Torrential atmospheric river is headed to the Bay Area. Here’s a timeline of impacts
The Chronicle, Michelle Apon: "The Bay Area, soggy from the weekend rain, will not begin to dry out until the end of the week after two more heavy rain systems, along with damaging wind gusts of up to 70 mph, hit the region on Monday and Tuesday.
First storm: light but windy
A rainy Monday morning – courtesy of an overnight low pressure system from the Gulf of Alaska – is on tap for the Bay Area, Northern California and Pacific Northwest. With the Bay Area at the edge of this cold front, the rain will be light but the day will be blustery as the front moves east."
Battered by destructive flooding, California braces for another atmospheric river storm
LA Times, SUSANNE RUST, EMILY ALPERT REYES, BRITTNY MEJIA, HANNAH FRY: "California was bracing for another round of rain beginning Monday as officials tried to assess the damage from severe flooding along the Central Coast and Central Valley, which left scores stranded and whole blocks under water.
A levee failure on the Pajaro River in Monterey County — three miles upstream from the town of Pajaro — triggered massive flooding in and around the farming town and prompted evacuations.
More than 5,000 people in Monterey County were under an evacuation order or warning on Sunday, with more than 400 people sheltering at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, a recreation center and a Salinas church. As of Sunday afternoon, more than 2,000 people had already been evacuated, mostly out of the Pajaro area, Sheriff Tina Nieto said."
52 feet and counting: Lake Tahoe grapples with ‘ginormous’ snowpack
BANG*Mercury News, Jakob Rodgers: "Rather than use a yardstick, Deanne Maas measures each new snowstorm at her house atop Donner Summit by carefully examining the widening cracks in her drywall.
Some of them now reveal the underlying studs — signs that more than a dozen feet of snow piled outside her house are buckling the walls and roof of her home. She can hardly see outside anymore, as snow covers almost all of her windows.
“I feel like I live in a snow cave,” said Maas, 46."
California reservoir levels: Charts show water supply across the state
The Chronicle, Yoohyun Jung, Nami Sumida, Ying Zhao and Lesley Huang: "California has a vast network of local, state and federal reservoirs that store and supply water to cities and farms across the state. Water stored in the reservoirs typically makes up about 60% of the state’s total water supply.
Rain and snowfall during the rainier months of the year between November and March are critical for the reservoirs and their ability to supply water during drier months. Following consecutive years of drought, many of the reservoirs remain thirsty.
The Chronicle is tracking daily water storage levels at 48 of the state’s major water supply reservoirs compared with their historical averages (1991 to 2020). The storage level is shown as percentages of total storage capacity for each reservoir. The charts are updated daily at 8:00 a.m. to reflect the most recent data."
Flush with rain, California plans to replenish drought-depleted groundwater with floodwaters
LA Times, Ian James: "With torrential rains drenching California, state water regulators have endorsed a plan to divert floodwaters from the San Joaquin River to replenish groundwater that has been depleted by heavy agricultural pumping during three years of record drought.
The State Water Resources Control Board approved a request by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to take more than 600,000 acre-feet from the river and send much of that water flowing to areas where it can spread out, soak into the ground and percolate down to the aquifer beneath the San Joaquin Valley.
The amount of water that’s set to be rerouted under the plan is more than the annual supply for the city of Los Angeles. Some of the water will also be routed to wildlife refuges along the San Joaquin River starting next week, officials said."
Levee breach in Monterey County triggers massive flooding, prompts evacuations, rescues
LA Times, SUSANNE RUST, BRITTNY MEJIA, LIAM DILLON: "A levee failure on the Pajaro River in Monterey County triggered massive flooding and prompted hundreds of evacuations and dozens of water rescues as the latest atmospheric river storm pummeled large swaths of California.
The levee — three miles upstream from the town of Pajaro — breached late Friday night, said Nicholas Pasculli, a Monterey County spokesperson. Patrols noticed “bubbling up in the adjacent farmland” at 11 p.m., the first sign there was a problem.
Thirty minutes later, the levee failed, Pasculli said. As of Saturday morning, he said, “the failure is approximately 100 feet wide.” The town of Pajaro — with a population of 1,700, mostly farmworkers — is underwater."
Before disastrous flood, officials knew Pajaro River levee could fail but took no action
LA Times, Susanne Rust: "Officials had known for decades that the Pajaro River levee that failed this weekend — flooding an entire migrant town and trapping scores of residents — was vulnerable but never prioritized repairs in part because they believed it did not make financial sense to protect the low-income area, interviews and records show.
“It was pretty much recognized by the early ‘60s that the levees were probably not adequate for the water that that system gets,” Stu Townsley, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ deputy district engineer for project management for the San Francisco region, told The Times on Sunday.
And despite having studied it on and off for years, in terms of “benefit-cost ratios,” it never penciled out, he said."
A mysterious white sand fell on Martinez. Now residents fear their soil is unsafe.
BANG*Mercury News, Will McCarthy: "The morning after Thanksgiving, families in Martinez woke up to a layer of fine white sand blanketing their cars and porches. At her house on a hill near downtown, Jenna Cassel could see smoke rising from the hulking refinery that frames the city’s eastern edge.
“I went outside and I saw ashes all over our vehicles. The air quality was kind of weird,” Cassel said. “Everyone was like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’”
Shortly after, the Martinez Refining Co. posted a statement on Facebook saying that it would investigate calls they had received about the layer of grit. A day later, the company posted again, this time to reassure residents that the sand was a “non-toxic”, “non-hazardous”, and “naturally occurring” spent catalyst dust used in the refining process. It offered free car washes."
The conference followed the Biden administration’s announcement February 2023 of its plans to instate a federal measure proposal to deny asylum to undocumented immigrants at the southern border. This measure will be implemented as soon as Title 42, a Trump-era policy implemented to also restrict and deny passage for undocumented people citing concerns over COVID-19 transmission, is set to end May 2023.
Is it time for another COVID booster shot? Here's what officials are saying
The Chronicle, Aidin Vaziri: "People who received the bivalent COVID-19 booster when it first became available more than six months ago may wonder whether it’s time to roll up their sleeves again. The mantra of public health officials throughout the pandemic has been for individuals to maintain their immunity levels by staying up to date on vaccinations.
But no one seems to know what happens next."
Newsom proposes 'literacy road map' but will remain hands-off on how districts teach reading
EdSource, John Fensterwald: "Entering a contentious debate over reading, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes that districts base literacy instruction on decades of research known as “the science of reading” as the next step to getting all children reading by third grade.
In budget language, Newsom is calling for literacy experts to create a “literacy road map” that would emphasize “explicit instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, and other decoding skills” in the early grades. They are among the fundamental skills grounded in scientifically based research.
The road map would signal to teachers, school boards and administrators that California will join other states favoring “structured” over “balanced” literacy and other approaches that spend little or no time on phonics. (See Sec. 58, page 123 of the proposed TK-12 trailer bill.)"
Campus professors reflect on Supreme Court, democracy
Daily Californian, Sandhya Ganesan: "Campus professors shared their perspectives on the U.S. Supreme Court and the potential risk factors it poses for American democracy, according to a recent campus news article.
The article discussed the conservative court’s previous and potential rulings concerning voting laws, race and religion. One of the focuses in the article was the Supreme Court’s stances on voting rights laws and gerrymandering cases, and the potential verdicts that could have far-reaching implications for democracy.
“Perhaps the most significant in terms of its implications for democracy is Merrill v. Milligan, which the Supreme Court is expected to rule on in the late spring or early summer,” said Charlotte Hill, interim director of the Democracy Policy Initiative at the Goldman School of Public Policy, in an email. “It is a real possibility, perhaps even likely, that the Court will rule in a way that severely erodes Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a provision that essentially prohibits racially discriminatory voting laws and congressional redistricting maps. Without a strong Section 2, it will be far harder to ensure that Black Americans and other voters of color have an equal opportunity to vote—and to then translate that vote into political power.”"
Biden tells U.S. to have confidence in banks after collapse
AP: "President Joe Biden on Monday told U.S. residents the nation’s financial systems are sound, following the swift and stunning collapse of two banks that prompted fears of a broader upheaval.
“American can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” he said from the Roosevelt Room before a trip to the West Coast. “Your deposits will be there when you need them.”
U.S. regulators closed the Silicon Valley Bank on Friday after it experienced a traditional bank run, where depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. It is the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 failure of Washington Mutual."
U.S., Britain try to stem the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse
AP, KEN SWEET, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, CHRIS MEGERIAN AND CATHY BUSSEWITZ: "Governments in the U.S. and Britain took extraordinary steps to stop a potential banking crisis after the historic failure of Silicon Valley Bank prompted fears of a broader upheaval.
U.S. regulators worked through the weekend to find a buyer for the bank, which had more than $200 billion in assets and catered to tech startups, venture capital firms and well-paid technology workers.
While those efforts appeared to have failed, officials assured all of the bank’s customers that they would be able to access their money Monday."
Schiff says there’s ‘profound concern in California’ over Silicon Valley Bank collapse
The Hill, Lauren Sforza: "Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that there there is "profound concern in California" about the health of the economic sector after the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank.
Federal regulators seized the California-based bank on Friday, and put the institution up for auction over the weekend, multiple news agencies reported. The closure of the bank sent ripples into the tech-world as depositors were unsure of how much money they could get back.
"I would add that also there's profound concern in California, given that this sector is such an important part of our economy, that is the entrepreneurial sector," Schiff told CNN's Jim Acosta."
Life, death and dignity on the streets
Capitol Weekly, Sarah Chung: "According to a mid-year report in 2022 by the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness (SRCEH), one homeless person dies every two days in Sacramento.
The SRCEH says approximately 1700 homeless people have died on the streets in Sacramento County since it started documenting deaths in 2000. Most can be attributed to the sheer increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness, according to SRCEH director Bob Erlenbusch.
“The numbers of people experiencing homelessness has doubled from 5000 to an estimated 10,000’s in the last couple of years, so the numbers of homeless deaths sort of corresponds to that going up,” said Erlenbusch."
#CAHOUSING: Office to Housing Conversion(PODCAST)
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s Conference on Housing, which was held in Sacramento at the California Endowment Conference Center on Thursday, March 9, 2023.
This is Panel 1: Office to Housing Conversion.
Panelists: Danny Curtin, California Conference of Carpenters; Dan Dunmoyer, California Building Industry Association; Laura Foote, YIMBY Action; Jeffrey Roth, Leg. Director for Sen. Caballero"
Many homeless won’t trade a pet for a bed. In proposed law they may not have to
SCNG*LA Daily News: "A dog might be man’s best friend, but for many people experiencing homelessness a dog may also be their only friend, only family and only source of support, which is why giving them up for a shelter bed is often out of the question.
This was the certainly the case for Cruz Carillo who waited three years on the streets until a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) caseworker found a shelter willing to house him and his dog Toby.
“Humans will stab you in the back all the time, but he’s always been there and I don’t have any family,” said Carillo. “He definitely knows how to cheer me up all the time and through the worst of the worst times.”"
‘I can’t see the road’: What it’s like to be a snowplow driver on I-80 right now
The Chronicle, ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH: "Rick Flint lowered the plow of his hulking Caltrans truck as snow from the latest storm in the Sierra started sticking.
Visibility was fine — nothing like a few days earlier when he got stuck in a snowbank or when one of his colleagues drove into an avalanche — but that could change quickly.
“Time to start plowing,” the 66-year-old Caltrans worker said. The 12-foot-wide metal blade skittered across the asphalt of Interstate 80, sending a wave of vibrations through the cabin of his Freightliner sander."
Why are the ‘Bay Lights’ back on? Even the display’s off switch doesn't work
The Chronicle, Heather Knight: "The “Bay Lights” are back on, but they’re not supposed to be. The famous LED light sculpture spanning 1.8 miles of the Bay Bridge is so broken that even the off switch doesn’t work.
Bridge admirers noticed Sunday night that the lights were shimmering again even though Ben Davis, the founder of Illuminate which created the light display a decade ago, turned them off March 5 because they’re failing so badly."
Over 130 cited for allegedly buying alcohol in California ‘Shoulder Tap’ operation
The Hill, Vivian Chow: "Over 130 people were cited in California on Saturday on suspicion of purchasing alcohol for minors.
A "Shoulder Tap" operation took place statewide involving 44 local law enforcement agencies in partnership with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC).
During the operation, a minor under the supervision of law enforcement stands outside of a liquor or convenience store and asks customers to buy them alcohol."
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