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150,000 Flee Los Angeles As Wildfires Rage – “We’ll Be Fighting This All Week”

December 6, 2017

150,000 Flee Los Angeles As Wildfires Rage – “We’ll Be Fighting This All Week”

In what sounds like a replay of the devastating fires that killed dozens of people and torched a broad swath of California wine country this past summer, at least five discrete fires barreled across Southern California with extreme speed, torching more than 65,000 acres as firefighters struggled to contain the simultaneous infernos.

The first blaze started at about 6:25 p.m. Monday in the foothills near Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, a popular hiking destination. It grew quickly to more than 15 square miles in the hours that followed, consuming vegetation that hasn’t burned in decades, Ventura County Fire Sgt. Eric Buschow said, according to CNN.

Powerful Santa Ana winds and extremely dry conditions have fueled the wildfires, according to the Washington Post, adding hundreds of millions – if not billions – of dollars in damage to what has already been a devastating year for fires. The winds that caused the fires were part of the season’s longest and strongest wind event – driving down from the desert and mountains into the city of Los Angeles.

So far, the latest fires have forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, burned down more than a hundred buildings and triggered power outages in the region.

According to CNN, on Tuesday, the city of Ventura declared a daily curfew, beginning 10 pm to 5 am. The curfew is to protect residents and prevent crime such as looting in the evacuation areas, the city said. The largest fire, called the Thomas Fire, was seen crossing the 101 Freeway north of the city of Ventura. That fire had been burning at nearly an acre per second Tuesday. At that speed, it would have covered Manhattan’s Central Park in about 14 minutes.

The Thomas Fire spanned 50,000 acres (about 78 square miles) in Ventura County alone, which sits just north of Los Angeles. The fire was 0% contained as of Tuesday night.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Total Chaos: Cyber Attack Fears As MULTIPLE CITIES HIT With Simultaneous Power Grid Failures: Shockwave Of Delays In San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York

April 22, 2017

Total Chaos: Cyber Attack Fears As MULTIPLE CITIES HIT With Simultaneous Power Grid Failures: Shockwave Of Delays In San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York

grid-down-city

The U.S. power grid appears to have been hit with multiple power outages affecting San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

Officials report that business, traffic and day-to-day life has come to a standstill in San Francisco, reportedly the worst hit of the three major cities currently experiencing outages.

Power companies in all three regions have yet to elaborate on the cause, though a fire at a substation was the original reason given by San Francisco officials.

A series of subsequent power outages in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City left commuters stranded and traffic backed up on Friday morning. Although the outages occurred around the same time, there is as of yet no evidence that they were connected by anything more than coincidence.

The first outage occurred at around 7:20 a.m. in New York, when the power went down at the 7th Avenue and 53rd Street subway station, which sent a shockwave of significant delays out from the hub and into the rest of the subway system. By 11:30 a.m. the city’s MTA confirmed that generators were running again in the station, although the New York subways were set to run delayed into the afternoon.

Later in the morning, power outages were reported in Los Angeles International Airport, as well as in several other areas around the city.

Via : Inverse

The San Francisco Fire Department was responding to more than 100 calls for service in the Financial District and beyond, including 20 elevators with people stuck inside, but reported no immediate injuries. Everywhere, sirens blared as engines maneuvered along streets jammed with traffic.

Traffic lights were out at scores of intersections, and cars were backing up on downtown streets as drivers grew frustrated and honked at each other.

Via: SF Gate

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Southern California Time Bomb: The Ground Surrounding The San Andreas Fault Is ‘Rising And Sinking’

June 23, 2016

Southern California Time Bomb: The Ground Surrounding The San Andreas Fault Is ‘Rising And Sinking’

Pacific Plate And The North American PlateIf you reside on the west coast, you are living on borrowed time.  As you will see below, stress has been building up along the San Andreas fault for more than a century, and scientists tell us that southern California is way overdue for a major earthquake.  When that stress is finally released, the U.S. Geological Survey says that we could be looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.  If you follow my work regularly, then you already know that there has been unusual shaking all along the “Ring of Fire” so far in 2016.  But thankfully the west coast of the United States has been spared from a major disaster up to this point.  Unfortunately, scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before one strikes, and that is why it is so alarming that the ground surrounding the San Andreas fault has been “rising and sinking”.  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times…

For the first time, scientists have produced a computer image showing huge sections of California rising and sinking around the San Andreas fault.

The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that will be ultimately released in a large earthquake.

The California coastline is where two enormous tectonic plates come together.  The Pacific plate and the North American plate are slowly but surely moving against one another, and this creates a tremendous amount of geological stress.  While areas on both sides of the San Andreas fault have been steadily rising and sinking as a result of this stress, there are sections of the fault itself that have remained “locked” for more than 100 years, and other sections that have remained locked for more than 300 years…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Lawmakers Move to Prevent Another Disastrous Gas Blowout at Aliso Canyon

May 14, 2016

California Lawmakers Move to Prevent Another Disastrous Gas Blowout at Aliso Canyon

Aliso Canyon is the largest natural gas storage facility in the western U.S. and the site of the October, 2015 blowout that spewed nearly 100,000 tons of methane into the skies above the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles for nearly four months.

The bill was co-authored by Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), and Assemblyman Scott Wilk presented SB 380 on the floor of the Assembly on April 28 and it passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The new law requires that all 114 wells at Aliso Canyon undergo additional tests to detect any possible leaks.

Wells can go back into use only after passing four additional structural integrity tests, and wells that have not been fully tested and certified must be temporarily plugged and isolated from the facility.

New injections could only resume if well integrity is proven “to prevent damage to life, health, property, and natural resources and other requirements.”

Senator Pavley said in a prepared statement that the law “puts public safety first.”

“Now that the news cameras have left Aliso Canyon and moved on, the governor and the Legislature have shown that their memories are vivid and that a hard lesson has been learned. We must do all we can to prevent another disaster.”

The bill also sets a deadline of July 1, 2017 for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to open a proceeding to evaluate the feasibility of scaling back or shutting down the facility.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Food and Agriculture Play Significant Role in City of Los Angeles Sustainability pLAn

August 10, 2015

Food and Agriculture Play Significant Role in City of Los Angeles Sustainability pLAn

Los Angeles, known for its extensive freeway system and broad boulevards, fast food, car culture, lawn-filled suburbs and smog, is getting serious about sustainability—and the effort includes local and sustainable food and agriculture.

When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office, he created a Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and appointed Matt Petersen as the city’s first chief sustainability officer. Now, Los Angeles has a comprehensive sustainabilitypLAn. Many factors, including water conservation, livable neighborhoods and waste management, naturally intersect with food and agriculture objectives.

“How can we improve our city today, and ensure future generations enjoy a place that is environmentally healthy, economically prosperous, and equitable in opportunity for all?” asked Garcetti in the pLAn’s introduction. “It is important to emphasize that the pLAn is not just an environmental vision—by addressing the environment, economy, and equity together, we will move toward a truly sustainable future.”

In a city that used to be home to many orange groves and other farming operations, agriculture will have a strong role in the city’s sustainability resurgence. Los Angeles will make land at its public facilities (including the Los Angeles Public Library) available for urban agriculture as well as convert unused lots to gardening spots. Future plans include a pilot hydroponics and aquaponics program.

The pLAn aims to encourage Los Angeles residents to purchase locally-grown food from farmers’ markets, and another one of the city’s objectives is to support a Good Food Purchasing Program to assist institutions such as hospitals and universities in sourcing locally grown fruits and vegetables. Other goals include expanding urban agriculture in the city’s Promise Zone (this land is federally designated) and spurring more urban farming efforts through the city compost giveaway program.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans

March 16, 2015

California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans

Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert.  And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one.  Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of California had seen in 1000 years.  But now weather patterns are reverting back to historical norms, and California is rapidly running out of water.  It is being reported that the state only has approximately a one year supply of water left in the reservoirs, and when the water is all gone there are no contingency plans.  Back in early 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state, but since that time water usage has only dropped by 9 percent.  That is not nearly enough.  The state of California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of total water a year since 2011, and we are quickly heading toward an extremely painful water crisis unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.

But don’t take my word for it.  According to the Los Angeles Times, Jay Famiglietti “is the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine”.  What he has to say about the horrific drought in California is extremely sobering…

As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions.January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We’re not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we’re losing the creek too.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

LA Imports Nearly 85 Percent of Its Water—Can It Change That by Gathering Rain?

January 6, 2015

LA Imports Nearly 85 Percent of Its Water—Can It Change That by Gathering Rain?

Walk the glaring streets of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley on a sun-soaked afternoon in a drought year, the dry, brush-covered mountains rising behind you, and it can be easy to feel that you’re in arid country. “Beneath this building, beneath every street, there’s a desert,” said the fictional mayor in the Oscar-winning 1974 movie Chinatown. “Without water the dust will rise up and cover us as though we’d never existed!”

It’s an apocryphal idea. L.A. is not the Mojave but, climatically, more like Athens. Artesian springs, fed by rain in the mountains and hills, used to bubble up around Los Angeles, and farmers and Spanish missionaries grew fruit and olives in the Valley starting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

But the city has a history of treating its own raindrops and rivers as if they were more problematic than valuable. The L.A. River was prone to catastrophic floods in heavy rains, and, in the 20th century, engineers buried, straightened, and paved sections of the riverbed, flushing the water through concrete drainage channels to the Pacific Ocean. Then, to quench the thirst of its growing population, Los Angeles undertook a series of engineering feats that pumped water from the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, Northern California, and the Colorado River via hundreds of miles of pipes and reservoirs. Now the city typically imports more than 85 percent of its water from afar. And it’s as if the waters of Los Angeles disappeared from the consciousness of locals: Many Angelenos will tell you, mistakenly, that they live in a desert.

Now that story is changing again.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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