Atmospheric river-fueled storm arrives in California. Here’s which areas will be in the bull’s-eye
THE CHRONICLE, GERRY DIAZ: "California is once again bearing the brunt of inclement weather, as a low-pressure system off the coast rapidly intensifies and becomes a storm, tapping into another atmospheric river that’s flowing between Hawaii and California.
The storm that started Monday night is forecast to raise powerful winds along the coast that will spread to all corners of the Bay Area, Central Coast and Central Valley and peak just before sunrise on Tuesday. These winds will ferry heavy rainfall, thunderstorms and the risk for more flooding across most of the California coast and eventually Southern California.
The atmospheric river, called a Pineapple Express thanks to its origins in the tropics, will serve as the fuel for the storm’s heavy rain and strong winds, which will impact California into Wednesday morning."
A new storm set to pound California — and another one after that. A wet March forecast
LA TIMES, HAYLEY SMITH: "California’s extremely wet winter is turning into a wet spring.
Yet another atmospheric river will hit the state Tuesday and Wednesday, with another likely after that.
The sheer amount of rain, and the snowmelt it could bring, are bringing alarms about more flooding this week."
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."
Age, drought, rodents and neglect weaken California levees, heightening flood danger
LA TIMES, SUSANNE RUST/IAN JAMES: "The levee breach that left an entire California town underwater this weekend is putting a spotlight on how the state’s vital flood control infrastructure is being weakened by age, drought, climate change, rodents and neglect — leaving scores of communities at risk.
On Friday night, the swollen Pajaro River burst through the worn-down levee, flooding the entire town of Pajaro and sending its roughly 3,000 residents into what officials are now estimating to be a multi-month-long exile. A second breach was reported on Monday.
For decades, the levee was ignored by the federal government — never rising to the status of a fix-worthy project — despite repeated pleas, breaches, floods and even two deaths."
‘Probable inundation’: Salinas River communities brace for flooding, crop losses
LA TIMES, HAYLEY SMITH: "Monterey County residents are bracing for yet another onslaught of floodwater as an incoming storm threatens to overflow the Salinas River, imperiling the lives of farmworkers and crops and triggering evacuations.
“Projections now include a probable inundation of roadways between the Monterey Peninsula and the rest of the county,” officials said hours before an atmospheric river was forecast to hit the agricultural region. More than 10,000 people there remained under evacuation orders and warnings as of Monday.
The news comes only days after a levee breach on the nearby Pajaro River triggered massive flooding and prompted dozens of water rescues. The breach left much of Pajaro — a town of about 1,700 people, mostly farmworkers — under several feet of water."
Epic Tahoe snowpack is causing more roofs to collapse — and new storms are on the way
THE CHRONICLE, CLAIRE HAO: "In early February, the roof of the bar where Chris Lyon worked collapsed from the weight of too much snow. A month and a half later, the South Lake Tahoe resident still hasn’t been able to go back to work, as the weather hasn’t let up enough for the bar to finish repairs.
Since then, more roofs around town have collapsed — a grocery store, gas station, as well as multiple houses and commercial buildings, Lyon said. It’s “dramatically” affected life in the city this winter, compounding upon three years of hardship from the pandemic, wildfires and the ever-increasing cost-of-living, Lyon said.
“We live in the mountains and it’s a tourist town, so you kind of have to take the bad with the good. But the last three years have just seemed more extreme than ever,” Lyon said."
'Whole hell of a lot of water up there': This map shows the Sierra snowpack's record levels
THE CHRONICLE, JACK LEE: "The Southern Sierra snowpack is now the biggest on record, at a whopping 247% of average for April 1, according to charts from the California Department of Water Resources.
“There is a whole hell of a lot of water up there right now, stored in the snowpack,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy, during an online presentation on Monday.
All this snow is a boon for California’s multiyear drought. And because the snowpack is so cold and deep, it should remain largely intact even in the face of another warm atmospheric river on tap this week."
‘I’m still buried.’ Some SoCal mountain residents still trapped by snow more than 2 weeks later
LA TIMES, GRACE TOOHEY/SUMMER LIN: "Firefighters Mike Age and Aaron Thomas pulled up to the listed address for a top-priority prescription delivery Friday but couldn’t initially spot the Lake Arrowhead house.
A 15-foot snow berm created from multiple plow trips blocked any view — or access — to the home’s driveway, requiring some exploring down a perpendicular road to find the house along a long driveway. From that vantage point, the firefighters found a more manageable path: over a 5-foot berm, under some trees and across a side yard of snow drifts.
As Thomas sank almost waist-deep into the snow while trying to balance the insulin delivery, Age called the house “one of the harder ones” they’d attempted to reach in the last week delivering vital medications across San Bernardino County’s mountain communities. Many of the residents requesting deliveries have been snowed in for more than two weeks, some unable to safely navigate the treacherous conditions or without the resources to do so after back-to-back storms dumped historic amounts of snow on the region."
California Court Mostly Upholds Prop. 22 in Win for Uber and Other Gig Companies
NY TIMES, KELLEN BROWNING: "A California appeals court said on Monday that Proposition 22, the ballot measure passed by state voters in 2020 that classified Uber and Lyft drivers as independent contractors rather than as employees, should remain state law.
The decision by three appeals court judges overturned the ruling last year by a California Superior Court judge, who said the proposition was “unenforceable.” It was a victory for companies like Uber, which use gig drivers to transport passengers and deliver food, but do not pay costs that an employer would have to. Those costs can include drivers’ unemployment insurance, health insurance and business expenses.
Still, the appeals court ruling was not the final say. The Service Employees International Union, which, along with several drivers, filed a lawsuit challenging Proposition 22 in early 2021, is expected to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court, which would then have several months to decide whether to hear the case."
Ripple effects? California’s stem cell agency and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
CAPITOL WEEKLY, DAVID JENSEN: "It was a multibillion-dollar bank run that took place, at least partially, on a bus in Bozeman, Montana.
And it could involve some of the scores of companies backed with tens of millions of dollars in research awards from the $12 billion California stem cell agency.
The worst may have been averted, however, by an announcement Sunday afternoon (Pacific time) that said that uninsured depositors — those with accounts of more than $250,000 — will be made whole through the use of an industry-financed insurance fund."
Most overdose deaths in S.F. involve multiple drugs. Here’s why that’s important
THE CHRONICLE, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "Fentanyl is driving much of San Francisco’s drug overdose epidemic. But the deadly synthetic opioid isn’t doing it alone, as data show the vast majority of deaths involve multiple drugs.
About three-quarters of accidental overdose deaths in San Francisco last year involved more than one drug, according to preliminary data from the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. This data set includes details beyond the agency’s monthly reports, including which drugs contributed to the deaths.
Of the roughly 510 accidental overdose deaths included in the preliminary 2022 data, 225 — nearly 45% — involved two substances, the Chronicle’s analysis shows. A little more than a quarter involved three or more."
SFUSD poised to spend another $5.1 million on payroll fiasco after more than a year of chaos
THE CHRONICLE, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "The San Francisco Board of Education will vote Tuesday on whether to spend another $5.1 million to try to fix a new payroll system that’s left thousands of school district employees shortchanged on paychecks, lacking health benefits and furious at the lingering problems.
The $5.1 million is on top of $2.8 million set aside last year to pay outside experts to resolve the hundreds of issues with the $14 million payroll system, which the district rolled out in January 2022.
The money comes after officials declared an unprecedented state of emergency in November over the issue and announced the launch of a 60-member command center to help fix the fiasco. It also comes as the district struggles with budget challenges, a teacher shortage and declining enrollment."'
Advocates propose an alternative to refocus budget on Black students
EDSOURCE, EMMA GALLEGOS, JOHN FENSTERWALD, AND DANIEL J. WILLIS: "Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to increase funding to high-poverty schools represents what critics say is a broken promise to tackle a stubborn achievement gap for Black students.
Black in School, a coalition of Black education and civil rights groups, has come up with a counterproposal that would provide additional funding for Black students. The group says the alternative would be compatible with Proposition 209, which bans affirmative action, and the Newsom administration’s effort to hold districts and schools accountable for spending.
Newsom’s plan, which he calls the “equity multiplier,” would send $300 million to about 800 schools with concentrated poverty. However, an EdSource analysis found those schools enroll only 6.6% of California’s Black students, which the Black in School coalition calls a “perverse outcome” for a policy they have advocated for to address the longstanding low performance of Black students statewide."
As California student housing crisis deepens, solutions face roadblocks at UC and elsewhere
LA TIMES, TERESA WATANABE: "As California’s student housing crisis deepens, plans to build more campus apartments and dorms are facing myriad roadblocks that could delay construction of thousands of urgently needed beds across the state’s three public higher education systems.
Litigation blocking student housing projects, a potential delay in state funding and escalating construction and labor costs, are posing formidable challenges to easing what students say is one of their most urgent needs. An estimated 417,000 students lack stable places to sleep, according to surveys conducted across the three systems, amounting to 5% of undergraduates at the University of California, 10% at California State University and 20% at California Community Colleges.
At the same time, student activists say their housing needs are growing more urgent as inflation drives up rents and competition increases for apartments particularly in many of the pricey communities where UC campuses are located, such as Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and La Jolla."
Silicon Valley Bank execs will be fired and shareholders won’t be bailed out, Biden says
THE CHRONICLE, RACHEL SWAN: "President Biden said Monday that his administration will not help investors in Silicon Valley Bank recover their money, and that he will fire all of the bank’s managers as federal regulators seize control of the sputtering institution.
“Investors in the banks will not be protected,” Biden said, addressing reporters as he prepared to depart for California, two days after the rapid implosion of a bank that established itself as a major lender for the tech industry.
“They knowingly took a risk, and when the risk didn’t pay off, investors lose their money,” the president continued. “That’s how capitalism works.”"
Mortgage rates are dropping after Silicon Valley Bank collapse. How low will they go?
THE CHRONICLE, KATHLEEN PENDER: "Mortgage rates have dropped by nearly a half a percentage point following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and New York’s Signature Bank.
The average rate on a 30-year conforming mortgage fell to 6.57% on Monday from 7.05% on Wednesday, according to Mortgage News Daily. Whether rates keep falling depends on whether the fear of more bank failures forces the Federal Reserve to back off its efforts to fight inflation by raising interest rates.
On Thursday, Silicon Valley Bank shares plunged 64% after it announced that it had taken a $1.8 billion loss on long-term bonds it was forced to sell to meet withdrawals from cash-burning startups. That unexpected news sparked a run on the bank. On Friday, California regulators seized the bank and turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which also took over Signature Bank on Sunday."
In wake of SVB collapse, California business owners scramble to contain fallout
LA TIMES, ANDREA CHANG, JAIMIE DING , RONALD D. WHITE: "Locked out of her three accounts with failed Silicon Valley Bank, cookbook author Anna Vocino spent the weekend in a state of high anxiety, unsure about the future of her sauces and spices company.
“I spent most of Friday afternoon writing all of our creditors and saying, ‘Hey, I know that we owe you money now, but hopefully everything will work out over the weekend,’” she said. “If it doesn’t, please have mercy on us.”
First thing Monday morning, Vocino was able to successfully log into the Silicon Valley Bank website and begin the process of closing her accounts. She’s moving her money to City National Bank."
As banking sector teeters, could S.F.’s First Republic collapse next?
THE CHRONICLE, RACHEL SWAN: "The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has thrown another Bay Area financial institution into the spotlight, prompting customers to brace for fallout as stocks wobbled on Monday.
Shares at San Francisco’s First Republic Bank dropped by 60% on Monday, a sudden dive that occurred a day after the bank announced additional funding from the Federal Reserve Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., hoping to bolster its financial position.
The jolt prompted concern that First Republic could be the next bank to fall, though at least one expert attributed the dip to nervousness among investors and suggested that it was a temporary disruption. Another saw it as a sign that people are waking up to larger problems in the banking sector: Several small and midsize banks saw their stock prices sputter Monday, said James Wilcox, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business."
Here’s what Silicon Valley Bank’s failure could mean for the Bay Area economy
THE CHRONICLE, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "After the rapid implosion of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, companies and politicians were continuing to assess the damage and trying to calm investors and markets amid fear and uncertainty about how extensive the fallout might be.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement Saturday morning supporting moves by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to step in as receiver for the bank.
“Over the last 48 hours, I have been in touch with the highest levels of leadership at the White House and Treasury,” Newsom said. “Everyone is working with FDIC to stabilize the situation as quickly as possible, to protect jobs, people’s livelihoods, and the entire innovation ecosystem that has served as a tent pole for our economy.”"
Silicon Valley Bank collapse stirs up memories of 2008 bailouts
THE HILL, ALEXANDER BOLTON: "The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank brings back memories on Capitol Hill of rescuing the financial markets during the 2008 collapse, raising concerns among lawmakers that taxpayers may have to pay to bail out risky financial bets.
President Biden assured the nation Monday that no taxpayer money will be used after lawmakers warned over the weekend they will not support bailouts, which are unpopular with voters.
The president said the money to cover depositors would come from the fees banks pay into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and promised that managers at failed banks would be fired and stock-holding investors would not be protected - sidestepping a fight with Congress."
THE CHRONICLE, RICARDO CANO: "When it came to financial independence, none of the largest transit agencies in the country did it better than BART.
Fares have been the bedrock of BART’s financial model ever since its first trains zipped across the Bay Area 50 years ago. Next to Caltrain, no other U.S. rail agency in 2019 had a higher farebox recovery ratio — the percentage of operating expenses covered by fares — than BART.
Even in tough economic times, the system stayed afloat — and expanded — as long as commuters packed into BART trains, making it a standard-bearer for financial self-sustainability in the transit world."
BART inspector general resigns, citing lack of independence for office
DAILY CALIFORNIAN. ASHLYN REYNOLDS: "Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, inspector general Harriet Richardson resigned March 3 after the BART board of directors, BART general manager and employee union SEIU local 1021 allegedly obstructed her ability to carry out her duty of conducting independent oversight.
Richardson said she’d been thinking about resigning since Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1488 in August 2022, a bill that would’ve clarified her role in the Office of the Inspector General, or OIG, after previous failures to establish a charter defining her role.
As inspector general, she conducted investigations, reviewed the work of other employees and scheduled meetings with BART management."
L.A. riders bail on Metro trains amid ‘horror’ of deadly drug overdoses, crime
LA TIMES, RACHEL URANGA: "Matthew Morales boarded the Metro Red Line at MacArthur Park as classical music blared over the station loudspeakers.
It was rush hour on a Tuesday afternoon, and Morales made his way to a back corner seat and unfolded a tiny piece of foil with several blue shards of fentanyl. As the train started west, he heated the aluminum with a lighter and sucked in the smoke through a pipe fashioned from a ballpoint pen.
Doors opened and closed. A few passengers filed in and out. A grain of the opioid fell to the floor. He concentrated on trying to pick it up, then lost track, as his body went limp. His shoulders slumped and he slowly keeled forward."
Deaths, burns, brain injuries, broken limbs: The human cost of distracted driving is mounting
LA TIMES, RUSS MITCHELL: "Highway fatalities are on the rise again — 46,000 in the U.S. in 2022, up 22%, according to numbers released last week. How many of those deaths involved distracted driving?
“It’s much bigger than the data show,” said Bruce Landsberg, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. Data collection methods are so riddled with problems, he said, that reliable estimates are difficult if not impossible.
But if those methods aren’t improved, and soon, Landsberg said, the carnage induced by unsafe use of cellphones and other forms or distracted driving will continue."
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