U.S. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in California as winter storms continued to batter the country’s most populous state.
Post Date – 12:29 PM, Tue – 1/10/23
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Washington: U.S. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in California as winter storms continued to batter the country’s most populous state.
According to a White House statement late Monday, Biden has ordered federal assistance to supplement California, tribal and local responses due to the emergency caused by successive and severe winter storms, floods and mudslides, Xinhua reported.
A federal emergency declaration would authorize the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.
On January 4, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for the state, home to about 40 million residents, due to severe winter storms.
On Sunday, he submitted a request for a presidential emergency declaration to the White House to support the state’s ongoing storm response and recovery efforts.
Since late December, 12 people have died from storm-related impacts, including flooding, more than the number of civilians killed by wildfires in the past two years combined, according to a statement released by the governor’s office.
“We are in the middle of a deadly winter storm — and California is using every resource at its disposal to protect lives and limit damage,” Newsom said in a statement.
“We are taking the threat posed by these storms seriously and want to ensure Californians remain vigilant as more storms arrive,” the governor added.
Winter storms continue to batter California with heavy rain, causing flooding, road closures and power outages in many parts of the state.
“California anticipates a stronger, more widespread atmospheric river that will bring strong winds, heavy rain and thunderstorms,” the governor’s office tweeted Monday. “Essential travel”.
Nearly 100,000 homes and businesses were still without power in California as of Monday, according to PowerOutage.us, a website that collects real-time outage data for utilities across the country.
According to KCRA-TV, a television station in Sacramento, California, tens of thousands of people in Northern California continued to be without power on Monday due to road problems due to heavy rain and strong winds. state.
The news outlet added that many school districts in the region and some individual schools facing outages have canceled Monday’s classes.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said the very wet weather pattern that has plagued much of California in recent days is not expected to see a significant easing, with persistent heavy rain across central California on Monday afternoon falling to Southern California from Monday night to early Tuesday . .
The NWS noted that rainfall totals in nearly all of California over the past few weeks have been well above average, totaling 400-600% above average.
“This has resulted in soils that are nearly saturated and river levels running higher. Additional heavy rain on Tuesday will exacerbate ongoing flooding and there remains a risk of flash floods and mudslides, especially in areas of recent burn scars.
“Life-threatening flash flooding in southern Santa Barbara County and central Ventura County tonight as additional heavy rain moves into the area. Follow orders from emergency officials,” the NWS tweeted Monday afternoon.
Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate Montecito in Southern California immediately on Monday.
Local officials urged all residents of the Santa Barbara County community to “leave immediately” because “the heaviest rain has not yet fallen this afternoon and evening.”
In January 2018, massive mudslides triggered by heavy rains swept through coastal communities, destroying 130 homes and killing a total of 23 people.
