First of all, my thoughts and prayers are with you all....... My question is, how is the weather impacting you? Look at the cycle. First there was the drought and now the rain. There seems to be an endless cycle of fires, rain, mud slides, fires, rain, mudslides. It has to be a difficult situation. What can you do to prepare? Just when you think you are safe, the weather comes out of no where and whacks you. It certainly is troubling to see how many folks are being impacted. Not sure what we can do other than pray for your well being.
Thank you for your concern and prayers. It is appreciated. There is not much we can do individually other than maintain our houses/property to reduce the risk of damage. It is scary when the fires hit, as they can be more deadly than the floods. Of course, the floods are scary today. Please keep praying. Thanks!
Well my train has not been running for a week and traffic is horrible, all the roads are falling apart. All this water is fueling what will probably be a horrific fire season this summer.
California was slowly turning warmer and drier since the Holocene. 29 Palms-Anza-Boregga desert is home to remnant oasis with native palm species and the two out of three world Redwood species once extended well into Southern California. The soft coastal and hard inland chaparral are fire ecology ecosystems that build up oil content to the point offgassing produced air pollution and natural fires @ every 7 years. there are oral traditions among the surviving first peoples of fires sweeping across hundreds of miles and mulitple bands forced to flee to the beaches. I experienced this many years ago evacuating horses in the devastating Malibu fire and leading 6 into the surf with red embers showering down onto the Pacific coast Highway. The following rain and flood-mudslides are part of the natural cycle. The problem, people now build homes in these areas and areas can go unburned for decades. There is an entire, half forgotten or never explained system of catch basins in greater L.A. county to stop car and larger sized boulders that erode down from the San Gabriels. There is a large area of the San Fernando Valley near a earthen reservoir designed as a catch basin for the rains centered on Burbank blvd and every rain some fool ignorant of California history drives into it. The irony is this weatherfront is caused by a disruption major global patterns from climate change. We 'benefit' as a whole while other areas suffer. Yet the majority of the water runs off into the ocean carrying chemical fertilizers and toxic chemicals as a retention system has never been implemented except more northern dams for the benefit of big agriculture such as Oroville which is about to go. The double irony is several communities face litigation and potential legislation from actually building commuity or even private cachment systems by the WATER COMPANIES who claim emminent domain and other arguments such as consumer safety. Water is the 21st century equivelent to Oil in the 20th for confict. On a personal level, I just plan my sorties in between the heavier storms as road warriors in performance cars and homicidal soccer moms in panzer grenadier SUVs think Mother Nature is aware of who their parents or husbands are and STARBUCKS better have my favorite bearclaw fresh and in stock. LOTS of 'accidents.'
I guess the good news is we will see an explosion in wildlife this year from the bottom of the food chain on up. I'm still dumbfounded that we haven't learned to catch more of this water i.e. more reservoirs.
They used to stop all fires inside government owned land (Natural parks, national forests, etc.) until they figured out that the small fires actually prevented fires from getting out of control.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. There's a lot of finger-pointing going on in San Jose right now in regards to the recent flooding's, why weren't we given more notice? It doesn't take a meteorologist to figure out it's raining, and had been raining for some time. People are not informed. People seem to walk aimlessly through life playing with a smartphone or spinner. The Bay Area local tv news will do "Breaking News" for a traffic accident, for the last couple of weeks everything has been about the rain. The 100 year flood. I knew the Oroville damn was overflowing last week, that's 155 miles from me. I knew our local reservoirs and creeks were overflowing, people need to pay attention. That's what needs to be done. We Californians prepare for earthquakes, we should be preparing for floods and paying attention. I personally have not been effective by the rains other than some minor flooding in my backyard, the soil has been dry for a long time. My in-laws live 3 blocks from where a lot of damage was done from the creek overflowing. No damage at their home thankfully. Have a plan. Have flashlights, batteries, candles, food and water. And a meet up place.
Exactly. Those creeks have been rising for quite some time. If you didn't notice it until it was in your living room, I don't know how you survived this long.
Excellent response. It is kinda like folks that build a house in the forest. You have to understand the risks and have a plan should the worst happen.
I live in Silicon Valley and a bunch of people at my company haven't been able to get to work because they live on the Santa Cruz side of the mountains and were blocked from coming over. At my house we had a power outage for a day and a half, early this week which was inconvenient but nothing compared with others who've had flooding and other issues just a few miles away. Cali is a rad place to live but you can't let yourself get lulled into complacency by the mild climate because that gets interrupted by some crazy s%*# from Mother Nature on a pretty regular basis.
It's about being aware of your surroundings and having a plan. It's a very sad situation. I will say I've seen the American Red Cross and other volunteers doing some amazing thing. We know as Americans in time of a disaster we are one.
On the plus side, everything here is lush green, the air is so clear you can see across th LA basin, and there's 16 feet of snow in the mountains which not only makes for fantastic skiing but will also give us abeautiful Spring in the deserts and fill the aquifers. I've lived in California since 1970. I'll take rain over drought any year.