LOS ANGELES (AP) — Heavy rains drenched parts of California on Wednesday, bringing the threat of flooding and mudslides as millions of people geared up for holiday travel, the National Weather Service said.

The Pacific storm centered offshore was moving gradually southeastward, sending bands of rain ashore and hitting particularly hard on the central coast after sweeping through the San Francisco Bay Area. Flood watches were posted all the way south to San Diego.

California’s rain came as the Northeast battled the effects of storms that brought floods and downed trees, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and killing at least five people.

More than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain had fallen by late morning in the Santa Ynez Mountains — the steep backdrop to the south Santa Barbara County’s “American Riviera” communities — and more bands of heavy rain were expected to follow.

The stormy weather came as millions of Californians geared up for holiday travel and finished preparations for Christmas, with the Automobile Club of Southern California predicting 9.5 million people in that region would travel during the year-end holiday period.

However, so far the rain hadn’t drenched the shopping season.

Employees at Skylight Books, an independent bookstore in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, were worried about the impact of the storm. But on Wednesday, general manager Mary Williams said the store was packed.

“I think after last winter’s deluge, Angelenos have decided to go out in the rain after all,” she said. “I guess buying presents for the holidays is just that important.”

At Whiskey & Leather in Montecito, near coastal Santa Barbara northwest of Los Angeles, manager Karina Cota said Wednesday’s rain had prompted customers to start and finish their Christmas shopping at the boutique to avoid going to other places in the downpour.

“They’re coming in and just want to get it over with,” she said. “They’re trying to do it all in one shot.”

In the coastal LA suburb of Long Beach, family-owned Todd’s Christmas Trees prepares each season for Southern California’s late-year heat waves and stores their trees under a giant tent to keep them from drying out. It was a coincidence that the tent also protected the trees during Wednesday’s rains.

“It kind of works out perfectly,” Mike Todd said. He expected to sell out again this year, even with the bad weather.

“People will come, as they say,” he said.

California is well aware of storm risks: In January 2018, a downpour on a wildfire burn scar unleashed massive debris flows through Montecito, destroying homes and killing 23 people.

The Santa Barbara County Fire Department increased staffing for the deluge but there were no evacuation orders for residents, said spokesperson Scott Safechuck.

“Our creeks are not showing any signs of having any issues (handling runoff) so we’re in a good position here, but we are expecting 5 to as much as 10 inches (12.7-25.4 centimeters) in the next 24 to 36 hours,” Safechuck said.

The storm, more powerful and widespread than one that blew in earlier in the week, was expected to jumpstart a laggard rainy season just a year after California was inundated by a series of atmospheric rivers that refilled reservoirs that had been emptied by a prolonged drought.

“It’s been balmily warm and unusually dry really throughout the state the past couple of weeks,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who spoke during an online briefing Tuesday.

Swain noted that the storm was very unstable, and at times on Wednesday, forecasters issued marine warnings for coastal waters due to severe thunderstorms capable of producing waterspouts.

The pace of the storm also was proving difficult to forecast. The San Diego-area weather office pushed back the timing of the heaviest rain there to Thursday and Friday.

Flood watches were issued from the central California coast to San Diego with warnings of a high risk of roadway flooding that could prompt travel delays, as well as rockslides, mudslides and debris flows from wildfire burn scars. The severe weather could pose a problem for some of the 9.5 million Southern Californians that the Auto Club predicts will be traveling for the holidays.

The relative warmth of the storm meant that snowfall would be mostly limited to high elevations in the southern Sierra Nevada and some Southern California ranges.

The California Highway Patrol office in South Lake Tahoe said in social media posts that the storm, nonetheless, was “making a mess,” producing rain, sleet, snow and icy roads.

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A slow-moving Pacific storm could bring excessive rain and flooding to California on Wednesday, forecasters warned.

The center of the low-pressure system was about 300 miles (483 kilometers) west of San Francisco during the early-morning hours and was expected to gradually move south along the coast, the National Weather Service said.

The storm, which was likely to be more powerful than one that blew in earlier this week, was expected to finally jumpstart a laggard rainy season just a year after California was inundated by a flurry of atmospheric rivers that refilled reservoirs that had been emptied by a prolonged drought.

Advisories for minor flooding were in effect for parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and around Monterey Bay. Near sunrise, forecasters issued a marine warning for waters off the central coast due to a severe thunderstorm capable of producing waterspouts.

The storm’s major impacts were expected later from the central coast south through Los Angeles to San Diego.

Flood watches issued for the region warned of a high risk of roadway flooding, rockslides and mudslides, debris flows from wildfire burn scars, and travel delays. Rainfall totals for some foothills and coastal slopes ranged up to 10 inches (25 centimeters).

Snowfall, however, was predicted to be limited to high elevations in the southern Sierra Nevada and some Southern California ranges.

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By Philippa Maister
July 28, 2023 at 08:23 AM

Demand for office space has fallen almost 16% this year.

In most cities in the U.S., employers are still struggling to convince workers it’s time to go back to the office. That is continuing to depress demand for office space, according to the VTS Office Demand Index (VODI) July 2023 quarterly report.

VTS, a technology platform that provides real-time CRE market information, claims VODI is the earliest available indicator of upcoming office leasing activity and the only one to track new tenant demand.

“Nationally, demand for office space fell 15.9% quarter-over-quarter to a VODI of 53 from 63 in March 2023, and 15.9% annually,” the company reported. And even though a drop in the summer months is normal, this drop was exceptionally large – well above the 0.9% in 2018 or 4.5% in 2019 and 2020.

“A VODI of 53 indicates that new demand for office space was flowing in at 53% of its average level in 2018-2019, i.e. just over half of the pre-pandemic normal,” the report noted. “At 53, the June VODI exceeds 7 of the past 12 monthly readings.”

While some employers “are full steam ahead, capitalizing on more favorable lease terms,” those who are hesitant to make commitments right now are dominating the market, VTS found. Over the past year, the VODI has remained within a relatively narrow range from 46-64. “The VODI’s latest level extends a prolonged stretch of relative stability, suggesting convergence to a post-pandemic state.”

Employers’ efforts to order or entice workers back to the office has given rise to “a slow-moving tug of war” between the two sides, VTS noted. It cites data indicating that nationally about one-third of workdays are worked off-site. On an anecdotal basis, the TAMI sector (technology, advertising, media and information sectors) appeared to favor remote work more than the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate, and legal) or government sectors.

VTS noted two significant exceptions to the general trend. San Francisco experienced a 10.2% quarter-over-quarter and 5.9% annual growth in office demand, with an increase in the number of prospective new tenants hunting for spaces of more than 50,000 SF. 

And in New York, the VODI was down only 3.9% for the quarter, nearly flat – even though year-over-year, its VODI rose 7.4% — the most of any VODI market. “New York City has experienced a heightened influx of new prospective tenants seeking large spaces,” the report noted, adding that the disproportionately large size of the city’s office market exerts “outsized influence” on the national VODI. Los Angeles saw only a modest VODI quarterly decline. 

However, Chicago, Seattle, Washington, DC and Boston experienced significant fall-offs in demand. In Q2, the average VODI for these cities was 32.4% lower than for the three more office-friendly cities – and 17.5% higher than the rate for the previous quarter.

“As we continue to discover how the Post-Pandemic plays out, it remains to be seen how different sectors’ market use will evolve,” the report commented.

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The San Andreas Fault is an 800-mile-long sliding tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. It cleaves California from north to south, as the two tectonic plates slowly grind against each other, threatening to give rise to massive earthquakes.

San Andreas comprises three major sections which can move independently. In the southern and the northern sections, the plates are locked most of the time, causing stresses to build over years, decades, or even centuries, and occasionally leading to large earthquakes, such as the catastrophic one from San Francisco in 1906 that had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed over 3,000 people.

In the central section though, which separates the other two, the plates slip past each other slowly, at a steady 26 millimeters rate each year. Until recently, scientists thought that this so-called “aseismic creep” prevents stresses from building and does not lead to large earthquakes.

However, a new study published in the journal Geology suggests that this central creeping section of the San Andreas Fault has in fact hosted many major earthquakes throughout history, some of them possibly happening fairly recently. By using novel chemical-analysis methods to calculate the degrees of heating that the sedimentary rocks withstood in the distant past – a sign that earthquakes took place there – the researchers argue that the creep may have witnessed over 100 earthquakes during its history. Some of these quakes may have been even larger than the disastrous 1906 San Francisco one.

“The creeping section is a difficult place to do Paleoseismology, because evidence for earthquakes can be easily erased by the creep,” said Morgan Page, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey. “If this holds up, this is the first evidence of a big seismic rupture in this part of the fault.”

“Ultimately, our work points to the potential for higher magnitude earthquakes in central California and highlights the importance of including the central (San Andreas Fault) and other creeping faults in seismic hazard analysis,” the study authors added.

However, according to the researchers, although massive earthquakes did occur along the creep and thus they could happen again, since tectonic strain is not currently accumulating at significant rates in the area, no such disastrous events are foreseen in the near future.

“People should not be alarmed,” concluded study co-author Stephen Cox, a geologist at Columbia University. “Building codes in California are now quite good. Seismic events are inevitable. Work like this helps us figure out what is the biggest possible event, and helps everyone prepare.”

—

By Andrei Ionescu, Earth.com Staff Writer

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The San Andreas Fault in California is creeping slowly but may soon give the country a jolt, similar to the 1906 earthquake that killed 3,000 and leveled San Francisco.

The 800-mile-long fault runs from north to south through California and Mexico, forming the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. The two plates grind against each other along the fault, producing seismic events, moving 0.79 to 1.38 inches per year in a process called continental drift.

The San Andreas Fault is made up of three sections, each shifting independently past each other like two hands being rubbed together. At the northernmost and southernmost ends, the massive continental plates are usually locked together. But as stress increases along the boundaries, the plates may eventually slip violently against each other, causing earthquakes.

At the central section of the fault, the two plates slip past each other at a relatively peaceful rate of just over an inch per year, thus avoiding earthquakes for the most part. This stress avoidance is called aseismic creep.

The map above depicts the San Andreas fault sinking along the California coast and then going inland at San Francisco, which was devastated by an earthquake in 1906. The fault continues to Mexico. The “creeping” central section, subject of a new study, is in yellow. Rock samples from almost 2 miles down were taken at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, or SAFOD, marked by the red star. (Adapted from Coffey et al., Geology, 2022)

Rocks from nearly two miles below the Earth’s surface, however, reveal that the supposedly peaceful central section has seen violent earthquakes, some of which have been fairly recent.

In a study published in the journal Geology, chemical analysis of the rocks was used to gauge the heating of rocks, revealing evidence of quakes.

“This means we can get larger earthquakes on the central section than we thought,” said lead author Genevieve Coffey, who conducted the research as a graduate student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We should be aware that there is this potential — that it is not always just continuous creep.”

History has recorded devastating tremors along the San Andreas Fault. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake registered 7.9 on the Richter scale along the northern section. In 1989, the Loma Prieta quake killed more than 60. The southern section saw the 1994 Northridge quake near Los Angeles, causing another 60 deaths. Stresses are building there for a quake of the same magnitude as the 1906 quake.

Ruins of the city after the earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco, California. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

However, the fault’s central section seems harmless, except for a small area in the south that produces some quakes. Events of a magnitude of 6 take place there about every 20 years. Near Parkfield, California, seismologists drilled a borehole about two miles down to retrieve rock samples, while monitoring seismic activity on the surface and deep within the Earth.

When the plates slip, rocks along the fault line spike in temperature by hundreds of degrees above that of the surrounding rocks, altering organic compounds in sedimentary rock formations along the fault path. Using these so-called biomarkers, scientists used the altered composition of rock to map ancient earthquakes. By calculating the degree of heating, the distance of slippage can be estimated and thus the magnitude of those quakes.

The samples they brought up from the borehole indicated more than 100 tremors have taken place and that the San Andreas Fault jumped about 5 feet each time, representing quakes measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, roughly equal to the Loma Prieta and Northridge quakes.

But many of the quakes may well have been larger than recent strong tremors. Researchers say quakes along the central section of the San Andreas Fault may have been similar to the devastating 1906 quake.

California’s current hazard model for insurance rates and building codes includes a large central section quake as a remote possibility. However, the new study seems to provide evidence, apart from controversial mathematical models, that large quakes have indeed happened in the central area.

Above is an enlarged microscope photo of sedimentary rock that was structurally altered during an earthquake. The slip layer (green portion) was heated during fault movement. The actual field of view is only about a millimeter across. (Kelly Bradbury/Utah State University)

Coffey said dating the quakes remains an inexact science. By gauging the ratio of argon gas to radioactive potassium in rocks, scientists can estimate the rocks’ age: the higher the amount of argon is, the older the rock is — but not always.

The sedimentary rock they analyzed was formed tens of millions of years ago and comes from the ancient Pacific basin that was subducted or pushed beneath the North American plate. This means that the rocks along the slip zones appear to be as young as 3.2 million years as an upper age limit for the most recent quakes, said Coffey. But some may have occurred a few hundred or a few thousand years ago, she said.

The group is refining the age interpretations because they don’t know how much argon was driven out of the rock and thus how far the geological clock has been reset.

“Ultimately, our work points to the potential for higher-magnitude earthquakes in central California and highlights the importance of including the central [San Andreas Fault] and other creeping faults in seismic hazard analysis,” the authors wrote.

Morgan Page, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey, said the “Big One” — a calamitous earthquake expected by Californians — might start at the southern end of the San Andreas, tear through the creeping center and wind up in the northern section.

“People should not be alarmed,” said co-author Stephen Cox, adding that California’s building codes have improved over the years. “Seismic events are inevitable. Work like this helps us figure out what is the biggest possible event and helps everyone prepare.”

Edited by Siân Speakman and Kristen Butler

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Canada-headquartered Waterotor International Corp., a hydrokinetic energy company, has unveiled its Megarotor system design called “The Big Cajun” at the Floating Wind Solutions 2022 convention in Houston, Texas.

The 20-megawatt Big Cajun is said to be the first hybrid ocean system that simultaneously extracts energy from slow-moving water and wind.

Source: Waterotor International Corp.

According to Wateroror, the patented technology utilizes unique rotor stacks in any water speed and conventional wind turbines to extract large amounts of power.

Currently under development in Louisiana, the Big Cajun is Waterotor’s first commercial ocean deployment.

Its first application is said to allow Big Oil to reduce its carbon footprint and drastically reduce costs by replacing diesel-generated electricity production on platforms that each consumes 33,000 gallons of fossil fuel per day at an annual cost of over USD 70 million.

”Waterotor’s technology will provide access to a massive, untouched source of renewable energy for the first time,” said Fred FergusonWaterotor’s Founder & CEO.

”No one has successfully commercialized energy production from flat moving water. This is the beginning of a new era.”

The company expects the technology to be licensed by ”a major global corporation and/or power company” within the next year.

Waterotor has identified several potential sites for The Big Cajun, including an initial site located off Suriname and Guyana.

Western boundary currents are said to be among the fastest non-tidal ocean currents on Earth, reaching speeds of more than five miles per hour (2.5 meters per second) and containing as much as 100 times the combined flow of the world’s rivers.

According to Waterotor, The Big Cajun is being developed with major contractors under the direction of marine architect Herman J. Schellstede.

US Capital Global (USCG), San Francisco-based investment banking firm, is engaged by Waterotor to raise further funding for the project.

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WESTERLY, RI (AP) – Tropical Storm Henri dotted the northeast with high winds as it hit land on the coast of Rhode Island on Sunday, sending lashing rainbands westward that cut power

Monday, Aug 23, 2021 4:08 AM EST

By DAVID KLEPPER, MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and DAVID PORTER, AP

WESTERLY, RI (AP) – Tropical Storm Henri hit the northeast with strong winds as it landed on the coast of Rhode Island on Sunday, sending lashing rainbands west, turning off electricity to over 140,000 homes and causing flooding Bridges closed and flooded roads, leaving some people stranded in their vehicles.

The storm was downgraded by a hurricane before it hit New England, which gave many a sigh of relief.

For two days, heavy, persistent rainfall inundated areas in southwestern New Jersey, even as it assumed tropical depression status.

The storm threatened to stall near the New York-Connecticut border overnight before swiveling east and moving towards the Atlantic on Monday. Some of the highest rain totals were expected inland. There were few early reports of major coastal damage from wind or surf.

President Joe Biden promised on Sunday that he would provide federal aid to residents of the affected states. The president declared disasters in large parts of the region and opened the wallets for federal reconstruction aid.

Biden had previously offered his condolences to the people of Tennessee after at least 22 people, including young children and the elderly, were killed in severe flooding from an unrelated storm, and dozens more were missing.

When it hit land near Westerly, Rhode Island, Henri had winds of about 60 mph and gusts of up to 70 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. By late Sunday, Henri had winds of about 30 mph as he moved via Connecticut towards the New York state line.

Some of the worst rains came long before the center of the storm. In Helmetta, New Jersey, around 200 residents fled to higher elevations, sought refuge in hotels or with friends and family when the floods flooded their homes.

“It happened so quickly – in the twinkling of an eye,” said the city’s mayor, Christopher Slavicek, whose parents spent the night after their escape.

“Now it’s going to be cleaned up. So that’s far from over, ”said the mayor.

Some communities in central New Jersey were inundated with up to eight inches of rain by noon on Sunday. In Jamesburg, television videos showed flooded downtown streets and cars almost completely submerged.

In Newark, public safety director Brian O’Hara said police and firefighters saved 86 people in 11 storm-related incidents. He said “significant flooding” resulted in several vehicles submerged in flooded areas.

“This could have been a lot worse, especially with regard to the wind,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Sunday evening.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said Henri was close to being in the “rearview mirror” but said there was more work to be done even if mandatory evacuations were lifted in some communities. Around 250 residents from four nursing homes on the bank had to be relocated to other nursing homes.

Several major bridges in Rhode Island, which connect much of the state, were temporarily closed on Sunday, and some coastal roads were almost impassable.

In Newport, Paul and Cherie Saunders weathered the storm in a house their family has owned since the late 1950s. Her basement was flooded with 1.5 m of water during super storm Sandy nine years ago.

“This house has seen so many hurricanes and so many things,” said Cherie Saunders, 68. “We’ll just wait and see what happens.”

Rhode Island has been hit by regular hurricanes and tropical storms – including Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Irene in 2011, and Hurricane Bob in 1991. The city of Providence suffered so much flood damage from a hurricane in 1938 and Hurricane Carol in 1954, that they created a hurricane barrier in the 1960s to protect downtown from a storm surge that drifts up Narragansett Bay. This barrier – and newer gates that have been built nearby – were closed for hours on Sunday before reopening.

The National Weather Service recorded what could be the wettest hour ever in Central Park, with 1.94 inches of torrential rainfall pounding the park between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM on Saturday. In the early evening, thousands who attended a homecoming concert in the park had to disperse due to heavy rains.

After the hurricane center returned through New England and swept into the Atlantic over the next few days, the hurricane center predicted that Henri “will lose his identity”.

By then, areas from northeast Pennsylvania to New England were preparing for heavy rains.

Marshall Shepherd, director of the atmospheric science program at the University of Georgia and past president of the American Meteorological Society, said Henri was somewhat reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, a slow-moving storm that decimated the Houston area in 2017.

“There’s a banding on the west side of the storm that has literally been stationary – sitting there and draining rain. That will pose a significant threat to the New York and New Jersey area, “Shepherd said.

After Tropical Storm Irene hit the coast in August 2011, many were relieved when the New York City area was largely spared. But then the storm settled over the Green Mountains, and Irene became the greatest natural disaster to hit Vermont since an epic flood in 1927. Parts of the state got 11 inches of rain in just 24 hours. Irene killed six in Vermont, left thousands homeless, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of freeway.

“I remember Irene and the media outside Vermont brushing it aside like it wasn’t a big deal while it hit Vermont,” tweeted Robert Welch, a podcaster on Sunday. “I’ll relax when I see it on the radar at sea.”

In one of his final appearances as governor before stepping down on a sexual harassment scandal late Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state’s main concern is inland, like the Hudson River Valley north of New York City, in the it should rain only a few centimeters in the next few days.

“There are hills in the Hudson Valley, there are creeks, the water flows down those hills and turns a creek into a devastating river,” said Cuomo.

Major airports in the region remained open as the storm approached, despite hundreds of flights being canceled on Sunday. Service on some branches of the New York City subway system was suspended until Sunday, as was Amtrak service between New York and Boston.

Blackouts affected 130,000 homes in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

Connecticut’s largest electricity company said it restored 20,000 customers, but thousands like Linda Orlomoski, who lives in Canterbury, were left without power.

“I didn’t see any trucks in my neighborhood, but at the other end of my street the power was restored before 6pm. So close and yet so far! ”She said. “On Tuesday it should be disgustingly hot and humid again. So if we still have no power by then, it will be miserable. “

___

Kunzelman answered it from Newport, Rhode Island. Porter reported from New York. Associate Press Writer William J. Kole in Warwick, Rhode Island, Michelle Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, Michael R. Sisak and Julie Walker of East Hampton, Will Lester in Washington, Philip Marcelo in Boston, Michael Melia in Hartford, Connecticut, Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut, and Bobby Caina Calvan in New York contributed to this report.

___

Corrected this story to show that the last name of a utility customer quoted is Orlomoski, not Oski.

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