US President Joe Biden on Thursday will travel to areas of California hit by a series of storms that have killed at least 20 people.
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Biden will “visit communities impacted by the devastation caused by recent storms, review recovery efforts and assess additional federal assistance needed,” the White House said in a statement late Monday.
Since December 27, severe winter storms have caused flooding, landslides and mudslides in California.
Thunderstorms have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes, according to an executive order signed Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The damage has already been estimated at a billion dollars.
In northern California, San Francisco had recorded more than 18 inches of rain since Dec. 26, 2022, according to a National Weather Service (NWS) report.
It is the 22-day period that has recorded the most precipitation “since January 14, 1862,” the United States Weather Service commented.
In the Central Valley, California’s most fertile region, which produces 40% of America’s fruit, Modesto on Monday broke the daily rainfall record set in 1950 and Stockton in 1973, the Sacramento NWS tweeted.
As recently as Saturday, waterspouts had descended along the Pacific coast, flooding many rivers and inundating urban areas, homes and farmland that had been parched by an endless drought. Power lines were hit, fields and roads were flooded.
However, the string of these storms since late December may soon come to an end.
The NWS is forecasting “a period of drier weather over California and the southwestern United States” over the weekend.
retain water
California may then finally have time to repair the damage, restore power — about 15,300 homes were still without power as of Tuesday morning — and learn the lessons of bad weather, which is “unprecedented on the scale of our lives,” like the said governor.
In San Francisco, the past three months have been the wettest since the winter of 1972-73. At the same time, California, whose agriculture feeds North America, is facing an unprecedented long-term drought.
However, the torrential rains of recent weeks will not reverse the trend. They “won’t be enough to fill up Lake Mead,” warns the NWS, for example, about the gigantic reservoir on the Colorado River that flows through California and whose level has been steadily falling for years.
But the water control and containment infrastructures — levees, artificial lakes, restricted riverbeds — “were designed 40, 50 years ago” for “a world that no longer exists,” Gavin told Newsom on Saturday.
By blocking the flow of water, these developments limit the vital recharge of groundwater, experts say.
The Democrat, one of the most committed to climate change in the United States, wants to address these issues as “the heat is getting much hotter, the aridity drier and (…) and the humidity wetter.” Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, scientists say.