Rare storm system heading toward Southern California: Dangerous flash flooding expected

Hurricane Hilary

Important Takeaways:

  • Hurricane Hilary on path toward California: “Significant flooding impacts” expected
  • A storm headed in the direction of Southern California grew into a hurricane on Thursday and later strengthened to a major Category 4 storm, the National Hurricane Center said. It is expected to bring heavy rainfall to parts of the state — as a tropical storm — after hitting Mexico.
  • The storm “is not expected to be a hurricane on final approach,” said Greg Postel, a hurricane and storm specialist at the Weather Channel who has a doctorate in atmospheric sciences.
  • The storm’s remnants are likely to bring dangerous flash flooding as well as strong winds to some parts of California, including the Los Angeles Basin, the Weather Channel reports. “Significant flooding impacts” are expected in the southwestern U.S., according to the hurricane center.
  • “It is rare — indeed nearly unprecedented in the modern record — to have a tropical system like this move through Southern California,” Postel said.
  • Forecasters said the storm is expected to produce 3 to 6 inches of rainfall, with maximum amounts of 10 inches, across portions of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula through Sunday night, with the possibility of flash flooding. Postel said there will likely be “damaging wind gusts,” especially at higher elevations, in the area, and swells along the coast.

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Southern California battles excessive heat and wildfires

So Cal Fires

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • Southern California firefighters battling wildfires in 100-degree temps with 9,000 acres scorched
  • After battling blazes in triple-digit temperatures over the weekend in the eastern Los Angeles area, the FOX Forecast Center forecasts a brief and minor ease in heat for firefighters, but it won’t be long before Southern California is right back to the heat it experienced over the weekend.
  • The NWS says it expects to issue more heat advisories beginning Friday as another round of heat is expected into the weekend.
  • Over the weekend, at least four wildfires started in Southern California over the span of several hours, consuming more than 3,000 acres as temperatures there ranged from 100-105 degrees.
  • On Tuesday, the containment of several fires was promising, even with 100-degree high temperatures still forecast in Riverside and Beaumont, California.
  • Multiple fires continue to burn in Riverside County, according to CALFire, including the Rabbit Fire which has burned 8,283 acres. The fire started July 14 in Moreno Valley and is now 45% contained with over 1,500 firefighting personnel battling the blaze.
  • The Gavilan Fire in Lake Mathews is 65% contained after burning nearly 340 acres and the Reche Fire is almost completely contained after burning more than 430 acres this weekend.
  • The fires were fueled by dry and warm conditions as most of California has been under heat advisories and Excessive Heat Warnings over the past week. Several decades-old temperature records fell over the weekend, including at Lancaster Airport with 110 degrees, toppling the 109-degree record set in 1960.

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As Port of Los Angeles import backups ease, empty containers pile up

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The number of container ships waiting to enter the busiest U.S. seaport complex hit a new record of 84 on Tuesday, as growing piles of empty containers crowd docks at the Southern California facility that has been racing to remove lingering imports.

The conundrum illustrates the challenge faced by a U.S. government task force charged with tackling supply chain snarls that are contributing to product shortages and inflation.

U.S. ports have been inundated with cargo since the pandemic shifted spending away from restricted entertainment like travel and dining out to physical goods. COVID-19 also reduced labor needed to keep goods flowing smoothly. Aging truckers retired early, while infection control measures have limited dock and warehouse staffing.

There are now roughly 65,000 empty containers on the Port of Los Angeles docks, up about 18% from just a couple of weeks ago, said the port’s executive director, Gene Seroka. He added that “sweeper” ships are inbound to shuttle some of those boxes back to factories in Asia.

Meanwhile, the number of import containers at the Los Angeles port fell 25% to 71,000 since Oct. 24, Seroka said.

Railroads and truckers have made progress moving import containers off docks at the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – prompting executives from to delay imposing a new fee on overstaying imports by one week to Nov. 22.

The new fee would hit imports destined for truck removal after nine days or more on docks, and would start after six days or more for rail-bound cargo. Ports would charge ocean carriers escalating fees for overstaying container – with a $100 charge for the first day, $200 for the second, and so on.

Prior to the pandemic, containers intended for local truck deliveries spent fewer than four days on average on docks, while containers earmarked for trains stayed less than two days, the ports said.

Ocean carriers like AP Moller Maersk said they plan to pass any new fees on to importers – meaning that consumers could ultimately shoulder the extra cost.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Sandra Maler)

For Los Angeles-area ambulance crews, the COVID-19 calls never stop

By Norma Galeana and Alan Devall

SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. (Reuters) – For Southern California ambulance crews, the shifts feel never-ending and the calls to pick up COVID-19 patients seem endless.

“In 30 years, I’ve never seen a call volume like this,” said Eileen Cegarra, 56, an ambulance dispatch center supervisor for Care Ambulance Service, one of the largest ambulance companies in the Los Angeles area, which has become the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic.

California hospitals have grown so full of COVID-19 patients that state officials ordered hospitals to delay non-life-threatening surgeries, preserving space for serious cancer removal and necessary heart operations.

Outside many Southern California hospitals, ambulances loaded with COVID-19 patients wait for hours until space becomes available in the intensive care unit (ICU) or emergency room (ER).

Beside affecting the patients, the backlog has taken its toll on the ambulance crews who respond to calls for the sick.

“The calls don’t stop just because the crews are in the ER,” Cegarra said.

Jennifer Mueller, 30, works 24-hour shifts as a Care emergency medical technician, saying the pandemic has taken a physical and emotional toll on those in her profession.

“Everyone’s exhausted. Everyone’s tired. We run the calls; we want to help people. But there’s only so much that we can do,” Mueller told Reuters during a spare moment.

Patients are left sitting on hard gurneys in the cold. About all Mueller said she can do is offer a blanket.

“They’re in pain,” she said. “It’s just, it’s heartbreaking.”

California, the most populous state with nearly 40 million people, has accounted for much of the U.S. surge since November.

State officials reported 33,751 newly recorded confirmed cases Tuesday, pushing the total to 2.8 million since the pandemic began a year ago.

In Los Angeles County, with a population of about 10 million, COVID-19 kills someone every eight minutes, health officials say.

Every minute, 10 people test positive in L.A. County, and more than 1 percent of those who test positive end up dead, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Dispatcher Jaime Hopper, 29, has seen the tragedy first hand.

“The other day I had I think at one time nine calls sitting. So, that’s nine people that are in distress,” Hopper said. “So, it’s a little bit, it’s unnerving, but you kind of just got to do what you can.”

(Reporting by Norma Galeana and Alan Devall; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

No intensive care beds for most Californians as COVID-19 surges

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) -There are no intensive care beds available in densely populated Southern California or the state’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley, together home to nearly 30 million people, amid a deadly surge of COVID-19, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday.

The pandemic is crushing hospitals in the most-populous U.S. state, even as the U.S. government and two of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains began a nationwide campaign on Monday to vaccinate nursing home residents against the highly contagious respiratory disease.

The U.S. death toll from the virus has accelerated in recent weeks to 2,627 per day on a seven-day average, according to a Reuters tally.

The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has said U.S. COVID-19 deaths will peak in January, when its widely cited model projects that more than 100,000 people will die as the toll marches to nearly 562,000 by April 1.

Nationwide, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients on Monday stood at nearly 113,400, near a record high of over 114,200 set on Friday, according to a Reuters tally.

In California, Newsom told a remote news conference he had requested help from nurses, doctors and medical technicians in the U.S. military, and is hoping that 200 people can be deployed. The state has also sent nearly 700 additional medical staff to beleaguered hospitals, and opened up clinics in unused state buildings, a closed sports arena and other locations.

California Secretary of Health and Human Services Mark Ghaly said many hospitals in the state may also soon run out of room for patients who need to be admitted but do not require intensive care.

Ghaly told the news conference the current surge was related to gatherings that took place over the Thanksgiving holiday and that a similar surge is expected after Christmas and New Year’s, he said.

Newsom pleaded with Californians to comply with stay-at-home orders that restrict activity in most but not all of the state. “We are not victims of fate,” he said.

The governor added that the strain of the virus ravaging California was not the new, highly contagious version emerging in the UK, Newsom said.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Peter Cooney)

Firefighters move in on Southern California canyon blaze despite high winds

By Dan Whitcomb and Gabriella Borter

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Firefighters battling a blaze in a Southern California canyon made some progress toward containment but were up against more high winds and low humidity on Friday, which threatened to stoke the flames as they tore through wooded hillsides.

The Bond Fire, which had forced some 25,000 people in Orange County to evacuate, broke out around 10 p.m. on Wednesday night on the street for which it is named and quickly engulfed Silverado Canyon, egged on by strong Santa Ana winds.

“Firefighters worked through the night extinguishing hot spots, mopping up around structures and stopping the forward spread of this fire,” Captain Paul Holaday of Orange County Fire Authority said in a video posted to Twitter on Friday.

Air and ground units were focused on protecting the canyon communities of Silverado, Santiago, Williams and Modjesca on Friday, Holaday said.

In a Friday morning bulletin, the National Weather Service said a red flag warning for high gusty winds was in effect until 10 p.m. Saturday for the inland portion of Orange County, where officials said the Bond Fire still held claim to some 6,400 acres. The strongest winds were expected Friday morning.

Two firefighters involved in the effort were injured and transported to a local hospital for further treatment, the Orange County Fire Authority said on Twitter on Thursday.

The blaze was 10% contained as of Friday morning.

Woodsy Silverado Canyon, miles from Southern California’s suburban sprawl up a single winding road, is home to an eclectic mix of residents including artists, horse owners and ranchers.

Fire officials have not yet said what they believe to be the cause of the fire, although Silverado Canyon and Bond Road resident Giovanna Gibson, 60, told Reuters that neighbors believed the blaze ignited when the owners of a home without power tried to start their generator and it exploded.

Since the start of the year, wildfires have scorched more than 6,500 square miles (17,000 square km) of California land, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The yearly land area burned in the western United States has grown eight times larger in less than four decades, the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station said in research published last month.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Diane Craft)

Magnitude 5.5 earthquake rocks Southern California, no immediate reports of damage

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck on Wednesday in the California desert about 150 miles (241 km) northeast of Los Angeles, but there were no reports of damage or injuries in the sparsely populated area.

The temblor hit in a sparsely populated area near the Mojave Desert community of Searles Valley but was felt across Southern California, as far away as Los Angeles itself.

A series of strong of earthquakes and aftershocks struck that area near the small town of Ridgecrest on July 4 and 5 of last year. Such quakes are not uncommon in seismically active California.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler and Kim Coghill)

Easing winds give firefighters a break in California wildfire battle

Easing winds give firefighters a break in California wildfire battle
By Rollo Ross

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Fierce, dry Santa Ana winds off the Southern California mountains eased early on Friday, helping firefighters make progress in corralling major wildfires that have displaced thousands of residents.

A fresh spate of wildfires had roared to life on Thursday in hilly neighborhoods outside Los Angeles, destroying homes and forcing yet more evacuations before the Santa Ana winds lost their punch overnight.

The Maria Fire swelled to torch more than 8,000 acres (3,240 hectares) of Ventura County after igniting on Thursday evening, threatening some 1,800 homes and other structures, according to the county fire department. About 7,500 residents were ordered to find lodgings elsewhere for Halloween night, and dozens of schools were closed on Friday.

East of Los Angeles, the Hillside Fire scorched more than 200 acres (80 hectares) of the San Bernardino National Forest, burning residential areas in the north end of the city of San Bernardino, destroying at least six homes on Thursday, the county’s fire department said.

Crews managed to carve containment lines around 50% of the fire’s perimeter. No injuries were reported.

The dry Santa Ana winds that howl down from the mountains every autumn in Southern California were forecast to abate on Friday, although there could still be fire-fuelling gusts of 15 to 20 miles per hour (25 to 32 km per hour), the National Weather Service said.

A fire that erupted early on Monday near the famed Getty Center art museum in west Los Angeles threatened thousands of homes in some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods but was largely suppressed, with containment listed at 40%.

Residents were allowed to return to most of the 10,000 homes that had been ordered evacuated. The museum emerged unscathed, but about a dozen dwellings were lost in the 745-acre (301-hectare) Getty fire and two firefighters were injured.

About 30 miles (50 km) to the northwest, a fire raged to the edge of the hilltop Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Ventura County’s Simi Valley on Wednesday, threatening thousands of homes, but was 60 percent contained early on Friday. Firefighters doused flames before they could reach the library.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co  acknowledged last week that the Kincade Fire, a blaze that charred 77,000 acres (31,160 hectares) of Sonoma County wine country north of San Francisco, started last week near a damaged PG&E transmission tower at about the time a high-voltage line on that tower malfunctioned.

That blaze has burned more than 77,700 acres and destroyed at least 349 homes and other structures but was listed as 65% contained on Thursday evening.

PG&E, which over this past weekend began shutting off power to 940,000 California customers to guard against the risk of an electrical mishap sparking a blaze, said late on Thursday it had restored electricity to virtually all customers.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York, Alex Dobuzinskis in Culver City, California, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis)

Wildfire threatens homes, prompts evacuations in Pacific Palisades, California

Smoke can be seen as a wild fire breaks out in the hills of Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Gene Blevins

Wildfire threatens homes, prompts evacuations in Pacific Palisades, California
(Reuters) – A wildfire raced up a steep hillside to threaten homes in the Southern California coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades on Monday, prompting evacuations as water-dropping helicopters and firefighters swarmed the area to battle the flames.

Live aerial video footage broadcast by KABC-TV showed tall flames raging along a ridge-line at the edge of a neighborhood, burning perilously close to several homes as authorities urged residents to flee.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said on the broadcast that winds were relatively light, giving firefighting teams at least one advantage, because there was less chance of burning embers being spread ahead of the flames.

Large, repeated water drops from firefighting helicopters appeared to be keeping the fire mostly at bay from the neighborhood. No injuries were reported.

Residents who had been trying to help douse the blaze with garden hoses from their backyards were seen scrambling for cover at one point when a large clump of vegetation burst into heavy flames.

The blaze in Pacific Palisades, located between Santa Monica and Malibu about 18 miles (29 km) west of downtown Los Angeles, came about two weeks after a major wind-driven wildfire scorched nearly 8,000 acres along the northern edge of Los Angeles, damaging or destroying dozens of structures and prompting evacuations of some 23,000 homes.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Culver City, Calif.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)