Able Restoration

PG&E Lacked Basic Training Before California Blackouts.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to large swaths of wildfire-prone Northern California last fall, few of the emergency personnel managing the blackouts for the nation’s largest utility had learned the fundamentals of managing an emergency in their home state.
The utility entered 2019 planning to “de-energize” its aging electric grid during autumn windstorms, so that downed lines couldn’t spark a blaze. Yet among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from PG&E’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation, The Associated Press found.

Predictably enough, the October 2019 outages brought chaos from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Sierra Nevada, as more than 2 million people lost power.

Computers went dark, phones stopped working as did gas pumps, elevators, traffic lights, water pumps, stoves, medical devices — the list seemed endless.

Fast forward to this fall. PG&E’s catchphrase for the blackouts is “smaller, shorter, smarter.” By many accounts, the three power shutoffs so far have indeed been smoother.

That improvement reflects more than just infrastructure upgrades and a year to finetune. Chastened by its failures and required by state regulators, PG&E sought the training it had neglected.

As its name suggests, the Standardized Emergency Management System helps institutions as different as a massive utility and a rural county enter a public disaster with a built-in plan. The blueprint covers a range of issues, including how to share information and how to structure emergency operation centers. It also creates a common vocabulary -- an important tool given the collision of jargon and acronyms when jurisdictions converge.

Responding to a disaster requires improvisation, much like a jazz band performance, said Chris Godley, director of emergency management in fire-besieged Sonoma County. An untrained PG&E last year was like having a stranger come to the show with their instrument, “walk onto the stage and just jump into the middle of the song.”

That might work if the new player has skills. When it came to emergency management, PG&E did not.

Others likened the dynamic to a team that shows up without knowing the rules of the game, or an aircraft pilot who doesn’t communicate with air traffic control.

Puerto Rico, Unable to Vote, Becomes Crucial to US Election.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are rallying people in a place where U.S. citizens cannot cast ballots but have the ear of hundreds of thousands of potential voters in the battleground state of Florida.
The candidates are targeting Puerto Rico in a way never before seen, with the U.S. territory suddenly finding itself in the crosshairs of a high-stakes race even though Puerto Ricans on the island cannot vote in presidential elections despite being U.S. citizens since 1917.

Campaigners know this, but they hope those on the island will push relatives and friends on the U.S. mainland to vote for them in a strategy that capitalizes on the close ties they share.

It’s a novel role that plays off the sentiment that Puerto Ricans in Florida feel they are voting by proxy for those back home left out of U.S. democracy. And a growing number find this role appealing, especially since many on the island are struggling to recover from hurricanes Irma and Maria, a string of strong earthquakes, a deep economic crisis and the pandemic.

“I'm voting for 3 million Puerto Ricans on the island, including my entire family,” said Jerick Mediavilla, who is from the mountain town of Corozal and is voting in a U.S. presidential election for the first time after moving to Orlando four years ago. “Puerto Rico doesn’t have a voice. Our voice is via the United States.”

It’s people like Mediavilla that Democrats and Republicans are trying to target as they court Latinos in Florida, which has the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the U.S., with nearly 1.2 million. Trump won Florida in 2016 and has virtually no path to the White House if he doesn't do so again. Polls are tight, and as the Trump campaign worries of support slipping among suburban and older voters, Latinos in Florida have become crucial.

Puerto Ricans represent 27% of Hispanics of voting age in Florida, trailing only Cuban-Americans. While it's unclear how many are Democrats or Republicans, Democrats have widened the gap of Hispanic voters registered for this election over the GOP compared with 2016. The gains were in counties with a high number of Puerto Ricans including Orange County, home to Orlando, and Hillsborough, home to Tampa. Polk County, where the Puerto Rican population has more than doubled since 2013, saw the fastest growth of Latino registered voters, with Democrats registering 21,000 more voters than Republicans. The gap in 2016 was 15,000. But those same counties also have a very high number of voters registered without party affiliation.

“Puerto Ricans will play a very crucial role in this election,” said Yadira Sánchez, co-executive director of Poder Latinx, a U.S.-based non-profit group that aims to mobilize Latino voters.

Election observers, however, note Puerto Ricans have weaker voter turnout rates than other Hispanic groups that favor Republican candidates.

Trump recently secured an endorsement from Puerto Rico's governor and promised nearly $13 billion in additional aid last month to help the island rebuild from Hurricane Maria. During a recent rally in Florida, Trump declared: “I’m not gonna say the best, but I’m just about the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico. You better vote for me, Puerto Rico.” Many were quick to note that those living on the island don’t have that right.

Many Homes Likely Lost in North-Central Colorado Fires.
BOULDER, COLO. (AP) — Nearly 3,000 people were forced to flee from a fast-moving fire in north-central Colorado and authorities believe a large number of homes were destroyed.

The CalWood Fire started around noon Saturday near the Cal-Wood Education Center, which is about 17 miles (27 kilometers) from downtown Boulder. It was pushed by strong winds. The National Center for Atmospheric Research's Mesa lab recorded gusts of 59 mph (95 kph) on Saturday.

Fire Forces Evacuations for Mountain Towns North of Phoenix.
Sheriff's spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn said between 80 and 100 residents of the communities evacuated Friday and many others left Thursday night. He said about 10 people refused to leave their homes.

The local American Red Cross chapter has opened an evacuation center at Mayer High School in the community of Mayer.

Prescott National Forest officials said the blaze broke out Thursday about 7 miles northwest of Crown King and has burned more than 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) of juniper, chaparral and timber.

Ground crews trying to corral the flames are being aided by three air tankers and four helicopters dropping fire retardant or water.

Crown King is about 80 miles (128 kilometers) north of Phoenix in the Bradshaw Mountains.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Health Issues as Wildfire Smoke Hits Millions in US
Smoke at concentrations that topped the government's charts for health risks and lasted at least a day enshrouded counties inhabited by more than 8 million people across five states in recent weeks, AP’s analysis shows.

Major cities in Oregon, which has been especially hard hit, last month suffered the highest pollution levels they've ever recorded when powerful winds supercharged fires that had been burning in remote areas and sent them hurtling to the edge of densely populated Portland.

Medical complications began arising while communities were still enveloped in smoke, including hundreds of additional emergency room visits daily in Oregon, according to state health officials.

“It's been brutal for me," said Barb Trout, a 64-year-old retiree living south of Portland in the Willamette Valley. She was twice taken to the emergency room by ambulance following severe asthmatic reactions, something that had never happened to her before.

Trout had sheltered inside as soon as smoke rolled into the valley just after Labor Day but within days had an asthma attack that left her gasping for air and landed her in the ER. Two weeks later, when smoke from fires in California drifted into the valley, she had an even more violent reaction that Trout described as a near-death experience.

“It hit me quick and hard __ more so than the first one. I wasn't hardly even breathing," she recalled. After getting stabilized with drugs, Trout was sent home but the specter of a third attack now haunts her. She and her husband installed an alarm system so she can press a panic button when in distress to call for help.

“It's put a whole new level on my life,'' she said. “I'm trying not to live in fear, but I've got to be really really cautious.”

In nearby Salem, Trout's pulmonologist Martin Johnson said people with existing respiratory issues started showing up at his hospital or calling his office almost immediately after the smoke arrived, many struggling to breathe. Salem is in Marion county, which experienced eight days of pollution at hazardous levels during a short period, some of the worst conditions seen the West over the past two decades, according to AP’s analysis.

Most of Johnson’s patients are expected to recover but he said some could have permanent loss of lung function. Then there are the “hidden” victims who Johnson suspects died from heart attacks or other problems triggered by the poor air quality but whose cause of death will be chalked up to something else.

“Many won’t show up at the hospital or they’ll die at home or they’ll show up at hospice for other reasons, such as pneumonia or other complications,” Johnson said.

Based on prior studies of pollution-related deaths and the number of people exposed to recent fires, researchers at Stanford University estimated that as many as 3,000 people over 65 in California alone died prematurely after being exposed to smoke during a six-week period beginning Aug. 1. Hundreds more deaths could have occurred in Washington over several weeks of poor air caused by the fires, according to University of Washington researchers.

The findings for both states have not been published in peer-reviewed journals. No such estimate was available for Oregon.

Wildfires are a regular occurrence in Western states but they’ve grown more intense and dangerous as a changing climate dries out forests thick with trees and underbrush from decades of fire suppression. What makes the smoke from these fires dangerous are particles too small for the naked eye to see that can be breathed in and cause respiratory problems.

On any given day, western fires can produce 10 times more particles than are produced by all other pollution sources including vehicle emissions and industrial facilities, said Shawn Urbanski, a U.S. Forest Service smoke scientist.

Fires across the West emitted more than a million tons of the particles in 2012, 2015 and 2017, and almost as much in 2018 — the year a blaze in Paradise, California killed 85 people and burned 14,000 houses, generating a thick plume that blanketed portions of Northern California for weeks. Figures for 2017 and 2018 are preliminary.

A confluence of meteorological events made the smoke especially bad this year: first, fierce winds up and down the coast whipped fires into a fury, followed in Oregon by a weather inversion that trapped smoke close to the ground and made it inescapable for days. Hundreds of miles to the south in San Francisco, smoke turned day into night, casting an eerie orange pall over a city where even before the pandemic facemasks had become common at times to protect against smoke.

AP's analysis of smoke exposure was based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data compiled from hundreds of air quality monitoring stations. Census data was used to determine the numbers of people living in affected areas of Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Montana.

At least 38 million people live in counties subjected to pollution considered unhealthy for the general population for five days, according to AP’s analysis. That included more than 25 million people in California, 7.2 million in Washington, 3.5 million in Oregon, 1 million in Idaho and 299,000 people in Montana.

The state totals for the number of people exposed to unhealthy air on a given day were derived from counties where at least one monitoring site registered unhealthy air.

China’s ecological restoration projects deplete terrestrial water stores.
Irvine, Calif., Sept. 10, 2020 – Through concerted, policy-driven efforts, China has converted large swaths of desert into grassland over the past few decades, but this success has come at a cost. In a study published recently in Nature Sustainability, scientists at the University of California, Irvine report that the Asian nation’s environmental reclamation programs have substantially diminished terrestrially stored water.

“Large-scale ecological restoration is an increasingly popular human practice to combat land degradation and climate change. However, the impact of this on water resources until now had been understudied,” said co-author Isabella Velicogna, UCI professor of Earth system science. “We found that such programs in northern China are depleting total land water resources at an alarming rate, which was a surprise.”

Combining data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite mission, Chinese government reports, environmental observations and results from climate simulations, the UCI researchers constructed a continuous record spanning the pre-environmental reclamation period (1982 to 1998) and the post-restoration period (2003 to 2016). This is the first such study to take into account all hydrologic resources, including groundwater, soil moisture, surface water, snow and ice.

The team focused its analysis on northern China’s Mu Us Sandyland area and learned that reclamation efforts there led to an increase in total annual reserve consumption of about 16 millimeters, equal to the loss of 21 cubic kilometers of freshwater during the post-restoration period.

Lead author Meng Zhao, a Ph.D. student in Velicogna’s lab, said the group chose to study the Mu Us Sandyland because China has had success in renewing vegetation and reversing desertification there. Also, the location has limited exposure to other forms of groundwater depletion, such as agricultural pumping or coal mining, giving scientists an opportunity to isolate the effects of China’s ecological reclamation projects on terrestrial water storage.

The GRACE satellite mission was launched in March 2002, putting it in place to make direct observations of the groundwater supply in the post-restoration period. During this time, GRACE data showed an average depletion rate of about 7 millimeters per year resulting from revegetation programs. Between 2003 and 2016, however, an average of just under 9 millimeters annually was added to total terrestrial water stores by a wetter climate, even taking into account a drought in 2005.

In comparison, the team analyzed Chinese government precipitation records against evapotranspiration and runoff data to calculate a trend of water storage growth of nearly 7 millimeters annually in the pre-reclamation span of 1982 to 1998. The results clearly showed the hydrologic impact of human influences in the region.

“Thanks to the data from the GRACE mission, we were able to develop a comprehensive view of the ecological restoration projects’ effect on water storage, while before it was only possible to look at partial components,” Zhao said. “Our findings will help reevaluate the success of reclamation practices in terms of protecting water resources.”

And will this water storage depletion continue in the future?

“Quite likely, if the stakeholders opt to maintain or elevate the level of restoration effort,” said study co-author Geruo A, a project scientist in Velicogna’s lab. “However, reducing revegetation and relying more on natural regeneration is favorable, given the current climate, and will likely slow down or even reverse the trend of water depletion.”

This project was supported by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the agency’s Terrestrial Hydrology and Earth and Space Science fellowship programs. Additional contributors included Jien Zhang of Iowa State University and Cunzhu Liang and Zhiyong Li of Inner Mongolia University.