Bracing for impact

Feb 12, 2025

Major storm is set to batter California. Here’s when impacts will be most intense

The Chronicle, GREG PORTER: "A complex and powerful storm system will approach the California coast late on Wednesday evening and persist through Friday, bringing with it heavy rain, strong winds and feet of Sierra snow.

 

On Wednesday afternoon, a storm system will develop off the coast of California following a weaker one that moved through in the morning.This storm system will strengthen rather quickly, bottoming out with a central pressure level in the 980 millibar range, which is close to record strength for a storm system in the eastern Pacific for this time of the year."

 

READ MORE -- ‘High risk of flooding, debris flow’ on Thursday as powerful rainstorm hits Southern California -- LAT, RONG-GONG LIN II/HANNAH FRY


Crushed by boulders, drowned in mud: How debris flows endanger LA’s fire-ravaged communities

CALMatters, JULIE CART/ALASTAIR BLAND: "Sterling Klippel is awed by the beauty of nature but spends his working days resisting its power.

 

Casting worried glances at a gray sky above the Sierra Madre Dam in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Klippel, a beefy and upbeat man, was patiently describing the complexities of Los Angeles County’s flood protection system."


Lawmakers target looters in wake of arrests in Los Angeles-area burn zones

LAT, ANABEL SOSA: "California lawmakers are proposing tougher penalties on looting and other opportunistic crimes during disasters after over two dozen individuals were arrested in evacuation zones after the recent deadly wildfires in Los Angeles County.

 

Three lawmakers have proposed a tough-on-crime approach classifying burglaries in emergency areas as felony offenses, which could lead to prison sentences. One of those bills also would crack down on people who impersonate first responders during a wildfire."

 

A former firefighter in the Legislature has ideas. Will Democrats listen?

CALMatters, SAMEEA KAMAL: "It’s safe to say there’s no legislator more familiar with battling fires against the Santa Ana winds than Sen. Kelly Seyarto.

 

He’s one of just a few former firefighters in the Legislature’s history, and the only former career firefighter currently in office, according to the California State Library (Current Assemblymember Heath Flora, a Republican from Ripon, worked three summers as a firefighter and volunteered for another 15)."

 

Constitutional crisis or no? Fears of Trump overreach abound as cases proceed in court

LAT, KEVIN RECTOR/DAVID G. SAVAGE/SONJA SHARP: "A week after winning a court order requiring the Trump administration to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal funding, California and other states were back in court Friday to ask the judge to intervene once more, arguing the administration hadn’t complied with the order.

 

Although it was “imaginable” that thawing the freeze would take some time, there was “no world” in which the administration could be seen as complying with the court’s order, given the amount of funding that still appeared frozen a week later, the states argued."

 

READ MORE -- Is the US in a constitutional crisis? California’s attorney general says not yet -- CALMatters, ANA B. IBARRA

 

The 51st state? Canadians say no, thanks. They don’t want U.S. products either

LAT, KATE LINTHICUM/DENIS CALNAN: "Shopping for groceries the other afternoon at his neighborhood supermarket here, Victor Meunier reached for a head of broccoli — then reconsidered. It had been imported from the United States.

 

Meunier ditched the broccoli and reached for package of mushrooms with a different label: “Product of Canada.”"

 

Trump targets paper straw purchases by federal government — and won’t stop there

LAT, SUSANNE RUST: "President Trump has declared the last straw. Or at least the paper ones used by federal agencies.

 

In an executive order this week, the president barred the federal government from buying paper straws — ensuring they will soon disappear from cafeterias and break rooms in government buildings throughout the country."

 

Worst flu season in years swamps California: ‘Particularly long and difficult’

LAT, RONG-GONG LIN II: "The worst flu season in years is swamping California, prompting a renewed surge in hospitalizations as officials warn the disease could continue circulating at high levels for weeks to come.

 

By one measure, this season has already been more potent than any seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. The rate at which flu tests returned positive results at the state’s clinical sentinel labs surged to 27.8% for the week ending Feb. 1, the most recent for which complete data are available."

 

Daniel Lurie taps Biden’s former Medicaid director to run S.F. health department

The Chronicle, JD MORRIS: "Mayor Daniel Lurie named a former Medicaid director as San Francisco’s new public health director, tapping an experienced healthcare administrator to help lead the city’s response to the drug crisis in one of his most consequential appointments since taking office last month.

 

Daniel Tsai, who ran the Medicaid program under former President Joe Biden, will succeed Dr. Grant Colfax, who announced in mid-January that he would resign after almost six years running the city’s Department of Public Health. Tsai is the second new department head that Lurie has named since he became mayor; he previously appointed a new fire chief."

 

S.F. drug crisis: Here’s the first project Mayor Daniel Lurie plans to speed up with his new powers

The Chronicle, MAGGIE ANGST: "San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie plans to use his newly expanded powers to expedite a lease on a new behavioral health facility designed to get more people struggling with mental illness and addiction off the streets.

 

Lurie on Wednesday will sign new legislation to cut through bureaucratic red tape to address the city’s drug crisis and allow officials to bypass the usual board approval process on a lease agreement for a longstanding project envisioned at 822 Geary St. on the edge of the Tenderloin, according to the mayor’s office."

 

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital sued over minority internship program

The Chronicle, CATHERINE HO/SARA LIBBY: "The conservative Pacific Legal Foundation has sued UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland over an internship program for minority high school students, alleging the program violates state and federal laws because it bases eligibility on race.

 

The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, also names the UC Board of Regents as a defendant. It was filed on behalf of a 15-year-old Berkeley High School student, identified only as G.H., who applied for the program and was rejected. The student is white."

 

Sacramento State students protest Trump immigration policies, urge support from school

Sac Bee, JENNAH PENDLETON: "Around 200 Sacramento State students gathered Tuesday afternoon to protest President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders that aim to enact mass deportations of immigrants and undocumented residents and end birthright citizenship.

 

They also protested what they said is an insufficient response from the university to threats of immigration crackdowns."

 

Hundreds of thousands of people are about to descend on S.F. at once. How is the city preparing?

The Chronicle, MICHAEL BARBA/MAGGIE ANGST: "You’ve seen the way San Francisco puts on its best face for a global audience.

 

Homeless people pushed under the Central Freeway to make way for Super Bowl 50. Entire blocks of downtown gated off for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference."

 

California FAIR Plan is running out of money; nearly all homeowners to help bail it out

The Chronicle, MEGAN FAN MUNCE: "The California FAIR Plan does not have enough money to weather the impact of the record-breaking Los Angeles wildfires on its own. Instead, it will turn to private insurers for help — triggering a process where insured California homeowners across the state will end up paying part of the bill.

 

The California Department of Insurance approved the FAIR Plan’s request to collectively charge private insurance companies $1 billion in order to help pay claims, the department announced Tuesday. Without it, the FAIR Plan would have run out of money by March, according to the official order. It’s the first time in just over three decades that the FAIR Plan has turned to private insurers for money."

 

Here’s one clear way Trump’s deportation agenda could worsen California’s housing crisis

The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "Shirley Pablo and Annia Lopez walked down East 12th Street in Oakland on a cold Wednesday morning, each pulling a foldable wagon filled with oranges, water bottles, granola bars, disposable face masks and “red cards” listing a person’s constitutional rights.

 

The outreach workers approached four men chatting on the sidewalk near the intersection. They wore hoodies, beanies and paint-splattered work boots."

 

Mobile homes are some of California’s last affordable housing. Can they rebuild after LA fires?

CALMatters, FELICIA MELLO: "When the Palisades Fire tore through coastal Los Angeles last month, it obliterated not only the sprawling mansions of celebrities, but two seaside mobile home parks where hundreds of retirees and other long-time residents clung to a middle-class lifestyle in one of the area’s last bastions of affordability.

 

Now, post-fire, local and state officials will reveal just how far they’ll go to ensure the recovery preserves housing for Angelenos who aren’t rich. Their response could set a precedent as California faces a likely future of more frequent and intense natural disasters on top of a statewide housing crisis. And the fate of the two parks, Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates and Tahitian Terrace, may foreshadow how climate change could affect other mobile home owners in California."

 

S.F. supervisor wants answers from police about pursuit that led to crash injuring 7 people

The Chronicle, NORA MISHANEC: "Days after a police chase across San Francisco ended with the fleeing suspects crashing a vehicle into a Mission District bar’s outdoor dining area, a supervisor is demanding answers about the high-speed pursuit that sent multiple victims to the hospital.

 

On Tuesday, Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the Mission District, sent a formal letter of inquiry to San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott asking why his department chose to pursue the suspects through the neighborhood’s most heavily trafficked commercial corridor on Super Bowl Sunday, and whether the cross-city chase was permissible under the city’s new guidelines for police pursuits that took effect in November."


 
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