’t anticipate having big problems getting caught up on distribution after a day or two of canceled appointments.
In New Jersey, travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday described being forced to endure widespread disruptions.
Keno Walter-White said he got stranded at the airport after his flight was canceled and bus and tram services were suspended.
“I’ve been in the airport for three days, snowed in,” said Walter-White, of Las Vegas. “No kind of accommodations.”
Bands of snow continued through parts of the region Tuesday afternoon, but the worst was over, with more than 30 inches in parts of New Jersey and just a few inches in Boston.
Lara Pagano, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in College Park, Md., noted that while several areas in the mid-Atlantic saw measurable snowfall for a few consecutive days, that hasn’t shattered such records.
For example, she said, the most consecutive days with measured snowfall for Washington is four, while the mark is five for New York City and six for Philadelphia.
“While this storm has been a prolonged event, it’s not a record-setter in that sense, but it does rank up there pretty high, of course,” she said.
The sprawling, lumbering storm had already walloped the eastern United States by Monday. More than 17 inches of snow dropped on Manhattan’s Central Park, and as much as 30 inches was reported in northern New Jersey.
While New York City school kids had another day of all-remote learning because of the snow, above-ground subway and train service returned early Tuesday, and a ban on certain large trucks on state highways was lifted. Some vaccination sites in the city remained closed, but others, including those run by the public hospital system, were open Tuesday.
High tide caused flooding early Tuesday in coastal areas of Massachusetts, where the storm had already disrupted the second phase of the state’s vaccine rollout as a Boston site that was supposed to open Monday for residents ages 75 and older did not; some other mass vaccination sites remained open.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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With flakes falling since Sunday evening, the National Weather Service said more than 13 inches of snow had fallen in Manhattan’s Central Park as of 1 p.m., and as much as 16 inches was reported in northern New Jersey. Although the heaviest parts of the storm had moved through the metropolitan area by Monday evening, lighter snow showers were expected to continue virtually all day today, forecaster James Tomasini said.
“We’re looking at a long two days here,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a virtual news conference.
Parts of New England also braced for a foot or more by the time the snow finally tapers off in the northernmost states by Wednesday evening, the weather service said. At least three deaths that appeared to be related to the storm were reported, in Pennsylvania.
In Pennsylvania, authorities said a 67-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who reportedly wandered away from her home was found dead of hypothermia on an Allentown street Monday. About 60 miles north in Plains Township, a shooting after an argument over snow removal killed a married couple, and the suspect was later found dead at his nearby home of a wound believed to have been self-inflicted, officials in Luzerne County said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A statement from the Norwegian Armed Forces said Sunday that the accident took place Saturday afternoon on Jan Mayen island, located 310 miles east of Greenland and 620 miles west of mainland Norway.
“Three employees based at the Armed Forces station on Jan Mayen were on a leisure trip when they were hit by an avalanche, some distance from the station,” the Norwegian military said.
One managed to break free after being buried in snow for two hours and returned back to the military base for help, it added.
Norwegian newspaper VG said the victims were a woman in her 50s and a man in his 30s. Military chief Eirik Kristoffersen and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg offered their condolences to the victims’ relatives.
The island is partly covered by glaciers and is frequented by polar bears.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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It was already impacting coronavirus vaccinations in New York and New Jersey, with appointments for today needing to be canceled and rescheduled.
The storm system blanketed parts of the Midwest in the most snow some places had seen in several years. Chicago got almost 7 inches of snow by Sunday morning, leading to the cancellation of a couple hundred flights at the city’s two airports. In Wisconsin, snow depths in some counties near Lake Michigan had reached more than 15 inches, and the snow was still falling.
“That’s more snow than we’ve seen in a decade,” Chris Stumpf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wis., told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Three to 5 inches of snow arrived in central Ohio by early Sunday, making for some slippery roads. Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia had also received some snow, with up to 3 inches in some areas. By the afternoon, the snow reached Pennsylvania.
Snow and cold in Washington led President Joe Biden to postpone a visit to the State Department that had been planned for today. A White House official said Sunday night that the visit would be rescheduled for later in the week when the agency’s staff and diplomats could more safely commute to attend.
Heavy snow falling at an inch to 3 inches an hour was forecast for today in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the National Weather Service said. Much of the region could see blizzard-like conditions, with a foot to 18 inches of snow.
Temperatures were expected to be in the upper 20s to lower 30s for the New York City metro area.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The system also deposited at least 9 inches of snow at Palomar Mountain, coating the mountain only four days after it was frosted by a bigger storm.
This was the third storm to hit the county in a week, and a fourth system could arrive Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Rain began to fall late Thursday night and intensified before dawn Friday. Through 12:45 p.m., Lake Cuyamaca had received 1.38 inches of rain while Fallbrook got 1.36 inches and Oceanside and Point Loma got 1.29 inches.
The weather service reported 1.31 at Point Loma; 1.15 inches at Bonsall; and 1.12 inches at Santee.
San Diego International Airport recorded 0.87 inches; it had a 3.07 inch rain deficit.
Hail fell in Point Loma, North Park and La Mesa.
The storm did not shut down the COVID-19 Vaccination Center outside Petco Park, but it did cancel outdoor classes at UC San Diego.
Forecasters said the storm raised the level of the San Diego River to 7 feet, 7 inches by Friday afternoon. But the river won’t reach flood stage, which is 11 feet, 3 inches.
The weather will turn clear over the weekend. The daytime high will reach 65 Sunday in San Diego. That’s average for this time of year.
| Location | Total (in) |
| Oceanside | 1.50 |
| Fallbrook | 1.39 |
| Bonsai | 1.39 |
| Escondido | 1.36 |
| Kearny Mesa | 1.20 |
| San Ysidro | 1.10 |
| Lemon Grove | 1.08 |
| Point Loma | 1.06 |
| Cuyamaca Lake | 1.01 |
| Chula Vista | 0.89 |
| Santee | 0.88 |
| S.D. International Airport | 0.87 |
| Borrego Springs | 0.01 |
The atmospheric river weather system that barreled ashore in Northern California early in the week rolled quickly through Southern California overnight and was moving east before dawn. Remnants unleashed occasional downpours and hail.
There were no immediate reports of large-scale debris flows in the region, but mud slid off burned slopes in Orange County’s Silverado Canyon and from a fire-scorched hillside onto state Route 39 on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
About 8,200 residents had been ordered in advance to evacuate from areas near fire scars in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Flash flood watches remained in effect for parts of Southern California and winter storm and avalanche warnings continued in the Sierra. But most of the state was able to turn to cleanup, damage assessments and tallying astonishing rain and snowfall.
Along the scenic central coast, Highway 1 was closed near Big Sur after a section of the roadway collapsed when the cliffside below gave way amid torrential rain.
Highway crews were to begin damage assessments Friday and there was no estimate on when the popular driving route would reopen, the California Department of Transportation said.
Central coast rainfall topped 15 inches when the storm stalled there at midweek, triggering mud flows that damaged about two dozen homes. Firefighters used earth-moving equipment Thursday to rescue a horse and pony from deep mud near Salinas.
The storm also unleashed a huge amount of snow in the Sierra, where the annual snowpack normally provides about a third of the state’s water supply.
The Mammoth Mountain ski resort reported the storm had dropped 8.92 feet of snow as of early Friday, with more falling. California Department of Transportation plows worked to clear some mountain highways and others were open with strict chain requirements.
Yosemite National Park officials said the snowstorm would force it to remain closed until at least Feb. 1.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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After barreling ashore Tuesday in Northern California, the storm took aim like a massive firehose at the central coast, where the two-day rainfall total neared 14 inches in San Luis Obispo County, the National Weather Service said.
The system then dropped into Southern California, bringing threats of flash floods and debris flows to areas scorched by recent blazes.
About 8,200 people were under orders to evacuate foothill neighborhoods beneath the burn scar of last summer’s El Dorado Fire near Yucaipa. Deputies went door to door urging people to leave in the Oak Glen area.
“We’ve given an evacuation order. You need to heed it,” San Bernardino County Fire Division Chief Grant Malinowski said during a news conference. “Don’t wait, do it now.”
Evacuation orders were also in place for hillside communities in neighboring Riverside County. Meanwhile, the California Office of Emergency Services positioned specialized response strike teams and task forces in 11 counties.
In the Eastern Sierra, Mammoth Mountain ski resort reported 7.25 feet of new snow on its summit. A blizzard warning remained in effect for the range on both sides of the California-Nevada border.
The California Highway Patrol closed a 75-mile stretch of Interstate 80 following multiple spinouts along the key route east of Sacramento to the Nevada border west of Reno. No injuries were reported. U.S. Highway 395 remained closed from near Bishop north to the California-Nevada border.
“I would not venture into the Sierra if you don’t have to.” National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Hoon in Reno tweeted.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The interim report said data collected by investigators showed that the sealing plugs sitting atop the No. 2 and 3 reactor containment vessels were as fatally contaminated as nuclear fuel debris that had melted and fell to the bottom of the reactors following the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake.
The experts said the bottom of the sealed plug, a triple-layered concrete disc-shaped lid 39 feet in diameter sitting atop the primary containment vessel, is coated with high levels of radioactive Cesium 137.
Nuclear Regulation Commission Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa called the findings “extremely serious” and said they would make melted fuel removal “more difficult.”
Removing an estimated 900 tons of melted fuel debris from three reactors is a daunting task expected to take decades, and officials have not been able to describe exactly when or how it may end.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Tim Herring, who survived the twister by huddling in a bathtub with wife Patti Herring as roaring winds ripped off the roof of their house and splintered walls, had followed weather forecasts during the day and didn’t expect the worst until it happened late Monday.
“I’ve lived here 64 years. I wasn’t too worried,” he said. Herring added: “I’ve helped folks after tornadoes. This time, it’s us.”
Many others narrowly escaped with their lives. At least 30 people were injured as the tornado carved a 10-mile path through Birmingham’s northern suburbs, an area severely damaged by a much larger tornado a decade ago.
On one road after another, pieces of buildings, furniture, appliances and trees were strewn about and vehicles came to rest in awkward positions, as if a child had scattered a collection of Matchbox cars.
The teen killed in the storm was pronounced dead at the scene Tuesday morning, and several of his family members were critically injured when their home collapsed, trapping them in the basement, Fultondale Police Chief D.P. Smith said.
“They were doing what they were supposed to be doing,” the chief said. The 14-year-old killed was in the ninth grade, according to Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Walter Gonsoulin.
Fultondale Fire Chief Justin McKenzie said 18 of the 30 people injured had to go to hospital. Six others were pulled uninjured from damaged structures Tuesday morning.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The system, an icy monster out of British Columbia, was expected to drop up to 2 feet of snow on Mount Laguna and 18 inches on Palomar Mountain by early today — creating a winter wonderland that was likely to be visible from North County beaches by the afternoon.
Through 5 p.m., Big Black Mountain near Ramona had gotten 2.33 inches of rain and Henshaw Dam had recorded 1.79 inches. The totals were expected to rise significantly by dawn due to the fresh rounds of rain that were swooshing through North County on Monday night.
The storm also brought pea-sized hail to Escondido, Oceanside, Carlsbad and La Mesa, sparked lightning in Ramona, and roiled the surf in a county that knows a thing or two about big waves.
The unusually persistent winds gusted to 65 mph at Solana Beach, and Solana Beach and Mission Beach experienced more than 12 consecutive hours of 45 to 60 mph winds, says the National Weather Service. Del Mar hit 55 mph and Oceanside reached 52 mph. Palm fronds cork-screwed into the air like Dorothy’s house being snatched by the tornado in “The Wizard of Oz.”
The winds were expected to generate 17-foot to 18-foot waves at Windansea and Bird Rock in La Jolla on Monday night, with hourly sets to 35 feet, according to James Behrens, who manages a nationwide network of wave buoys from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
“This isn’t going to happen during a particularly big high tide. But if it had, we could have expected coastal inundation in low-lying areas along our entire coastline,” Behrens said.
Monday’s storm also filled the county with record cold air. The temperature in Escondido was only 39 degrees at midday, and it barely made it to 57 in San Diego, nearly 10 degrees below average. Ramona hit 48, the lowest high temperature it has ever had on January 25, breaking the previous record of 51, set in 1979. Alpine reached 44, breaking the lowest high temperature of 48, also set in 1979. The National Weather Service tracked the system closely while trying to figure out if a new storm from the North Pacific will tap subtropical moisture late Thursday and early Friday, giving the county yet another soaking.
The story of the day was the length, breadth and intensity of the winds, which began to arrive late Sunday, when they produced funnel clouds over downtown San Diego and off Oceanside Harbor.
The region’s most powerful winds are usually the Santa Anas, which blow from the desert to the sea. But the latest storm rushed and roared ashore from the Pacific, causing most people to stay indoors on a day when the state relaxed COVID-19 restrictions.
The winds shut down the county’s COVID-19 vaccination center near Petco Park at least until Wednesday, jostled commercial jetliners as they took off from San Diego International Airport, sent big frothy waves slopping over the Oceanside breakwater, and sent a tree crashing onto a truck in Leucadia.
Authorities said the winds also toppled a 30-foot sign at Sweetwater Plaza in National City. And driving became a nightmare on Interstate 8 in East County, where 50 mph-plus winds mixed with snow, rain and hail.
The winds caused power outages. At 1:30 p.m. on Monday, about 2,500 San Diego Gas & Electric customers were without electricity in such places as Carlsbad, Pala, Rainbow, Live Oak Park and, as it turned out, the ironically named community of Winterwarm.
“It’s very rare that we get onshore winds that are this strong and last this long,” said Alex Tardy, a weather service forecaster.
The mixture of wind, rain and snow kept maintenance crews busy.
Crews responded to reports of trees blocking roads in the region. High winds toppled 40-foot trees in the Leucadia area, prompting a stretch of North Coast Highway 101 to be shut down, said sheriff’s Lt. Pat McEvoy.
The trees fell around 4:50 a.m., with one blocking North Coast Highway near Jupiter Street and another falling on North Coast near Cadmus Street, McEvoy said. The road was shut down in both directions until the trees were cleared out.
In Oak Park, gusty winds caused a tall tree to snap in half shortly after 5:30 a.m., with part of the tree falling near a parked truck and taking down power lines. Residents on 55th Street near Streamview Drive were left without power and utility crews were called, according to OnScene TV.
About the same time, a eucalyptus tree estimated to be about 150 feet tall blew over onto North Torrey Pines Road near Muir College Drive. The downed tree blocked traffic on the road until crews could cut it up and remove it. In Oceanside, a 30-foot tree in a shopping center blew over and fell onto Mission Avenue west of South El Camino Real. Police closed the westbound lanes of the road shortly before 6 a.m., and the lanes remained closed until workers could cut up the tree, said Oceanside police spokesman Tom Bussey.
There also were reports that gusty winds blew over a metal carport at a Point Loma apartment complex, damaging several vehicles, San Diego police said.
It’s unclear whether the atmospheric-river storm that will reach California later this week will have much of an impact in San Diego County.
“The models have it hitting Northern and Central California. We don’t know how far south it will come,” said Julie Kalansky, operations manager of UCSD’s Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes.
“This could be good for the water supply” in the northern part of the state, where there are big reservoirs, she said. “But high precipitation could cause post-wildfire debris flows, especially in the Monterey area.”
(Gary Robbins, Karen Kutcher&David Hernandez, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The first system will arrive before dawn today and will produce about 0.40 inches of precipitation by the time it fades away. The mountains could get 0.75 inches. San Diego’s daytime high will only reach 58 degrees, which is 7 degrees below average.
The second system, now taking shape in British Columbia, is much bigger and far colder. It will begin to move ashore late Sunday night and will slam the county on Monday, generating nearly an inch of rain in San Diego and higher amounts inland. The rain will turn to snow as cold air floods into Southern California.
“The snow level could get down to 3,000 feet, and there will be snow on Interstate 8,” said Miguel Miller, a weather service forecaster. “If you don’t need to drive in that area on Monday, you shouldn’t.”
Forecaster models suggest that Mount Laguna and Palomar Mountain will get 1 foot of snow, and a similar amount will hit Julian, which rarely receives that much from a single storm. The daytime high in San Diego Monday will be 55.
The skies should clear by late Tuesday or early Wednesday. But a potentially large storm out of the northwest will swirl into the county late Thursday and produce about an inch of rain into Friday along the coast.
“This will be a very wet system for Northern California and could be for Southern California as well,” Miller said. “We could end up getting an atmospheric river.”
In this region of the world, an atmospheric river generally refers to plumes of moisture from the west-northwest that draw additional moisture from the sub-tropics, making many storms much bigger.
San Diego is in need of rain. The city has recorded only 0.99 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1 — which is roughly 3.5 inches below normal. Miller says the three storms could collectively produce 2.5 inches of rain.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The legislation, which is required for the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant, was approved by the House 395-4 in November. But the Senate didn’t vote to approve it. With a new Congress now in place, Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego) plans to introduce the legislation again in coming weeks, said Adrian Granda, director of government affairs for Mayor Todd Gloria.
The legislation, the Ocean Pollution Reduction Act II, would save taxpayers millions by essentially exempting the city from the Clean Water Act.
It would replace the city’s complex and expensive federal waiver application for the Point Loma plant with a much simpler process. That could end years of wrangling over the waiver between federal officials, environmental groups and the city.
If federal officials ever deny the waiver and force San Diego to upgrade the plant, that cost could exceed $2 billion, city officials say.
The Clean Water Act requires most water agencies to treat sewage twice before releasing into a bay, ocean or some other body of water.
San Diego officials have argued that the city shouldn’t have to meet the Clean Water Act’s requirements for a “secondary” treatment of sewage at the Point Loma plant for two main reasons.
The city uses a tube called an “outfall” to discharge the treated sewage 4.5 miles into the ocean, where it can be dispersed effectively enough to have minimal impact on wildlife.
And San Diego is spending roughly $5 billion to build a sewage recycling system that will provide one-third of the city’s water supply by 2035. That system, called Pure Water, will reduce daily discharge from Point Loma by 100 million gallons.
To become exempt from secondary treatment and be eligible for the simplified federal waiver, San Diego must demonstrate that Pure Water can deliver on its promises.
(David Garrick, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The winds also caused hazardous driving conditions on the eastern leg of Interstate 8 and sent dust swirling east of Valley Center, where the Santa Anas shot past 80 mph — as strong as a category one hurricane.
And in an unusual occurrence, the Santa Anas were accompanied by rain. Mount Laguna got 0.62 inches, while Lake Cuyamaca got 0.48 inches and Julian got 0.44. Coastal areas got sporadic drizzle and light snow fell on Palomar Mountain.
The National Weather Service says the wild wind event began on Tuesday night when the Santa Anas arrived from the Great Basin and gusted to 89 mph at Big Black Mountain, 82. in the Cuyamaca Mountains, and 85 mph near Valley Center.
Forecasters said the winds faded late Tuesday, but surged back to life early Wednesday, jumping to 85 mph near Santa Ysabel.
“We usually get Santa Anas that blow this hard once or twice a year, but they rarely blow over such a widespread area, like they did this time,” said Bruno Rodriguez, a weather service forecaster.
Forecasters say skies will clear today. But the daytime highs will only reach the mid-to-upper 60s in San Diego. It will be five degrees cooler on Friday. Then on Saturday a modest storm from the Gulf of Alaska will dive south into San Diego County, dropping small amounts of rain at the coast and possibly 0.75 inches in the mountains.
A larger system is expected Monday. Forecasters say the storm could drop a half-inch or more at the coast and twice as much in the mountains and foothills, where the snow level will drop below 3,000 feet.
| Big Black Mountain Ramona | 89 mph |
| Hellhole Canyon Valley Center | 85 mph |
| Sill Hill Cuyamaca Mountains | 82 mph |
| Alpine | 76 mph |
| Palomar Mountain | 70 mph |
| Viejas Grade | 69 mph |
| Buckman Springs | 67 mph |
| Otay Mountain | 67 mph |
| Morena Dam | 66 mph |
Rescuers were searching for people trapped in the rubble. More than 600 people were reported to have been injured in the quake, which struck inland between the coastal cities of Mamuju and Majene. No tsunami warning was issued.
“I’m afraid to say how many fatalities,” said Ardiansyah, an emergency response official for West Sulawesi Province, who like many Indonesians uses one name. “We are still evacuating and erecting shelters. Many people are buried under the ruins.”
Raditya Jati, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said Friday evening that at least 42 people had died in the quake. Most of the fatalities occurred in Mamuju, the larger of the two coastal cities.
The earthquake capped a week of disasters for Indonesia. On Saturday, a Sriwijaya Air jet crashed into the Java Sea with 62 people aboard. And on Sunday, at least 24 people were killed in landslides on Java island.
Disaster officials said they expected the number of deaths and injuries from the earthquake Friday to grow as they received information from areas that had been cut off. At least one bridge was destroyed, roads were damaged, and communications were limited. The provincial governor’s office in Mamuju was also damaged.
In Mamuju, Mitra Hospital, collapsed in the quake. Officials said at least five nurses and patients were trapped inside.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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“There’s a storm in the Gulf of Alaska, another south of the Aleutians and more beyond that,” said Phil Gonsalves, a weather service forecaster. “They’re lined up and are going to send waves to Southern California.”
It’s common for San Diego to get powerful waves in the winter. But the persistence of the surf is a bit unusual. Some spots have gotten waves measuring 4 feet or higher almost every day since Jan. 1. And there has been a lot of surf in the 6- to 10-foot range.
A high-surf advisory will be in effect until 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The weather pattern has given surfers a reason to rejoice. But it isn’t making firefighters happy. The storms have largely been tracking into Oregon and Washington, rather than dropping south. San Diego International Airport has recorded only 0.98 inches of rain since Oct. 1, which is about 3 inches below average.
The lack of rain has caused vegetation to wither, feeding the sort of wildfire that broke out Thursday on the grounds of Palomar College in San Marcos. The weather also has been warmer than normal. Three communities set or tied new records Thursday, including Vista, where it hit 89, 1 degree above the record for Jan. 14, set in 2014. El Cajon also reached 89, beating the record set in 2009 by 1 degree. And Chula Vista got to 83, tying the record set in 2009.
San Diego International Airport topped out at 81, 16 degrees above normal. National City, Miramar and Montgomery Field reached 86, and Brown Field hit 87.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Nearly seven years after the doomed decision to use the Flint River, pipes at more than 9,700 Flint homes have been replaced and water quality has greatly improved. But prosecutors said it’s not too late to pursue people responsible for one of the worst human-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.
It’s the second time that six of the nine people have faced charges; their previous cases were dropped in 2019 when a new prosecution team took over. Snyder, who was charged Wednesday and arraigned Thursday, is the biggest new name in the bunch, though his alleged crimes — two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty — are not as serious as others.
Snyder’s former health director, Nick Lyon, and ex-chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, were charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 deaths of nine people with Legionnaires’. Authorities said they failed to alert the public about a regional spike in Legionnaires’ when the water system might have lacked enough chlorine to combat bacteria in the river water.
Prosecutors charged former emergency manager Darnell Earley and another former Flint manager, Gerald Ambrose, with misconduct. Rich Baird, a friend and close adviser to Snyder, was charged with extortion, perjury and obstruction of justice. Jarrod Agen, who was Snyder’s chief of staff, was charged with perjury. Flint Director of Public Works Howard Croft faces two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty. Nancy Peeler, early childhood health section manager in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, faces two felony counts of misconduct in office.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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While NASA and a couple of other measurement groups said 2020 passed or essentially tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, more agencies, including the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said last year came in a close second or third. The differences in rankings mostly turned on how scientists accounted for data gaps in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe.
NOAA said 2020 averaged 58.77 degrees (14.88 degrees Celsius), a few hundredths of a degree behind 2016. NASA saw 2020 as warmer than 2016 but so close they are essentially tied. The European Copernicus group also called it an essential tie for hottest year, with 2016 warmer by an insignificant fraction. Japan’s weather agency put 2020 as warmer than 2016, but a separate calculation by Japanese scientists put 2020 as a close third behind 2016 and 2019. The World Meteorological Organization, the British weather agency and Berkeley Earth’s monitoring team had 2016 ahead.
All the monitoring agencies agree the six warmest years on record have been the six years since 2015.
Earth has now warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times and is adding another 0.2 degree Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) a decade.
That means the planet is nearing an international warming threshold set in Paris in 2015. Nations of the world set a goal of preventing at least 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, with a tougher secondary goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The charges, shown in an online court record, are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The indictment filed by the attorney general’s office is groundbreaking: No governor or former governor in Michigan’s 184-year history had been charged with crimes related to their time in that office, according to the state archivist.
Besides Snyder, a Republican who served until 2019, charges are expected against other people, including former officials who served as state health director, Michigan’s chief medical executive, Snyder’s communications chief and a senior adviser.
Flint was in chronic financial trouble in 2014 when a Snyder-appointed manager who was running the majority Black city carried out a money-saving decision to use the Flint River for water while a regional pipeline from Lake Huron was under construction. The corrosive water, however, wasn’t treated properly and released lead from old plumbing into homes in one of the worst manmade environmental disasters in U.S. history.
Despite desperate pleas from residents holding jugs of discolored, skunky water, the Snyder administration took no significant action until a doctor reported elevated lead levels in children about 18 months later.
“I’m sorry and I will fix it,” Snyder promised during his 2016 State of the State speech.
Authorities counted at least 90 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County, including 12 deaths.
The criminal investigation has lasted five years under two teams of prosecutors. Todd Flood, who got misdemeanor convictions from seven people, was ousted in 2019 after the election of Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat. Fadwa Hammoud subsequently dropped charges in eight pending cases and said the investigation would start over. She said the first team had failed to collect all available evidence.
(David Eggert & Ed White, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Among those killed in the landslides in West Java province were the head of a local disaster relief agency and an Indonesian army captain who had gone to help rescue survivors from the first landslide Saturday afternoon. They were caught in a second landslide that evening.
The landslides also destroyed a bridge and cut off several roads in the West Java village of Cihanjuang. Rescuers worked into the night but faced an urgent need for heavy machinery to help move earth and reach any possible survivors.
“The first landslide was triggered by high rainfall and unstable soil conditions,” said Raditya Jati, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. “Subsequent landslides occurred while officers were still evacuating victims at the first landslide area.”
A woman whose family lives in the village, Dameria Sihombing, said that her father, mother, nephew and niece were at home in the village at the time of the landslide. All four remain missing, she said by phone from Jakarta, the Indonesian capital about 90 miles to the northwest.
The first mudslide buried the family’s home, she said, and the second slide, which was larger than the first, buried it even deeper. Many bystanders were also in the path of the second slide.
“Many people came to see the rescue team and suddenly the second landslide hit,” she said. “There were more victims from the second one because it was much bigger than the first landslide. My family is buried inside the house, and so far they haven’t been found.”
Deadly landslides are common in Indonesia, where deforestation and illegal small-scale gold mining operations often contribute to unstable soil conditions.
Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, had warned in October that the country could experience more flooding and landslides than usual because of the periodic weather pattern known as La Niña. The rainy season is expected to last until March.
“I want all of us to prepare in anticipation of possible hydro-meteorological disasters,” the president said at the time.
A local disaster official said that by midday Sunday, rescuers were still attempting to determine how many people were missing. Eighteen people were reported injured.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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After recording 20 inches of snow in the Spanish capital between Friday night and Saturday, Madrid and a large swathe of the country remained impassable Sunday, with roads, rail lines and air travel disrupted by Storm Filomena. The blizzard has been blamed for four deaths.
Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos said by Sunday crews had cleared two runways at Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas International Airport and that departures had restarted. Arrivals would slowly begin again sometime between Sunday evening and Monday, weather permitting.
Trains traversing the capital gradually came back online Sunday afternoon.
More than 150 roads were still impassable Sunday. Authorities said all trips by car should be postponed and tire chains were obligatory for journeys that couldn’t be avoided. They said all people trapped in their cars by the snow had been rescued but hundreds of cars needed to be recovered after being abandoned by drivers.
The biggest snowfall since the 1980s in Madrid, according to Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, produced some unusual scenes with some residents using skies to mush through the snow-covered streets.
Storm Filomena lost strength as it moved eastward but authorities are still urging people to remain at home to limit the risk of falls on icy streets as a cold front moves in.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The national weather agency reported that as of 7 a.m., the snowfall in Madrid reached a level unseen in half a century. More than 20 inches of snow fell in the Spanish capital, according to the weather agency AEMET.
The bodies of a man and woman were recovered by the Andalucia region emergency service after their car was washed away by a flooded river near the town of Fuengirola. The Interior Ministry said a 54-year-old man was also found dead in Madrid under a pile of snow. A homeless man died of hypothermia in the northern city of Zaragoza, the local police department reported.
More than half of Spain’s provinces remained under severe weather alerts for Storm Filomena on Saturday night, seven of them at the highest level of warning. In Madrid, authorities activated a red alert for the first time since the system was adopted four decades ago and called in the military to rescue people from vehicles trapped on everything from small roads to the city’s major thoroughfares.
Sandra Morena, who became trapped late on Friday as she commuted to her night shift as a security guard in a shopping center, arrived home, on foot, after an army emergency unit helped her out on Saturday morning.
“It usually takes me 15 minutes, but this time it has been 12 hours freezing, without food or water, crying with other people because we didn’t know how we were going to get out of there,” said Morena, 22.
As of Saturday evening, Spanish security services had rescued all the people who were trapped in vehicles — more than 1,500, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
AEMET had warned that some regions would be receiving more than 24 hours of continuous snowfall due to the odd combination of a cold air mass stagnant over the Iberian Peninsula and the arrival of the warmer Storm Filomena from the south.
The storm is expected to be followed by a severe drop in temperatures in the coming days, the agency said.
Transport Minster Jose Luis Abalos warned that “snow is going to turn into ice and we will enter a situation perhaps more dangerous than what we have at the moment.”
(Aritz Parra, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Federal wildlife officials have acknowledged the move could result in more deaths of birds that land in oil pits or collide with power lines or other structures.
A U.S. District Court judge in August had blocked the administration’s prior attempt to change how the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is enforced.
But urged on by industry groups, the Trump administration has remained adamant that the act has been wielded inappropriately for decades, to penalize companies and other entities that kill birds accidentally.
More than 1,000 species are covered under the migratory bird law, and the move to lessen enforcement standards have drawn a sharp backlash from organizations that advocate on behalf of an estimated 46 million U.S. birdwatchers.
Conservationists said Tuesday they would push President-elect Joe Biden to reverse the Interior Department rule, which blocks officials from bringing criminal charges unless birds are targeted for death or injury.
Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe and independent scientists have said the change could cause a spike in bird deaths — potentially billions of birds in coming decades — when species across North America already are in steep decline.
A Trump administration analysis of the rule change did not put a number on how many more birds could die. But it said some vulnerable species could decline to the point where they would require protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Industry sources now kill an estimated 460 million to 1.4 billion birds annually, out of an overall 7.2 billion birds in North America, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent studies. Many companies have sought to reduce bird deaths in recent decades by working in cooperation with wildlife officials, but the incentive to participate in such efforts drops absent the threat of criminal liability.
(Matthew Brown, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s decision came after conservationists and Indigenous groups argued the lease sales scheduled for today were based on inadequate environmental reviews or outdated information.
The ruling involves a region valued by conservationists for its beauty and wildlife and seen as sacred to some Indigenous people but viewed by others as a way to boost oil production and create jobs.
The judge was asked to halt the sale until underlying lawsuits are resolved. But in her ruling, Gleason said the groups had not shown a level of harms necessary for her to grant an injunction now.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has said the sale is in keeping with a 2017 law, while critics say the Trump administration is trying to rush the process before President-elect Joe Biden takes office later this month. During the campaign, Biden expressed interest in “permanently protecting” the refuge.
The fight over opening to development the refuge’s coastal plain, which is off the Beaufort Sea, dates back decades.
Supporters see it as a way to bolster oil production that’s currently a fraction of what it was in the late 1980s and create or sustain jobs in a rural region that relies heavily on the industry.
Critics counter the region is special, providing habitat for wildlife including caribou, polar and grizzly bears, wolves and birds, and should be off limits to drilling. The Indigenous Gwich’in consider the refuge’s coastal plain sacred and have argued that protecting it and a caribou herd that migrates to the area is a human rights issue.
It’s not clear what level of interest there might be among companies in drilling in the area. Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, has said companies keep such intentions quiet for competitive reasons.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Three people remained missing after the disaster in the village of Ask, about 30 miles northeast of Oslo, police said. Officials said the landslide on Wednesday, which led to the evacuation of people from the area, was related to quick clay, which can collapse into a liquid state when overloaded.
“We are in despair over the terrible and tragic outcome of this slide,” Anders Ostensen, the mayor of Gjerdrum, the local municipality that includes Ask, said to reporters on Monday. “The situation is still unreal to us, but we are trying to turn things around, and we’ve started the work of trying to get back to normality.”
About 1,000 people were evacuated from Ask after clay ground in the area collapsed, swallowing at least seven homes in flows of mud and injuring 10 people.
The military and firefighters are helping with rescue efforts, which have been complicated by short days with limited daylight, cold weather and the difficulty of navigating the clay, which remains unstable in places.
Six of the victims, whose bodies were recovered on Friday and in the past few days, have been identified. [] One body found has not yet been named. Still missing are three others.
As of Monday, it was unclear precisely what caused the clay to collapse.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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It will take roughly a week for tides and surf to slowly remove the debris from the collapse, said the official, who asked not to be identified by name. He said the debris blocks the beach at high tide.
KUSI News aired video of the collapse, which showed several beachgoers running as the bluff collapsed, sending dirt onto the sand below.
People walking on the beach, especially if they have small children with them, are encouraged to stay close to the water and far from the bluffs because collapses can come at any time.
There typically is a collapse along the beach about once every 30 days, but they vary in size and frequency, the official said.
Collapses are common in La Jolla, Encinitas, Del Mar and Solana Beach.
While collapses are the result on natural erosion, they are often spurred by rainstorms that loosen soil. Heavy rains hit San Diego on Monday, three days before the Torrey Pines collapse.
(David Garrick, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The resumption came six weeks after Khartoum boycotted talks in November, urging the African Union to play a greater role in reaching a deal over the disputed Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam.
The negotiations have centered on the filling and operation of the giant dam. Key questions remain about how much water Ethiopia will release downstream if a multiyear drought occurs and how the three countries will resolve any future disputes. Ethiopia has rejected binding arbitration at the final stage of the project.
The foreign and irrigation ministers of the three Nile Valley countries met online Sunday, said Ahmed Hafez, the spokesman of Egypt’s Foreign Ministry. Sudan also confirmed the meeting.
Ethiopia’s Water and Energy Minister Seleshi Bekele said earlier the meeting was called by South Africa, the current head of the African Union, and that U.S. observers and AU experts would attend.
Sudan’s Irrigation Ministry said the three counties would hold separate talks with the AU experts and observers before a three-party meeting on Jan. 10.
In November, Sudan did not attend a round of talks called by South Africa, arguing that the current approach to reaching a tripartite agreement on the filling and operation of Ethiopia’s dam had not yielded results.
Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas said at the time that the AU should do more to “facilitate the negotiation and bridge the gap between the three parties.”
Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam has caused severe tensions between the three nations.
Egypt has called it an existential threat and worries that it will reduce the country’s share of Nile waters.
The Arab’s world most populous country relies almost entirely on the Nile to supply water for agriculture and its more than 100 million people. About 85 percent of the river’s flow originates from Ethiopia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Three bodies have been recovered but searchers are still looking for seven more people believed to be missing. The landslide in the village of Ask is the worst in modern Norwegian history and has shocked citizens in the Nordic nation.
Search teams patrolled with dogs as helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras flew amid harsh winter conditions over the ravaged hillside in Ask, a village of 5,000 people 16 miles northeast of Oslo.
Norwegian police pledged not to scale down the search even though a rescue team from neighboring Sweden has already returned home.
Local police Chief Ida Melbo Oeystese said it may still be possible to find survivors in air pockets inside the destroyed buildings.
“Medically, you can survive for several days if you have air,” she told reporters at a news conference.
By late Saturday, a second and third body had been found after a first one was discovered on Friday. Only a Dalmatian dog has been rescued alive from the ruins so far.
King Harald V, Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon plan to visit the disaster area today to pay their respects to the victims and to meet with residents and rescue workers. The 83-year-old monarch said in his New Year’s speech that the royal family had been deeply moved by the tragedy.
Norwegian police have published the names and birth years of the 10 people initially reported missing, including a 2-year-old child. Officials haven’t yet identified the three recovered bodies.
The landslide early Wednesday cut across a road through Ask, leaving a deep, crater-like ravine. Photos and videos showed buildings hanging on the edge of the ravine, which grew to be 2,300 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. At least nine buildings with more than 30 apartments were destroyed.
The rescue operation is being hampered by the limited number of daylight hours in Norway at this time of year and fears of further erosion. The ground is fragile at the site and unable to hold the weight of rescue equipment, including a heavy vehicle from the Norwegian military.
More than 1,000 people have been evacuated.
The cause of the landslide is not yet known but the Gjerdrum municipality, where Ask is located, is known for having a lot of quick clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the substance of the clay combined with excessive precipitation and the damp weather typical for Norway at this time of year may have contributed to the landslide.
(Jari Tanner, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Trump also said in his veto message to the Senate that the legislation sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., “will not achieve its purported conservation benefits.”
The fishing bill’s sponsors said large-mesh drift gillnets, which measure between 1 mile and 1.5 miles long and can extend 200 feet below the surface of the ocean, are left in the waters overnight to catch swordfish and thresher sharks. But they said at least 60 other marine species — including whales, dolphins and sea lions — can also become entangled in the nets, where they are injured or die.
It is illegal to use these nets in U.S. territorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of Washington state, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii.
In 2018, California passed a four-year phase-out of large-mesh drift gillnets in state waters to protect marine life. The bill Trump vetoed would have extended similar protections to federal waters off California’s shoreline within five years.
Trump said the West Coast drift gillnet fishery is subject to “robust legal and regulatory requirements” for environmental protection that equal or go beyond environmental protections applied to foreign fisheries. He said Americans will import more swordfish and other species from foreign sources without this fishery.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Some 1 million people have been displaced or isolated for months by the worst flooding in memory, with the intense rainy season a sign of climate change. The waters began rising in June, washing away crops, swamping roads and worsening hunger and disease in the young nation struggling to recover from civil war. Now famine is a threat.
On a recent visit to the Old Fangak area, parents spoke of walking for hours in chest-deep water to find food and health care as malaria and diarrheal diseases spread.
Regina Nyakol Piny, a mother of nine, now lives in a primary school in the village of Wangchot after their home was swamped.
“We don’t have food here, we rely only on U.N. humanitarian agencies or by collecting firewood and selling it,” she said.
The people of South Sudan put their trust in President Salva Kiir and former armed opposition leader Riek Machar to lead during this transition period, “but now they are failing us,” said the government’s acting deputy director in the area, Kueth Gach Monydhot.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization representative in South Sudan has appealed to leaders to cease violence and ensure safe humanitarian access to prevent the dire situation from turning into a full-blown catastrophe.
The new report of likely famine is an eye-opener and a signal to the government, which has not endorsed its findings, said the chairman of the National Bureau of Statistics, Isaiah Chol Aruai. “There is no way that the government would ignore or downplay an emergency when it’s really found out to be an emergency,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Time was running out to find survivors in destroyed buildings amid wintry weather conditions. Authorities said it was too dangerous to send ground rescue patrols to the ravaged area in the village of Ask, northeast of Oslo. Instead, the search was carried out with the help of helicopters, drones and heat cameras.
“We still have hope of finding people and saving lives,” police spokesman Dag Andre Sylju told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
There were no reports of casualties, but some 10 people were injured, one of them seriously, in what Prime Minister Erna Solberg called “probably one of the biggest landslides we have had.”
Officials said at least nine buildings with some 30 apartments were destroyed in the early Wednesday landslide.
More than 1,000 people have been evacuated.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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