{"id":275444,"date":"2023-08-25T09:37:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T07:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275444"},"modified":"2023-08-25T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T07:37:47","slug":"california-tried-but-failed-to-have-an-extreme-weather-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275444","title":{"rendered":"California Tried but Failed to Have an Extreme Weather Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Dorian Padilla stands near his car as he waits for a tow after it got stuck in the mud on a street as another vehicle goes by Monday, Aug. 21, 2023, in Cathedral City, Calif. Forecasters said Tropical Storm Hilary was the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, bringing the potential for flash floods, mudslides, isolated tornadoes, high winds and power outages. (AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinion by Kip Hansen \u2014 23 August 2023<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Hurricane Hilary looked pretty bad when it was charging north parallel to the west coast of Baja California as a Cat 4 hurricane.\u00a0 \u00a0I am a compulsive hurricane watcher, a habit left over from my years at sea in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean.\u00a0 I still have family in the Caribbean \u2013 so now I watch on their behalf. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made the mistake on Saturday to turn on a TV and watch live weather news from Southern California.\u00a0 Every single weather spokesperson seemed to be under orders to use the words \u201ccatastrophic\u201d and \u201cdeadly\u201d as many times as possible, sometimes more than once in a single sentence.\u00a0 They were talking about the future \u2013 how the weather was going to be on Sunday and Monday (20 and 21 August).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was far more worried about the border towns of Mexico \u2013 Tijuana and Mexicali \u2013 where poor infrastructure and shantytowns abound.\u00a0 Mexico did a fantastic job of protecting their people in advance. Thousands of troops were sent in to establish shelters and perform emergency response.\u00a0 Despite heavy rains and high winds, few lives, only one I believe, were lost.\u00a0 It could have been far, far worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, much of Southern California, with its high building standards and vast governmental resources, was freaking out.\u00a0 The local weather services and weather news units were beside themselves terrifying the populace with threatened destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then it rained and the wind blew.\u00a0 In places unaccustomed to much rain, where storm drains and flood prevention infrastructure is almost non-existent, there was flooding and mud\/sand flows.\u00a0 The desert\u00a0arroyos<\/a>\u00a0were filled and flowing, churning with water and debris.\u00a0 Where the arroyos crossed roads, the roads were flooded and some washed away.\u00a0 This is the nature of things in California\u2019s deserts \u2013 it was rains like these that created those arroyos.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the desert cities, flat as pancakes, had no real system in place to handle the inches of rain coming down.\u00a0 Those cities which gently sloped saw rivers of sand and small rocks flowing down their streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, owners of houses and buildings built on those nice flat floodplains along dry riverbeds discovered why their lot was so flat:\u00a0 every 25 years of so, water roars down that dry riverbed pushing mud and rock and sand and trees and flattens everything in its path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Los Angeles River, usually empty except for a trickle in a narrow ditch in the middle, was nearly full and the doing its job of carrying away storm water and sparing the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But catastrophic and disastrous and deadly?\u00a0 No, sorry weather people (many of whom, I suspect, wished they were in Florida where they could stand in fake hurricane force winds in front of their expensive hotel pretending to risk their lives to bring you \u201cToday\u2019s Hurricane Live!\u201d),\u00a0there was no big catastrophic deadly disaster.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy and large, we\u2019re feeling pretty good about it because we\u2019re not seeing a lot of impacts to homes and residents,\u201d said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing a single fatality or injury as of yet.\u201d \u201cYet in one of the most heavily populated parts of the country \u2014 Los Angeles and San Diego Counties alone have a combined population of more than 13 million \u2014 there were no reports of deaths related to the storm as of Monday afternoon.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u2026. \u201cin parts of California closer to the coast, some were puzzled at why the storm had received so much attention\u2026. As the air cleared on Tuesday, Vazken Kouftaian, 40, a resident of Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, took his 2-year-old son for a walk. This storm, he said, felt more like a normal rain shower. \u201cThey were expecting something very bad,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it was nothing like that<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>[\u00a0source<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u00a0is<\/strong>\u00a0a right way to prepare the people of a city or an entire region for heavy winds and rains, for tropical storms, but what took place, the wild exaggerations of alarming threats, is not it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The right way to prepare a people, a region, for heavy weather threats looks more like this list:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\u00a0 Officials issuing calm and honest predictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.\u00a0 Giving common sense advice to the populace on what they might need to do to prepare \u2013 depending on their circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.\u00a0 Using government resources to \u2018harden\u2019 threatened infrastructure \u2013 such as having trailer mounted generators available to back up electrical supply to hospitals in case of electrical outages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Calling up National Guard units trained in emergency response and having them and the necessary equipment pre-positioned across the region for ready response.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers with emergency response experience can add to this list in comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author\u2019s Comment:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every heavy rainfall event in Southern California brings damage, especially to the built environment.\u00a0 Homes are flooded, damaged and some destroyed.\u00a0 Families suffer \u2013 and for those families, it is a disaster. I don\u2019t mean to downplay or ignore that aspect of this rare event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But probably the greatest damage was to the minds, hearts and souls in California who were intentionally terrified by the constant stream of threatening \u201cnews\u201d pouring out of the TVs and Radios.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not the \u201cVazken Kouftaian\u201ds<\/em>, those with personal life experience and good critical thinking skills, smart enough to see through the alarmism and remain calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened instead?\u00a0 Wildfire risk was greatly reduced, reservoirs were filled, even\u00a0new<\/em>\u00a0reservoirs were filled.\u00a0 And a\u00a0superbloom<\/a>\u00a0may be in the offing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Hilary looked pretty bad when it was charging north parallel to the west coast of Baja California as a Cat 4 hurricane.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":275453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818068,691819743,691822069,691821996,691822070],"class_list":{"0":"post-275444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-climate-propaganda","10":"tag-extreme-weather-disaster","11":"tag-hurricane-hilary","12":"tag-los-angeles-river","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013681008_cahilaryCathedralCityimg.jpeg?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19EE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":277507,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=277507","url_meta":{"origin":275444,"position":0},"title":"BBC\u2019s Extreme Summer Weather\u00a0Propaganda","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"As for the hysterical nonsense about flooding, both the El Cordonazo in 1939, and Hurricane Kathleen in 1976, which both followed similar tracks to Hilary, dumped much more rain on Southern California. 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The BBC Would Like You To Think\u00a0So","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"22\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"So once again we find that the BBC can get away with playing fast and loose with the facts, just so that it can promote its political agenda.","rel":"","context":"In \"BBC\"","block_context":{"text":"BBC","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=bbc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013673460_081923-kgo-ap-noaa-hurricane-hilary-img.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013673460_081923-kgo-ap-noaa-hurricane-hilary-img.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013673460_081923-kgo-ap-noaa-hurricane-hilary-img.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013673460_081923-kgo-ap-noaa-hurricane-hilary-img.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/013673460_081923-kgo-ap-noaa-hurricane-hilary-img.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":275809,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275809","url_meta":{"origin":275444,"position":2},"title":"\u201cSupernatural\u201d warnings come to California","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"On the same day that Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Hilary brought\u00a0record rainfall\u00a0to the Los Angeles area (nearly 6 inches to Lake Palmdale and 4.26 inches on the UCLA campus), a magnitude 5.1\u00a0earthquake\u00a0occurred in nearby Ojai.","rel":"","context":"In \"C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group\"","block_context":{"text":"C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=c40-cities-climate-leadership-group"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0crashing-bridge-san-andreas-fault.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0crashing-bridge-san-andreas-fault.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0crashing-bridge-san-andreas-fault.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0crashing-bridge-san-andreas-fault.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0crashing-bridge-san-andreas-fault.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":277859,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=277859","url_meta":{"origin":275444,"position":3},"title":"Wired and The Conversation are Wrong, the 2023 Burning Man Rainstorm Wasn\u2019t Caused By Climate Change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"This year, the popular music festival Burning Man, which is held in the Black Rock Desert area of Nevada, was interrupted by a rainstorm that left many participants stranded. 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