#California Natural Disasters

[hypelens]

California Fires: The Pacific Palisades Blaze and the Ongoing Battle Against Wildfires

California is once again in the grip of devastating wildfires, with the Pacific Palisades Fire taking center stage as it threatens communities, disrupts lives, and underscores the ongoing challenges posed by climate change. With gusty winds, dry conditions, and rising temperatures fueling the flames, residents and first responders are facing a dire situation.

Overview of the Pacific Palisades Fire

The Pacific Palisades Fire, which erupted earlier this week, has rapidly spread across the densely populated region. According to KTLA, strong winds and bone-dry vegetation have exacerbated the blaze, making it challenging for firefighters to establish control. As of Wednesday evening, evacuation orders remain in effect for several neighborhoods, with over 1,200 acres burned and containment efforts ongoing.

Residents have shared harrowing accounts of the fire’s swift advance. James Woods, the renowned actor, shared his own close call with the flames, describing the moment he had to flee his home as a "race against time," as reported by CNN. His experience highlights the unpredictable and dangerous nature of these wildfires.

The Human Impact

For many residents, the Pacific Palisades Fire is more than just a headline—it's a life-altering event. Evacuees have described the chaos of leaving their homes, unsure of what they might return to. Emergency shelters have been set up across Los Angeles, offering temporary refuge for those displaced.

Local businesses have also felt the effects, with closures and supply chain disruptions adding to the economic strain. The fire has prompted community members to band together, offering support through donations, volunteer efforts, and emotional encouragement.

The Role of Climate Change

California’s wildfire seasons have grown longer and more severe in recent years, with experts pointing to climate change as a significant contributing factor. Rising temperatures, prolonged drought conditions, and erratic weather patterns create the perfect storm for wildfires to ignite and spread.

The Los Angeles Times notes that the Pacific Palisades Fire is part of a troubling trend: an increase in "urban wildfires" where natural landscapes collide with densely populated areas. These fires pose unique challenges, not only in terms of firefighting but also in ensuring public safety in urbanized regions.

The First Responders' Heroic Efforts

Firefighters and emergency personnel have been working tirelessly to combat the Pacific Palisades Fire. Helicopters and air tankers have been deployed to drop water and fire retardant, while ground crews battle flames in challenging terrain.

The efforts of first responders have drawn widespread praise, with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass calling them "true heroes" in a recent press conference. She also urged residents to follow evacuation orders and remain vigilant, emphasizing the importance of community cooperation during emergencies.

Preparing for the Future

As California faces increasingly destructive wildfire seasons, officials and experts are exploring ways to mitigate risks and improve preparedness. Key strategies include:

Enhanced fire prevention measures: Controlled burns, vegetation management, and firebreaks can help reduce fuel for fires.

Investments in technology: Drones, satellites, and AI-powered tools are being used to detect and monitor fires more effectively.

Public education campaigns: Teaching residents how to create defensible spaces around their homes and prepare for evacuations is crucial.

How to Help

The Pacific Palisades Fire has sparked an outpouring of support from across the country. If you’re looking to make a difference, here are some ways to help:

Donate to relief organizations: Groups like the Red Cross and local charities are providing food, shelter, and resources to those affected.

Volunteer: Whether it’s helping at evacuation centers or assisting with cleanup efforts, your time can make a meaningful impact.

Raise awareness: Share accurate information about the fire and its effects to help others understand the gravity of the situation.

Conclusion

The Pacific Palisades Fire is a stark reminder of the challenges posed by California’s worsening wildfire seasons. As communities come together to support one another, the need for long-term solutions to address climate change and improve wildfire management has never been more apparent.

Stay updated on this developing story and join the efforts to support those impacted by the Pacific Palisades Fire. Whether through donations, volunteering, or spreading awareness, every action counts in the fight against these devastating blazes.

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[thatdisasterauthor]

I was gonna make a 2025 disaster bingo card, and one of those things I was going to put on it was another big urban fire but I never got around to doing it. I also didn't expect that if I HAD I'd be checking that box off exactly a week into the year and it would be part of fucking LOS ANGELES.

I hope they can get a handle on the fire despite the increasing winds. :/

If you're in the area, please stay safe and listen to all orders by officials. Download Watch Duty and be prepared to go even if you don't think you'll have to. They're predicting 60-70mph winds tonight and that means this fire could make a big run, city or no city.

[sweetreveriee]

WILDFIRE AID RESOURCES MASTERLIST

these are all the places ive found helping those affected by the la fires. please stay safe everyone <3

______________________

FREE THINGS:

Planet Fitness Offers Free Things (ends January 15)

Form To Get Free Temporary Housing From AirBnB (space limited, eligibility criteria required)

List of Restaurants Offering Free Meals (updated January 9)

______________________

UPDATED MAPS:

CalFire

Watch Duty

______________________

INFORMATION:

List of Updated Info

Spreadsheet of Resources (by location and type of aid)

If you have anything to add to the list linked above, comment here

______________________

SHELTER:

If you need shelter, text "SHELTER" and your zip code to 43362 for nearest open shelters

open shelters:

Arcadia Community Center – 375 Campus Drive, Arcadia, CA 91007

Ritchie Valens Recreation Center – 10736 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Pacoima, CA 91331

Pan Pacific Recreational Center – 7600 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Westwood Recreation Center – 1350 Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025

El Camino Real Charter High School – 5440 Valley Circle Blvd, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Pasadena Civic Center – 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101

Pomona Fairplex – 1101 W McKinley Ave, Pomona, CA 91768

YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles - locations unaffected by fire are open and providing free childcare to those who need it. also offering evacuation sites, temporary shelter, basic amenities, and showers.

for updates and locations click here

______________________

TRANSPORTATION:

CalTrans Updated Road Closure List

Fare collection suspended at Metro through January 9. A list of updates and changes that occurred because of the fires and winds can be found here.

Lyft is offering two free rides of 25$ each (50$ total) for 500 riders using code CAFIRERELIEF25. offer ends January 15.

Uber is offering a free ride of up to 40$ for those who use code WILFIRE25 in the wallet section of the app

______________________

ANIMAL CARE:

List of Shelters (check capacity and availability)

______________________

MENTAL HEALTH:

LA County set up a 24/7 hotline to help with anxiety, distress, and grief. Call (800) 854-7771.

______________________

WHAT TO PACK:

remember the six p's:

people and pets

papers, phone numbers and important documents

prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses

pictures and irreplaceable memorabilia

personal computer, hard drive, and disks

plastic (debit, credit, ATM cards) and cash

what to put in your "go bag":

face masks/face coverings

three-day food supply (nonperishable)

three gallons of bottled water per person

map marked with AT LEAST two evacuation routes

basic first aid and medical supplies

sanitation supplies

toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair brush, deodorant

period products

prescriptions and medications

a change of clothes (bring AT LEAST one warm coat)

spare eyeglasses or contacts (if needed)

extra set of car keys

chargers for your devices

cash, credit/debit cards, traveler's checks

flashlight

battery powered radio

EXTRA BATTERIES

(copies of) important documents such as birth certificates, passports, insurance, a list of emergency contacts and phone numbers

your wallet (ID CARD)

food, water, and meds for your pets (checklist here)

a can opener

not necessary but you might want to bring:

valuable items that can be easily carried

family pictures that cannot be replaced

blankets

more than a day's worth of clothes

important school supplies (for students)

books

trophies, medals, certificates, awards

pens and paper

self defense tools (pepper spray, pocket knives, etc) (NOT ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE. FOR SELF DEFENSE ONLY)

extra shoes

fuzzy socks

non-essential hygiene products

gum/breath mints

ALWAYS PREPARE BEFOREHAND. EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT DIRECTLY IMPACTED, THE FIRES CAN GROW. KEEP YOUR BAGS IN THE CAR SO YOU CAN EVACUATE QUICKLY IF NEEDED.

______________________

WANT TO HELP?

Best Friends Animal Society

LA Fire Department (donations sent directly to first responders)

LA Food Bank

LA Works

MusiCares

Salvation Army

Santa D'Or (in need of fosters for displaced cats)

Silverlake Lounge (also offering a communal gathering place)

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund

Dream Center (in need of volunteers + non-perishable food items)

The Red Cross

We Are Moving the Needle

World Central Kitchen

United Way of Greater LA

As of January 9, the Westwood Recreation Center and Pan Pacific Park are at full capacity and not accepting additional donations. Check with all organizations by phone, text, or email before donating if possible.

______________________

IF THERE'S ANYTHING I MISSED OR MESSED UP PLEASE ADD IT OR LET ME KNOW SO I CAN FIX IT. REBLOG TO SPREAD AWARENESS!!!!!!!! stay safe everyone

[ramgodd]

for some reason i havent seen a single person talking about this so far but

California is suffering from extensive power outages right now.

This is an estimated 14.7 million people without power

This is an outage map of nothern (Sacramento, San Francisco) and central (San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield) california.

Southern california (Los Angeles, San Diego) seems largely unaffected for now. This may change in the coming days.

This could mean days without power for many people, on top of severe flooding and wind speeds. The current expectations are wind speeds of ~60 mph, waves of 25 feet, landslides, and there's the potential for a coastal tornado.

This number may continue to grow.

Not to be all 'have us in your thoughts and prayers'-y, but the impact this storm could be catastrophic. This is going to devastate local communities. it's already flooding freeways and rivers, and some are being asked to evacuate.

* Direct Relief CA provides support to emergency services [x]

* GFM has a category for those affected by California's storms. In the coming days, this will likely be more active [x]

* NBC San Diego provides grants and emergency preparation for those affected by flooding [x] and you can donate to support victims here [x]

more resources TBA

[nickrocketrodriguez]

Re: Fires in Los Angeles

Howdy, peeps--

The vast majority of your favorite shows are written and literally made by so many of the hard-working, working-class folks in Los Angeles who have been devastated by the fires currently raging in the County. I won't be sharing Go Fund Mes or anything (I have a weird thing with that), but I just wanted to encourage people in all fandoms to be kind and understanding of yet another setback Hollywood will be facing in the immediate and near futures. If you DO happen to be an adult fan/in a financial place where you can give back, there are already dozens of fundraisers for specific families that you can also find with a quick perusal of social media. I cannot stress enough that the majority of us are working-class, paycheck-to-paycheck types. Even those who have been able to afford actual houses for their families are always under intense financial pressure to sustain their modest lifestyles, and every little bit will help them get back on their feet. This is especially true for anyone working in animation, though it absolutely applies to those working on live-action productions, as well. If you can help, it will be appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. My little family and I are good, we are safe, we are not in need of help. Just trying to look out for those who I know who have lost everything.

[art-crumbs-main]

Apparently the Hollywood sign is on fire.

Anyone living near the disasters, feel free to add your mutual aid underneath this post. Shill, shill, shill.

[destielmemenews]

source 1

source 2

[thashining]

Héroes sin Fronteras! Orgullosa de ser Mexicana y formar parte de esta gente increíble! 

[thatblondeperson]

It's really important that you all remember that not just celebrities and other rich people are affected by the SoCal fires. It is not at all cute or progressive to act like it doesn't matter that some 6 figure earners are losing their homes since they can just "buy a new mansion".

Those people still have memories and family heirlooms and irreplaceables that have been completely lost.

But they're not the only ones affected. California has a very large lower class and homeless population that will be devastated in the wake of this disaster, and they will get fucked over unfairly by their insurance companies. They will need as much support as possible, so don't stick up your noses at gofundme's from Malibu because you can't differentiate who is actually a part of the 1%. (It's not the majority of celebrities...)

To play devil's advocate, despite whomever has been in controversies, whether small, or larger much more serious ones, it also doesn't help to say these people deserved this or that this is karma. This only adds fuel to the already lack of empathetic response that many people have towards California and Californians as a whole. It's a slippery slope to pick and choose who you think deserves disaster level punishment, when they are singular people in a monumentally uncontrollable fire that is devastating SoCal and will leave irreparable damage.

Yes, there are people living there that are the fucking scum of the earth, but save your comments about who deserves to lose their homes or not for another day. It's not the time. Belittle those fuckers in some other way.

[reasonsforhope]

Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds

Article | Paywall free

When lightning ignited fires around California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park north of Santa Cruz in August 2020, the blaze spread quickly. Redwoods naturally resist burning, but this time flames shot through the canopies of 100-meter-tall trees, incinerating the needles. “It was shocking,” says Drew Peltier, a tree ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University. “It really seemed like most of the trees were going to die.”

Yet many of them lived. In a paper published yesterday in Nature Plants, Peltier and his colleagues help explain why: The charred survivors, despite being defoliated [aka losing all their needles], mobilized long-held energy reserves—sugars that had been made from sunlight decades earlier—and poured them into buds that had been lying dormant under the bark for centuries.

“This is one of those papers that challenges our previous knowledge on tree growth,” says Adrian Rocha, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It is amazing to learn that carbon taken up decades ago can be used to sustain its growth into the future.” The findings suggest redwoods have the tools to cope with catastrophic fires driven by climate change, Rocha says. Still, it’s unclear whether the trees could withstand the regular infernos that might occur under a warmer climate regime.

Mild fires strike coastal redwood forests about every decade. The giant trees resist burning thanks to the bark, up to about 30 centimeters thick at the base, which contains tannic acids that retard flames. Their branches and needles are normally beyond the reach of flames that consume vegetation on the ground. But the fire in 2020 was so intense that even the uppermost branches of many trees burned and their ability to photosynthesize went up in smoke along with their pine needles.

Trees photosynthesize to create sugars and other carbohydrates, which provide the energy they need to grow and repair tissue. Trees do store some of this energy, which they can call on during a drought or after a fire. Still, scientists weren’t sure these reserves would prove enough for the burned trees of Big Basin.

Visiting the forest a few months after the fire, Peltier and his colleagues found fresh growth emerging from blackened trunks. They knew that shorter lived trees can store sugars for several years. Because redwoods can live for more than 2000 years, the researchers wondered whether the trees were drawing on much older energy reserves to grow the sprouts.

Average age is only part of the story. The mix of carbohydrates also contained some carbon that was much older. The way trees store their sugar is like refueling a car, Peltier says. Most of the gasoline was added recently, but the tank never runs completely dry and so a few molecules from the very first fill-up remain. Based on the age and mass of the trees and their normal rate of photosynthesis, Peltier calculated that the redwoods were calling on carbohydrates photosynthesized nearly 6 decades ago—several hundred kilograms’ worth—to help the sprouts grow. “They allow these trees to be really fire-resilient because they have this big pool of old reserves to draw on,” Peltier says.

It's not just the energy reserves that are old. The sprouts were emerging from buds that began forming centuries ago. Redwoods and other tree species create budlike tissue that remains under the bark. Scientists can trace the paths of these buds, like a worm burrowing outward. In samples taken from a large redwood that had fallen after the fire, Peltier and colleagues found that many of the buds, some of which had sprouted, extended back as much as 1000 years. “That was really surprising for me,” Peltier says. “As far as I know, these are the oldest ones that have been documented.”

... “The fact that the reserves used are so old indicates that they took a long time to build up,” says Susan Trumbore, a radiocarbon expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. “Redwoods are majestic organisms. One cannot help rooting for those resprouts to keep them alive in decades to come.”

-via Science, December 1, 2023

[a-personiftranslator]

I asked this question to my science class during my wildfire fixation, and I’m curious to see what people say here. I’ve read a few books about them and always found it interesting how California and her associated firefighting agency are listed on the same par with countries.

[thatdisasterauthor]

Well fuckity fuck. Palisades is making another run it sounds like, and in an entirely new direction this time (to the east). Lots of new evacuation orders going out.

Stay safe, everyone. This one ain't done yet.

[jadesolayray]

If they're suggesting you might have to evacuate then start packing things NOW.

Put everything important like documents in an easy to carry bag (in case you have to leave by foot) and place it by the door.

Keep track of your pets, put other things in the car NOW.

Prepare yourself, if the worst doesn't happen it doesn't happen but don't wait acting like it CANT happen because right now there's a nonzero chance that it WILL.

Don't wait for them to call for an evacuation, thats gonna put you at a disadvantage. The earlier you get out of there when it's announced, the better.

Here is the official resources spreadsheet for the fires, be safe

[aquah-tofawna]

Climate Change is why winter weather happens later and later each year. It's also why Snow and Ice storms get worse and happens in places that normally wouldn't get them.

Climate change is why hurricanes, monsoons, tsunamis and tornados become stronger and more frequent.

Climate change is why wildfires get worse and more frequent.

Climate change is why bacteria that was dormant in polar ice caps is awakening (because they are melting).

Climate change is why insects, flora and fauna are dying and migrating and why ecosystems are falling apart.

I see many of you all citing the wrath of God (which is problematic for a myriad of reasons but that's another conversation) so let's humor the idea that is the case.

Did you all ever consider that God's wrath may be incurred in part due to the human greed that exploits this planet -a most magnificent gift - that has been bestowed upon them for profit? All without a second thought of the consequences.

If I gave my children something valuable and useful and they treated it like disposable trash I would be angry too.

As humans we consistently fear and do not want to endure the consequences of our own actions but we will not change or take accountability for what we do and allow.

We blame God, the Devil, the cosmos - literally anyone and anything else but ourselves.

We love AI, we love our gas guzzling cars, we love convenience and the companies that provide it but refuse to see its impact on the environment.

So, if it is God's wrath, humanity is most certainly deserving.

*pic semi related

[lechusza]

Community first

Not the most ideal way to make national news. Be safe all in line of the fires! Support these communities as you can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3XPATdEoTg #meetthepress #news #californiafires #naturaldisaster #communityfirst