{"id":73278,"date":"2025-11-28T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/73278\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T15:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:12:09","slug":"california-endures-whipsaw-climate-extremes-as-federal-support-withers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/73278\/","title":{"rendered":"California endures whipsaw climate extremes as federal support withers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article<\/a> was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission.<\/p>\n

As humans continue burning fossil fuels, global temperatures are\u00a0rising<\/a>\u00a0in startlingly unpredictable ways. The trend is increasing instances of so-called\u00a0compound<\/a>\u00a0dangers, such as landslides hurling millions of tons of mud, boulders and trees down hillsides charred by wildfires.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such a catastrophic event killed 23 people in California\u2019s Santa Barbara County in 2018, when unusually hard rains pounded the Santa Ynez Mountains for just 30 minutes while the Thomas Fire \u2014 among the\u00a0largest<\/a>\u00a0in state history \u2014 still smoldered.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles was spared from similar devastation after a mass of moisture from the Pacific\u00a0drenched the county<\/a>\u00a0this month \u2014 making November among the wettest on record.<\/p>\n

The county recorded no major property damage, but evacuation warnings before the storms were a reminder of how dangerous debris flows can be following major fires. Those advisories applied not just to communities scarred by the Eaton and Palisades fires<\/a>, such as Altadena and Malibu, but to those areas that had burned earlier too. Homes and properties that escaped the flames in January will face\u00a0life-threatening landslide hazards<\/a>\u00a0for years<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 2021, the U.S. government has\u00a0recognized<\/a>\u00a0risks from landslides and created an advisory\u00a0committee<\/a>\u00a0to address such threats. But as scientists draw\u00a0clearer<\/a>\u00a0links<\/a>\u00a0between climate extremes, and\u00a0sound the alarm<\/a>\u00a0over rising greenhouse gas emissions, the government under President Donald Trump is increasingly unable and often unwilling to help residents prepare for and survive such events. The state is stepping in to fill the void, but lacks funding and resources that proved crucial in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The California Geological Service deploys Watershed Emergency Response Teams following some fires to assess threats to life and property. They use satellite data collected by federal agencies, whose debris flow\u00a0hazard<\/a>\u00a0websites<\/a>\u00a0were not updated during the 43-day federal government shutdown and could be imperiled in future funding lapses.<\/p>\n

Local emergency planners use those surveys to understand where mudslides might occur to prepare personnel for deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rely on this as an easily accessible resource, and there\u2019s nobody I can talk to (at the U.S. Geological Service) right now,\u201d Kelly Hubbard, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in Santa Barbara County, said before the shutdown ended Nov. 13.<\/p>\n

Eric Huff, the deputy director of resource management at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the state is able to find \u201cworkarounds\u201d to prepare for debris flows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be the same as modeling products from (the USGS), but we have the capability and first-hand experience to do it now,\u201d Huff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Trump has dismissed climate change as\u00a0a \u201ccon job,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0scientists have grown more confident that global warming is supercharging climate events that amplify the volume and frequency of debris flows.<\/p>\n

Research funded by the USGS concluded<\/a>\u00a0that heavy, sudden rainfall due to climate change could result in major landslides about once a decade in Southern California. Past atmospheric rivers, like the one that soaked Los Angeles in November, have\u00a0unleashed heavier rains<\/a>\u00a0because of climate change. A\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u00a0attributed \u201cnearly all\u201d increases in the size of California wildfire burn areas since the 1970s to hotter and drier weather.<\/p>\n

The devastation from landslides accelerated by climate change could be enormous. In another\u00a0paper<\/a>, researchers used projected rainfall increases to map out the theoretical impact of the Thomas Fire were it to happen in 2050 and 2075, factoring in that the fire would be larger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They found that compared with 931 \u201chigh hazard\u201d basins in 2017, there would be 2,385 areas in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties at risk of debris flows by 2075.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aid request ignored<\/p>\n

As the federal government reopens, Los Angeles County could feel impacts from Congress\u2019 failure to fulfill California\u2019s estimated request for more than\u00a0\u00a0$1 billion<\/a>\u00a0in supplemental aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s Hazard Mitigation program.<\/p>\n

The request for $34.2 billion in\u00a0total aid<\/a>\u00a0from various FEMA and Small Business Administration accounts, among others, was submitted (initially for close to $40 billion) by Gov. Gavin Newsom to House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders after the fires.<\/p>\n

The budget bill that reopened the federal government does not include this money. Even if it did, President Trump has\u00a0threatened to withhold aid<\/a>\u00a0from California.<\/p>\n

The hazard funds are intended \u201cto protect communities from the compounding impacts of extreme weather,\u201d including drainage improvements in fire-scarred areas, said Claire Berry, a spokesperson for Rep. Judy Chu, whose district includes Altadena.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a>Zak Clark, director of operations at Nature Friends, stands in front of Sierra Madre Dam, which incurred minor damage from a debris flow in February. (Photo by Aaron Cant\u00fa\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Some\u00a0$13.5 million<\/a>\u00a0in FEMA money helped Santa Barbara County rebuild and enlarge the Randall Road Debris Basin after fatal mudslides along San Ysidro Creek, the\u00a0Montecito Journal\u00a0reported<\/a>. The catch basin can now contain 97,000 cubic yards of mud and debris, about as much as a long-range oil tanker could hold.<\/p>\n

During a February rainstorm in Los Angeles County\u2019s Sierra Madre Canyon, where buildings burned in the Eaton Fire, a 69-foot concrete debris dam was briefly overwhelmed. The Sierra Madre Dam, built almost a century ago and maintained by the county, had not overflowed since 1969.<\/p>\n

In mid-October, the handrail along the dam\u2019s crest was still torn open from the spill more than eight months before. Eclectic single-family homes practically built into the trees and rock lined the road leading down from the dam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zak Clark, director of operations for the local nonprofit organization Nature Friends, recalled \u201ca constant stream of trucks\u201d in the months after the storm to remove debris behind the dam wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He lives in the nonprofit\u2019s remaining building on a slope in Little Santa Anita Canyon \u2014 the other one, a clubhouse built 100 years ago in folk German\u00a0architectural style<\/a>, was destroyed in the fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The damaged facade has started hosting gatherings again, and volunteers planted California-native plants \u2014 buckwheat, seaside daisies and willowherb \u2014 after removing powdery, burned soil from the lodging\u2019s grounds. But the surviving building is not insured because it is too expensive, said Clark, a native of disaster-prone Appalachia.<\/p>\n

He is frustrated at what he sees as a refusal to acknowledge worsening fires and storms and a lack of political will to protect homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like getting punched in the face over and over again and thinking it won\u2019t happen again,\u201d Clark said, pointing to the last five years of wildfires in the state as evidence. \u201cWe have to learn we\u2019re getting punched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nature Friends\u2019 property is bisected by a descending mud path with short rail-and-timber dams to stop rocks from smashing into houses below. The defense is \u201clikely to be overtopped\u201d with very high risks for homes,\u00a0the state warned<\/a>\u00a0weeks after the Eaton Fire. Mud from\u00a0this year\u2019s storms<\/a>\u00a0now clog the dams.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>A pathway bisects the Nature Friends\u2019 property in Little Santa Anita Canyon. Two rail-and-timber debris dams block rocks from tumbling toward homes below. (Photo by Aaron Cant\u00fa\/Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Aircraft from the California Institute of Technology equipped with 3D imaging technology\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that mudflows resulted after the fire incinerated oak trees and chaparral that had kept soil in place. Scorched dirt slid down the mountains and collected along stream channels, loaded to blast down as mud during heavy rain.<\/p>\n

But the nearly two dozen drainage basins in the Eaton Fire burn scar\u00a0were able<\/a>\u00a0\u201cto barely hold the material,\u201d said Caltech doctoral candidate Emily Geyman on a podcast from July. It even helped clear away some fire debris from the mountains, like a hearty sneeze.<\/p>\n

Although precipitation was heavy during November\u2019s storms, it fell steadily in the course of several days \u2014 sparing the area the far worse effects of extreme rain bursts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the rain, Sierra Madre police visited homes and advised residents to evacuate. But Clark chose to stay. So did his neighbors, who called each other to gauge whether to leave. The debris dams were filled with mud, but they held.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Los Angeles County\u2019s total debris storage from the coast up through the Antelope Valley is 9 million cubic yards, slightly more than the amount of earth\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0to build Dodger Stadium. But in the face of worsening climate change, the costs of maintaining these basins could become untenable, said Joe Wartman, an engineering professor at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

The structures have \u201cserved those areas well and protected a lot of people from the inundation of these debris flows,\u201d Wartman said, but \u201chow well are they sized for the new climate?\u201d That will be measured in money, destruction and pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Capital & Main<\/a> is an award-winning nonprofit publication that reports from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and social issues of our time, including economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.\u200b<\/p>\n

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