The American Meteorological Service (NWS) has launched flood alerts on a large part of California. In the center of the state, 13 cm of precipitation is expected, 107,000 households are deprived of electricity. Joe Biden declared the state of emergency.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
This is the state of emergency in California. The state of the western United States underwent new rains on Monday, January 9, and the authorities feared dangerous floods against the storms in series. It is in this sense that President Joe Biden approved a statement of emergency to facilitate the assistance of the federal state.
Flood alerts were issued by the American weather service (NWS). “Two major episodes of heavy rains and snow are expected in California one after the other for the next two days,” said the NWS. The state has faced a series of storms and torrential rains for ten days, who killed 14 people according to the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. “We expect the worst to be before us,” he told the press on Sunday. The NWS warned against the risks of “rapid rose of waters, landslides and potential major overflows of rivers”.
In this state struck by a chronic drought for two decades and regularly plagued by fires, the vegetation has been devastated in many places, which increases the risk of landslides. “The areas weakened by the fires will be most at risk of undergoing muds and fast flows” of water, also warns the NWS.
Evacuations and power cuts
On the coast, several areas of the luxurious community of Montecito, near Santa Barbara, where Prince Harry and his wife live, Meghan Markle, were struck by an evacuation order on Monday. This space is weakened by a fire of 2017-2018 which devastated 1,100 km 2 , and local firefighters urge the inhabitants to leave their villas.
“In the last thirty days, Montecito has undergone between 12 and 20 inches [30 and 50 cm] of rain according to the places, well beyond our annual average of 17 inches [43 cm], recalled the Firefighters on Twitter. This cumulative rain exposes the community to greater risks of floods and mudslides. “
in the county of Santa Cruz, near San Francisco, where a pier was destroyed last week, around 32,000 inhabitants were also affected by an order evacuation.
If it is difficult to establish a direct link between these storms and climate change, scientists regularly explain that warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme meteorological phenomena.
At midday, nearly 107,000 households were deprived of electricity, according to the specialized site Powerout . Last week’s storm had already deprived tens of thousands of people with electricity, caused by strong floods and caused landslides. It had occurred just a few days after another flood of rain on New Year’s Eve.