Another dust advisory starts tonight for Coachella Valley. What to know
City News Service – September 25, 2023
A dust advisory will go into effect Monday and is expected to last until Wednesday for parts of Riverside County, mostly in the Coachella Valley.
The advisory will begin at 6 p.m. Monday and is expected to be in place until 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
Forecasted gusty winds in the Coachella Valley, which can lift dust and soil, can result in air quality index levels that are unhealthy or worse, SCAQMD officials said. The highest levels are expected overnight when winds are expected to be the strongest.
“Elevated levels are resulting from much lower windspeeds than in the past,” SCAQMD officials wrote. “The public is encouraged to pay close attention to the current conditions reported.”
In areas directly impacted by high levels of windblown dust, people were advised to limit their exposure by remaining indoors with windows and doors closed, avoid vigorous physical activity, run their air conditioner or air purifier, and avoid using whole house fans or swamp coolers that bring in outside air.
Officials added that serious health problems can occur as a result of exposure to high-particle pollution levels.
The desert has been plagued with unusually dusty conditions since August when Tropical Storm Hilary caused major flooding that left residual dirt and dust cross the valley.
More information about air quality in the area can be found at aqmd.gov.
Floridians stunned by Citizens Insurance ‘depopulation’ letters
Ron Hurtibise – September 25, 2023
Tens of thousands of customers of Florida’s state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. are getting a stunning surprise in their mailboxes.
It’s a letter from Citizens’ “Depopulation Unit” stating their policies have been assumed by a private-market company.
Cause for celebration? Not if the private company’s estimated annual premium is higher than what the policyholder is paying Citizens.
Delores Smerkers, a Davie retiree, said her Citizens policy renewed in July for $5,523 — $650 more that what she paid last year. Less than two months later, in late August, she received a letter saying her coverage was being assumed by Safepoint Insurance Co.
The letter stated that her estimated cost to renew her Safepoint policy will be $6,650 — an increase of $1,127.
That’s a substantial price hike, but because it’s less than 20% above her Citizens premium, she is ineligible to reject the offer and stay with Citizens.
Smerkers says she doesn’t know how many more insurance price hikes she and her disabled husband can endure as they try to live out the remainder of their lives in the modest 1,750-square-foot villa they bought new in 1978.
“It’s a shame,” she said. “People on fixed incomes are hurting the most. We’re not rich. We worked like dogs all our lives. Now look at where we are at.”
More than 300,000 Citizens policyholders are getting letters stating that their policies have been selected for removal in October by one or more of five private-market companies.
Targeted policyholders are ineligible to remain with Citizens if their letter identifies a private company’s “estimated renewal premium” that’s less than 20% over Citizens’ estimated renewal premium for comparable coverage.
But if all estimated renewal premiums exceed 20% of Citizens’, the policyholder can opt to remain with Citizens by logging onto the company’s website or asking their insurance agent to make the selection for them.
Removal is automatic for those who don’t take action
October marks the first of two depopulation efforts. Another is scheduled in November.
Five companies have been approved to take 184,000 policies from Citizens in October: Florida Peninsula (up to 19,000 policies), Monarch (10,000), Safepoint (30,000), Slide (100,000) and Southern Oak (25,000).
Letters sent to selected policyholders state that the transfer will take place on Oct. 17 unless the policyholder selects another option by Oct. 5. But the Oct. 5 deadline was moved to Oct. 10 after a vendor handling the mail-outs fell behind, leaving some recipients with only a couple weeks to act.
Of 311,250 policyholders informed that they’ve been selected for takeout in October, 99,500 have so far elected to remain with Citizens, according to data provided by Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier. Just 9% — 28,750 — have selected a private company. And the majority, 183,000, have not yet registered a selection.
Anyone who fails to make a selection will automatically be transferred on Oct. 17 to the private company identified in their letter with the lowest premium, Peltier said.
Targeted policyholders don’t have to pay more now
Some policyholders who have received a depopulation letter say they were confused about the estimated renewal premiums identified in the letter.
The premiums are just estimates of the following year’s insurance costs and don’t have to be paid right away. Even if a policyholder accepts the transfer, the coverage remains in place at the current Citizens rate until the policy expires.
In Smerkers’ case, she won’t owe the new $6,650 premium until her Citizens policy is set to expire in July.
Deerfield Beach resident Jeff Torrey said it took a phone call to his agent to clarify that he didn’t owe more money immediately.
He received a letter in mid-September saying Slide was assuming his policy on Oct. 17 and that he was ineligible for Citizens because Slide’s estimated renewal premium was nearly $1,000 more but $185 under the 20% threshold.
“I thought come Oct. 17, I was going to have to pay more,” Tolley said in an interview. The agent told him “the letter is not very clear. It’s confusing.”
In addition, those estimates could change prior to the policy renewal date, and that could change policyholders’ eligibility to remain with Citizens.
Policyholders currently ineligible to remain with Citizens are advised to wait until 90 days before their policies are set to renew with the new company and then look at the difference between the actual renewal rates at that time. If the difference falls below 20%, the policyholder will be eligible to return to Citizens.
Steve Rogosin, a Plantation-based insurance agent, said 55 of his clients have received depopulation letters and of those, only half are currently eligible to remain with Citizens.
“I tell them to carefully read the offer, and then on an individual basis, we help them make their decision,” he said.
Most who remain eligible to stay with Citizens are choosing to do so, he said. Other options are available beyond the private companies identified in the letters, but “they’re not cheaper than Citizens,” he said.
Brian Murphy, co-owner of a Brightway Insurance agency in Palm Beach Gardens, said one of his clients who’s currently paying $4,400 for his Citizens policy received a letter estimating the new company would charge him $8,200 when it comes time to renew his policy.
“So he gets to stay in Citizens,” Murphy said.
New law will make more ineligible to stay in Citizens
The current round isn’t like recent depopulation efforts.
What’s new is the 20% threshold. It’s being used to reduce the number of policies held by the state’s “insurer of last resort.”
Citizens’ board of governors and legislators that oversee the program have become anxious in recent years about the company’s renewed growth. As private-market companies stopped writing policies or were driven to bankruptcy, Citizens’ policy count increased from 420,000 in 2019 to 1.4 million currently.
Such a large number of policies sets off alarm bells, because if a major hurricane wipes out Citizens’ ability to pay claims, the company will have to levy surcharges and assessments to make up the shortfall.
Citizens’ policyholders would first face surcharges of up to 45% of their premiums.
If that’s not enough, a special assessment would be imposed to collect 2% of the cost of every homeowner, auto, specialty and surplus lines policy in the state.
And there’s more. If those two levies don’t generate enough, Citizens has the right to impose on all policies — Citizens and private-market — an emergency assessment of up to 10% for each of Citizens’ three accounts.
Until this year, Citizens customers targeted for removal could opt out for any reason.
And that worked for awhile, as a 10-year stretch without a major hurricane making landfall in Florida enabled some private-market companies to offer rates lower than Citizens.
But over the past five years, the private insurance market has hemorrhaged tens of millions of dollars, forcing companies to raise their rates far above Citizens.
Citizens, in turn, was prohibited from keeping pace by raising its rates more than an average 10% each year.
Last year, the state Legislature enacted the 20% threshold and put Citizens on a path to increase rates by increasing the rate cap by a percentage point a year until it reaches 15% in 2026.
More companies signal an improved insurance market
Murphy said his firm has a team of people answering questions from clients about their depopulation letters.
They’ve haven’t heard many complaints, he said, possibly because clients understand that Citizens is “stretched” and has to depopulate.
But he sees the number of companies willing to assume Citizens policies as a good sign that the market is poised to recover.
A big reason companies are reentering the market, experts say, is that reforms enacted by the state Legislature last year remove enticements for repair contractors and plaintiffs attorneys to file lawsuits against insurers.
Removing those enticements reduces potential for losses and should help convince insurers that they’ll again be able to make a profit in the Florida market, they say.
“Other carriers are coming in with some appetite,” Murphy said. “And I believe we’re going to see more in 18 months.”
Meanwhile, depopulation targets who were able to remain in Citizens shouldn’t get too comfortable. They might soon get targeted again.
Agents are gearing up for a fresh round of depopulation offers to start going out in late September.
Six companies, including the four participating in this month’s round, have been approved to remove up to 196,399 Citizens policies on Nov. 21.
According to letters informing policyholders about the Oct. 17 takeouts, “If your policy is not successfully assumed, you may continue receiving future offers from private-market insurance companies interested in removing your policy from Citizens.”
How climate change threatens some of the world’s most coveted real estate
Kathleen Magramo and Chris Lau – September 23, 2023
Until recently, the upscale homes of the Redhill Peninsula seemed like an oasis for rich Hong Kongers aspiring to a tranquil lifestyle in an otherwise notoriously cramped metropolis of 7.5 million.
Its cliffside location and unobstructed views of the South China Sea made for great Feng Shui and offered the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle of city life for its gated community of tycoons, expats and celebrities.
But that same pristine location worked against it on September 8, when a storm brought the heaviest rainfall in nearly 140 years to Hong Kong, wreaking havoc across the city.
Two people were killed and more than a hundred injured as more than 600mm (23.6 inches) of rain barreled down on the coastal city, flooding metro stations and turning roads into rivers.
The chaos was not confined to the flooded lowlands. Up on the edge of the cliff separating the Redhill Peninsula from the sea below it chipped away at the soil, leaving three millionaire homes perilously close to the edge and prompting an evacuation.
In a city that had just experienced its hottest summer on record, the unprecedented rainfall – itself the product of the second typhoon to have hit the city in the space of a week – was a potent demonstration of the threat posed by climate change and its associated extreme weather.
But for the residents of the Redhill Peninsula it was also a reminder that climate change is rewriting the rules of what can be considered “safe” construction, and that even the costliest, most well-constructed homes can be vulnerable.
For some it may even be a reminder that such rules exist at all. City authorities say they are investigating whether building code violations in some of the houses contributed to the problem, in a development likely to fuel perceptions that the rich don’t play by the same rules as the poor.
Whatever those investigations find, experts say extreme weather events like that of September 8 will become more frequent and when they do rich and poor alike will suffer the consequences – whichever rulebook they play by – even if the former have far more ability to bounce back from disasters than the latter.
As Benny Chan, the president of Hong Kong Institute of Architects, points out, Hong Kong has long been prone to typhoons and torrential downpours and has “plenty of experience building these kinds of cliffside houses.”
It also has stringent safety standards designed over many years with landslides in mind, he says. So it would have been reasonable – at least until a couple of weeks ago – to expect somewhere like the Redhill Peninsula to be a safe place to be in a storm.
But the old rules, experts say, may no longer apply.
Houses at the Redhill Peninsula, a luxurious residential estate in the Tai Tam area of Hong Kong, on September 13. – Chris Lau/CNN
A ‘sensitive’ issue
That is likely to be an uncomfortable realization for anyone who has invested in the Redhill Peninsula – one of the most expensive neighborhoods in one of the world’s most expensive property markets.
Properties here have the sort of appeal and cachet of the Malibu coast in Los Angeles. They have a distinctive Mediterranean style, with colors alternating in hues of cream and pink, and many have french windows overlooking the cove of Tai Tam, a scenic spot with a lush hiking trail nearby and ample shelter for luxury yachts to anchor below.
They can go for between $10 million-$20 million for a 2,400-3,600 square foot home (and rent for up to $20,000 a month). Or at least, they could before the recent downpour. Local real estate agents say what effect the storm will have on property prices is a “sensitive” issue for some in the community.
When CNN visited Redhill last week, sports cars and SUVs sporting the logos of Porsche, Land Rover and Ferrari were among the vehicles that cruised past the palm-tree-lined entrance, where a security guard stood like an impenetrable wall preventing the gaggle of assembled journalists from going in.
The real pull of the district, according to a real estate agent with more than two decades of experience selling properties here, is its tight-knit community.
“It has an international school and kids can hang out with one another at home after school,” said the agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. She was referring to the Hong Kong International School, one of the most prestigious in town.
“Almost every house comes with a view of the sea,” she said, adding that while the development is far from the hustle and bustle of the city, it offers a convenient shuttle bus service to ferry residents around.
The three houses most affected by the landslides were between 2,700 and 3,000 square feet in size, each valued at up to $11.5 million, the agent said.
She added that she had noticed a change of mood in recent days and expects anyone trying to sell a property – especially one near to the sea – to lay low for a while.
“It’s sensitive timing,” she said.
Flooded roads after heavy rains in Hong Kong on September 8. – Tyrone Siu/Reuters
The old rules may not apply
Heavy rain is far from unusual in Hong Kong, especially during the summer months.
Even so, recent weather patterns have been unsettling to many, with two consecutive typhoons sweeping across the region within a space of less than two weeks.
Typhoon Saola, which barreled through Hong Kong on September 1, was the strongest to hit the city in five years. A week later, the remnants of Typhoon Haikui unleashed the rains that caused the problems at Redhill, dozens of landslides and left large swathes of the city underwater.
Scientists say climate change will make such weather events only more frequent and some are urging Hong Kong to rethink its rain mitigation strategy.
Leung Wing-mo, former assistant director of the city’s weather observatory, told public broadcaster RTHK that rainstorms are becoming harder to predict because of climate change.
“In the past few decades, record-breaking events have been occurring much, much more frequently…This is a clear indication that climate change has a role to play. As a matter of fact, climate change is making extreme weather more extreme,” Leung said.
With that in mind, architects and civil engineers are also calling for the city to review standards set decades ago for hillside buildings, including many luxury mansions.
The city experienced some of its worst landslides in the 1970s, including one that knocked down a series of residential buildings in the city’s upscale Mid-Levels district, causing 67 deaths.
The same powerful rain that caused the Mid-Levels landslide in 1972 also triggered a hill in a district of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula to collapse, decimating a squatter site in Sau Mai Ping causing a further 71 deaths.
Structural engineering professor Ray Su, from the University of Hong Kong, said that the series of catastrophic incidents had prompted the government of the time to reinforce slopes across the city, turning Hong Kong into one of the most resilient places against landslides and floods in the world.
But some engineers fear safety rules that seemed adequate in the past may no longer be enough.
Su noted that some of the city’s low-rise houses were still built on shallow footings.
In extreme rain scenarios, “they will take a big hit when landslides crumble down,” he said.
The Redhill Plaza shopping center in the Tai Tam area of Hong Kong on September 13, 2023. – Chris Lau/CNN
‘A ticking time bomb’
Complicating matters in the case of the Redhill Peninsula is the suggestion by authorities that some of properties in danger may not even have been playing by the old rules.
In the wake of the storm, government authorities detected what they suspect may be illegal alterations made to the three Redhill properties – alterations that experts say may have contributed to the disaster.
That suggestion is something of a third rail issue in a city that has a track record of scandals involving wealthy individuals and politicians altering their properties and violating building codes with the sort of illegal extensions skeptics say the less well-off wouldn’t get away with.
Hong Kong’s Buildings Department says among those unauthorized modifications are basements, a swimming pool, and a three-story extension.
So controversial is the issue that even the city’s leader John Lee has stepped in, vowing that the government will investigate and prosecute anyone found to have violated building codes.
“The landslide at Redhill Peninsula has already shown us that part of the estate carries risks, so relevant departments will target the estate for inspections,” he said last week.
Preliminary investigations have shown a retaining wall was demolished in one of the houses.
Chan, from the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, said the modification could destabilize the structure of the cliff below and greatly affect the drainage of the soil underneath, ultimately causing landslides.
“The more the water is trapped, the less the slope can maintain a high steepness,” Chan said.
He said while painful lessons in the past had given rise to high standards on building retaining walls and drainage systems, the old set of requirements is slowly losing relevance.
“These standards were set a long time ago,” he said.
“Can the present standards withstand that much rain? It is time for the government to look at them again,” he added.
Chan Kim-ching, founder of Liber Research Community, a non-government organization that focuses on scrutinizing the authorities on land policies, said the safety problems that arose from illegal modifications went far further than the cases at Redhill.
His group recently compared contracts available on public records and identified at least 173 individual houses across the city suspected of violations on public land.
“We studied it in the past because it involves the fair use of public resources. Never did it strike us that it’s an issue that would threaten public safety,” he said.
Saltwater intrusion creates drinking water emergency for southeast Louisiana
Greg LaRose – September 22, 2023
NEW ORLEANS — The historic drought currently baking Louisiana has created an emergency for areas in the southeastern part of the state that depend on the Mississippi River for their drinking water. The flow of saltwater upriver from the Gulf of Mexico is expected to reach New Orleans in exactly a month and has already impacted communities below the city.
Unless rainfall in the upper Mississippi and Ohio River valleys increases dramatically — forecasts say it won’t anytime soon — water systems in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes could have to depend on an emergency bulk water supply to dilute treated saltwater coming from the river.
The influx of saltwater has the potential to affect the drinking water of nearly 900,000 Louisiana residents, based on the most recent U.S. Census estimates.
“Unfortunately, we just haven’t had the relief from dry conditions that we need,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday at a news conference in New Orleans. State and local leaders, emergency management officials and representatives with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers joined the governor for an impromptu Unified Command Group meeting in city.
The corps previously constructed a sill, or an underwater levee, rising from the river bottom to 30 feet below the surface to prevent saltwater intrusion from entering drinking water systems. It used the same method last summer in drought conditions that didn’t persist as long as the current dry weather has.
Col. Cullen Jones, commander of the corps’ New Orleans district, said saltwater topped the sill Wednesday. Its height will be increased to 5 feet below the river’s surface over the next three weeks, which Jones said should delay saltwater moving up the river for 10 to 15 days.
The sill will still have a notch 55 feet deep to accommodate river traffic, the colonel said.
Even with a higher sill in the river, Jones provided a timeline for when areas upriver should expect saltwater to reach the intakes of their drinking water systems, starting with Belle Chasse by Oct. 13.
The city of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish have separate drinking water intakes on each side of the river. Saltwater is forecast to reach the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans intake in Algiers by Oct. 22, and the east bank intake at its Carrollton treatment plant by Oct. 28.
The corps’ timeline calls for saltwater at Jefferson’s intake in Gretna by Oct. 24, one day later at its west bank intake upriver, and Oct. 29 for its east bank intake.
Jones said the corps has already arranged for barges to carry up to 15 million gallons of freshwater by next week for systems that need to dilute the river water they treat for consumption. Ultimately, demand could reach 36 million gallons of freshwater per day to support drinking water plants from Gretna downriver to Boothville in Plaquemines Parish, Jones said.
The emergency freshwater supply will be taken from the river about 10 miles above the advancing saltwater wedge, according to the corps.
Ricky Boyett, a corps spokesman, said it’s not clear at the moment whether the affected water systems will need all 36 million gallons of emergency water supply. The corps’ barge fleet includes new vessels that will be put into use, but Boyett wasn’t able to say how many might be needed to handle the demand.
About 2,000 residents in lower Plaquemine have been provided bottled water in recent weeks because of the saltwater intrusion. Smaller systems there are using reverse osmosis to remove saltwater from their drinking supply.
As for an emergency water supply for intakes in New Orleans and Jefferson above Gretna, Jones said local water systems are pursuing different options. They might include having freshwater piped in from systems upriver, he said.
Rain outlook bleak
Weather forecasts call for a wetter than usual winter, Edwards said, but the short-term outlook precipitation isn’t as promising.
“We do need some rain. We’re not in charge of that,” the governor said, asking residents to pray for relief.
The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center for September called for lower-than-normal precipitation in the upper Mississippi River basin, where Edwards said rain must fall in significant quantities to increase river flow.
The flow needed for the Mississippi River to hold back saltwater is 300,000 cubic square feet per second (cfs), according to Jones. Its current drought-slowed flow rate is 140,000 cfs.
It would take 10 inches of rain across the entire Mississippi Valley to drastically change the situation downriver, Jones said.
Governor: No need for panic water buying
Edwards urged residents not to rush out and “panic buy” bottled water, adding that a similar recommendation he gave at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic led to toilet paper shortages.
“The more they were told (not to hoard it), the more they said, “I better go get some toilet paper,” the governor said.
A key difference between the saltwater intrusion emergency and the pandemic consumer crunch is that only a small portion of the country is affected by the current situation, the governor said. Retailers will be urged to increase their stock of drinking water, he added.
There are no known impacts to industrial water use from the river, but Edwards spokesperson Eric Holl said local water system officials could potentially ask high-volume customers to cut back their consumption if the saltwater situation worsens.
The most recent experience Louisiana has had with drought conditions impacting drinking water supplies was in 1988, when a saltwater wedge reached the city of Kenner. That emergency lasted just two days, while the current crisis has the potential to last months, Edwards said.
Possible health risks
Dr. Joseph Kanter, the state’s medical officer, said high salinity in the drinking water supply poses a danger to certain patient populations: people with high blood pressure, who are likely to be on low-sodium diets; pregnant people in their third trimester, when they are at higher risk for hypertension; and infants reliant on formula mixed with water.
For these segments and others, there’s little chance they will consume any saltwater because it’s not palatable, Kanter said
“You will stop drinking the water because it doesn’t taste right, well before it becomes a danger to your health,” he said.
Saltwater intrusion into distribution systems could corrode lead and galvanized steel pipes, causing heavy metals to leach into drinking water, Kanter added. Such corrosion is difficult to predict, he said.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who signed a citywide emergency declaration Friday, said the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans will actively monitor its water quality and be transparent with testing results. She acknowledged lead pipes, banned from use in U.S. water systems in 1986, remain in use in New Orleans.
The city, like others around the country, doesn’t have an accurate map of where lead pipes are in use. The Sewerage and Water Board is taking part in a program to identify them ahead of President Joe Biden’s ambitious October 2024 deadline to end all use of lead in drinking water systems.
The Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness has added updates on the saltwater intrusion situation to its website, emergency.la.gov. Cantrell urged New Orleans residents to follow ready.nola.gov, where they can sign up for text message updates.
Kanter said local officials will put out health advisories if salinity levels in the drinking water reach 250 parts per million, a level considered threatening to health.
The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization driven by its mission to cast light on how decisions are made in Baton Rouge and how they affect the lives of everyday Louisianians, particularly those who are poor or otherwise marginalized.
A South Florida no-party-affiliation voter tells me a story that perfectly illustrates business owners’ predicament in a state once a sanctuary for the undocumented, and now imposing one of the strictest anti-immigrant laws in the nation.
He needs to remodel his home’s entire irrigation system, a big job, but the owner of the company he has contracted — a die-hard supporter of brothers-in-prejudice former President Trump and DeSantis — can’t get the job done.
Two reasons for the drama: He has lost almost all of his long-time employers to E-verify, which forces him to send for governmental review the immigration status of his employees — or face punishment that can escalate from a $500 civil fine to jail time for repeat offenders.
Before the Florida Legislature, at DeSantis’ behest, passed the laws that severely punish people who hire, drive or assist undocumented immigrants, the irrigation contractor was simply doing what a lot of agricultural, service and construction businesses do: ignoring the immigration status of his laborers.
Looking the other way. Getting jobs done.
Furious at DeSantis
Now, he and other business owners have lost experienced workers — and they can’t hire any new migrants, either. Not only would many newcomers also fail to pass the status test — but they’re nowhere to be found.
Migrants afraid of being targeted and arrested at workplaces are fleeing Florida for states where they’re better treated and appreciated.
The Republican contractor is furious at DeSantis.
He’s overwhelmed and falling all over himself apologizing for the delays.
And he’s not alone bad-mouthing the governor — and still singing the praises of Trump, who he feels understands him better because he, too, hires foreign workers to operate his resorts, condo towers and golf courses.
What’s playing out in industries all over the state is almost comical, as DeSantis prances around the country grandstanding about crossing into Mexico, if he becomes president, to kill migrant smugglers.
And the bravado isn’t helping him much politically. He’s still badly losing the GOP presidential nomination race, this week losing ground in polls to other contenders.
To be brutally honest, the thought of a smug Republican businessman who voted for Trump and DeSantis sweating it — and now facing the task of himself having to do the hard labor of migrants or lose the job — gives me a jolt of pleasure.
This is what happens when you: 1. ignorantly vote against your own interests; 2. fall for candidates who feed a narrative of fear and loathing for immigrants, thinking it’s not going to affect you because you and your family have status; 3. still believe only a Republican president is going to solve the problems of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua for you and them.
And that vote leaves us with quality-of-life problems in Florida.
Worse, bashing hurts migrant families and mixed-status families.
The recent arrest of a migrant van operator drives home the point that a well-to-do business owner has resources, but for a detained worker facing deportation, the harsh treatment amounts to a stolen future.
What the Mexican consul in Orlando, Juan Sabines, told the Miami Herald about the arrested driver is true: Immigrants coming to work in Florida aren’t criminals, but people who want a shot at a better tomorrow and are in need of work.
They take on hard jobs Americans find undesirable to feed and house their families back home.
Unfounded loathing
I don’t understand the visceral loathing of humble, hardworking people who’ve proven over and over again that they add value to this country — and that their struggle is inspirational.
Ironically, as DeSantis roams the country demonizing immigration — and boasting about what he’s done in Florida to crush immigrants — filmmakers have brought to film the life of one of the nation’s most inspirational migrant stories.
A tearjerker, “A Million Miles Away” (streaming on Amazon Prime) tells the story of José Moreno Hernández, a Mexican child migrant worker who toiled in the fields of San Joaquin County, California dreaming of reaching for the stars.
Inspired at age 10 by the Apollo 17 flight and astronaut Eugene A. Cernan’s walk on the moon, he put himself through unimaginable hard work and education and, with the support of his family and community, he persevered and became a brilliant engineer.
Despite being turned down by NASA 11 times, he trained as a pilot and scuba diver as well to meet all requirements and made it into the astronaut program. He finally set off to space in 2009 as the flight engineer and one of the astronauts on Space Shuttle mission STS-128 to the International Space Station.
He spent 13 days there — a lot of time to star-gaze to his favorite Mexican song.
Cover of the book by José M. Hernández, the child migrant worker who became a NASA astronaut and inspired the newly released Amazon Prime movie “A Million Miles Away.” Courtesy
“Tenacity is a superpower,” Hernández, played by actor Michael Peña, says in the movie.
“Who better to leave this planet and dive into the unknown than a migrant worker.”
And, as if his space exploration wasn’t enough, the film credits tell us that Hernández helped develop, at the Livermore Laboratory where he worked, the first full-field digital mammography imaging system used to detect breast cancer early.
But we, in Florida, mistreat the Hernándezes of today.
Never underestimate the spirit and energy an immigrant, much less that of one who has toiled in the fields and picked your food.
As I watched the movie, I could only feel sorry for us.
DeSantis: Humans are ‘safer than ever’ from effects of climate change
Kelly Garrity – September 20, 2023
Bryon Houlgrave/AP Photo
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that humans are “safer than ever” from the effects of climate change, less than a month after a hurricane pounded Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
The use of the phrase “climate change” increased between 2018 and 2020, DeSantis said during a campaign speech rolling out his energy policy in Midland, Texas. Despite reports from the World Meteorological Organization showing that climate change impacts continued to worsen during that time, DeSantis attributed the term’s jump in use to “ideology.”
“This is driven by ideology. It’s not driven by reality,” DeSantis said. “In reality, human beings are safer than ever from climate disasters. The death rate for climate disasters has declined by 98 percent over the last hundred years, and the No. 1 reason for that is people that have had access to reliable electricity, have power.”
While the number of weather-related natural disasters caused by climate change has increased, related deaths have fallen over the last 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Experts attribute the decline to better forecasting and better infrastructure for dealing with extreme weather.
DeSantis’ remarks come less than a year after Hurricane Ian — the second-deadliest storm the continental U.S. has seen in decades, after Hurricane Katrina — devastated his home state, leaving more than 100 people dead and destroying homes and businesses.
Last month, Florida grappled with the fallout from another storm, Hurricane Idalia, which pummeled the state and left more than 245,000 customers without electricity as trees snapped by strong winds brought down power lines. Four people died in the hurricane.
The World Health Organization said climate change is “the biggest health threat facing humanity” and is expected to cause “approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress” between 2030 and 2050 from lack of “clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.”
Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say
Julia Jacobo – September 18, 2023
Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say
America’s largest cities are at the forefront of climate change.
About 80% of the U.S. population live in urban settings, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some of the country’s most densely populated cities, like New York City, are already at the frontlines of global warming, according to experts.
“This particular section of the population is very vulnerable to a range of climate impacts,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
Hotter temperatures are posing threats to city dwellers
Heat is one of the two major impacts expected to plague cities as climate change continues to worsen, the experts told ABC News.
“Extreme heat is one of the most clearly recognized signals of climate change,” Cleetus said.
Not only are residents and infrastructure experiencing a steady rise in average temperatures, but when the extreme heat waves come, they pose an even greater danger, Malgosia Madajewicz, an associate research scientist for Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research, told ABC News.
PHOTO: FILE – People keep cool in a fountain in Battery Park in Manhattan, July 27, 2023 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)
One of the biggest concerns for residents of large cities when a heat wave arrives are for those living in disadvantaged communities who do not have access to air conditioning or can not afford to run it all the time, Madajewicz said.
Extreme summertime heat overburdens vulnerable populations, especially communities of color living with low incomes, Cleetus said, citing mapping research the Union of Concerned Scientists has done to show the inequities of keeping cool in cities.
Heat illness is the number one weather-related killer in the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while cooling centers are available during business hours, they do not help people stay cool at night, which tends to be the most dangerous time for people in vulnerable populations or with preexisting conditions to succumb to heat illness, Madajewicz said.
Urban environments are prone to overheating because of the lack of greenery and abundance of concrete, which absorbs the heat and does not release it easily, creating the phenomenon known as an urban heat island. Heavy traffic also contributes to air pollution, which helps to trap the heat even more.
“There’s a very inequitable impact of extreme heat and cities because of these urban heat islands,” Cleetus said.
Several consequences of climate change are causing increased flooding in cities
Historically, large cities all over the world have been built on coasts, which allowed for easy access to transportation and trade. But the convenience of location has also left these cities vulnerable to sea level rise and high tide flooding, the experts said.
As sea levels continue to rise about 3.5 millimeters per year, mostly due to melting in the Arctic, the additional water is contributing to chronic flooding in metropolitan regions, Cleetus said.
High-tide flooding, or “sunny day flooding,” is becoming increasingly common due to decades of sea level rise, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report released last year.
PHOTO: FILE – Commuters walk into a flooded 3rd Avenue / 149th st subway station and disrupted service due to extremely heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 2, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
Changing storm patterns, with an increase of stronger storms that contain more moisture, are also partly responsible for increased flooding. In 2021, more than 50 people in the Northeast died after the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash flooding in major cities along the East Coast.
In some New York City neighborhoods, the chronic flooding has become so regular that it is occurring on a weekly basis, Madajewicz said.
“There are areas in New York City that are going to be difficult to sustain neighborhoods in in the long term,” she said.
The prevalence of concrete also contributes to the flooding, as there is no soil to help absorb the excess water, Madajewicz said. The lack of wetlands and dunes in coastal areas that have been heavily developed, such as the Rockaways in Queens, make those neighborhoods more susceptible to flooding, especially when a major storm comes in, like Tropical Storm Sandy in 2012.
PHOTO: FILE – A person makes their way in rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 1, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
About 1.3 million residents of New York City live within or directly adjacent to the floodplain, according to Rebuild by Design, a climate research and development group. As sea levels continue to rise, that number could increase to 2.2 million New Yorkers.
Both heat waves and flooding can have an impact on people’s health, their livelihoods as well as the economy, Madajewicz said. They can also have these impacts of various channels like water quality, air quality and infrastructure, such as roads and the power grid, Cleetus said.
Once that infrastructure starts to get affected, a domino affect of threats to public health ensues, which includes a potential rise in energy and food prices, Cleetus said.
The food supply could even be interrupted because there are only so many access points in which sustenance can be shipped in, Madajewicz said.
“If those access points are disrupted, with flooding or effects of heat, that affects a very large population,” she said.
Rising groundwater is also being pushed to the surface — both due to rising sea levels, but also due to human consumption and waste, Madajewicz said. Then, when the rain and storm surge comes, there’s nowhere for the extra water to go, and there is potential for polluted water or raw sewage to also rise to the surface.
People living in the suburbs will also acutely feel the affects of climate change, according to a new study by JW Surety Bonds, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm.
The paper, which used artificial intelligence to project climate change effects on major U.S. cities by 2123, found that homes in cities like New York City, Oakland, California, Miami and Cape Coral, Florida would be underwater in 100 years.
PHOTO: FILE – A woman looks on as she stands outside of his flooded home after heavy rain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., April 13, 2023. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
Conversely, places like Phoenix will be even more dry and deserted, due to an increase of drought, the researchers found.
PHOTO: FILE – A damaged 7-Eleven gas station following Hurricane Ian in Cape Coral, Fla., Sept. 30, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)
People who live in the suburbs are more likely to settle there with a family and therefore pure for permanent solutions to create environmentally friendly homes and infrastructure that will withstand future threats from climate change, including green spacing, urban farming and sustainable water management, James Campigotto, a data journalist for JW Surety Bonds and researcher for the study, told ABC News.
Big cities are “engines of solutions,” and are tasked with implementing climate resiliency strategies to protect its citizens from future threats, Cleetus said.
The Big Apple has already started implementing infrastructure improvements that will protect its residents from future extreme events, but the work is nowhere near finished, Madajewicz said.
New York City enacted new building regulations in 2021 that take climate change into account, such as requiring all new construction to be above base flood elevation and take various other flood considerations into account.
There are also efforts being made to raise subway entrances, make the electricity grid and telecommunications more resilient and improve the infrastructure for public transportation, which can shut down when inundated with water — especially certain subway and train lines as well as New York City’s airports, which are located right on the coast in extremely flood-prone areas, Madajewicz said. After Superstorm Sandy, Con Edison, the utility company that serves that majority of New Yorkers, upgraded the infrastructure to the power grid.
“Right now, even a city like New York, which has considerable resources, does not have enough for the scale of investments that are needed,” Cleetus said.
PHOTO: FILE – Caution tape is seen at a construction site near saguaro cactus at the Phoenix botanical gardens in Phoenix, Aug. 1, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
But other large cities may not have the same resources or as sizeable a budget as New York, and the challenge will be to prioritize those transformations before it’s too late, Madajewicz said. In Miami and other costal cities in Florida, city planners have prioritized the installation of stormwater pumps, for instance.
“There is more to be done, and it’s important to recognize the gaps as well as the need for more funding going forward to fill those gaps,” Cleetus said.
If not, people may need to move further inland — a budding trend of climate migration that experts expect to see more often in the coming years.
“There’s going to be huge issue with availability of housing for the people who need to live,” Madajewicz said.
State Farm is closing its doors to millions of new customers exposed to ‘rapidly growing’ catastrophes — here’s who’s affected
Laurelle Stelle – September 18, 2023
The EPA reports that wildfires are getting worse as the planet gets warmer. In response to this and other factors, major insurer State Farm has announced that it will no longer offer homeowner’s insurance to new applicants in fire-prone California.
What’s happening?
According to the EPA, the area burned by wildfires each year has been increasing since the 1980s. The 10 most destructive years on record have happened in the past 20 years, causing more damage thanks to the plentiful dry plants left behind by drought.
While the effects are felt across the U.S., California is famous for its yearly wildfires and the resulting smoke. This year has been particularly hard for the state due to a devastating combination of storms, floods, drought, and fire.
As Axios reports, this became too much risk for State Farm. The company cited “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation” and “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” in its decision to close applications across California in May.
Why does it matter?
For homeowners in California, it will now be harder to find affordable coverage for their property. Without it, residents run the risk of losing everything in a fire. Owners that already have coverage are still protected, but State Farm won’t accept any new applications in California, it says.
But the problem extends beyond California. Disasters of all kinds have become more common and more destructive as rising temperatures across the world have caused the weather to become less stable.
If insurers find it too risky to cover areas affected by these disasters, then more and more regions could find themselves without coverage. Louisiana and Florida are already losing coverage thanks to predictions of an active hurricane season, Axios reports. Ironically, State Farm has announced its intent to remain in Florida despite large competitors like Farmers and AAA pulling out.
What’s being done?
Michael Soller, the California deputy insurance commissioner, told Axios in an email that the California Department of Insurance is dedicated to protecting consumers in the long run.
“We have been here before after major wildfires,” he said. “What’s different is the actions that we are taking with the first-ever insurance discount program for wildfire safety and unprecedented wildfire mitigation investments from the Legislature and Governor.”
In other words, the CDI is working with the state government to lower insurance costs and reduce the risk of wildfires so that insurers can be secure operating in the area once again.
AP PHOTOS: Moroccan earthquake shattered thousands of lives
Sam Metz and Mosa Ab El Shamy – September 16, 2023
Children walk through the rubble of their town of Amizmiz which was damaged by the earthquake, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)A child reacts after inspecting the damage caused by the earthquake, in her town of Amizmiz, near Marrakech, Morocco, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they prayed for victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to desperate mountain villages in ruins. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)The foot of a man stuck under rubble while a rescue operation for him is underway, after an earthquake, in Moulay Brahim village, near Marrakech, Morocco, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. But the full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)A woman tries to recover some of her possessions from her home which was damaged by the earthquake in the village of Tafeghaghte, near Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Rescue crews expanded their efforts on Monday as the earthquake’s death toll continued to climb to more than 2,400 and displaced people worried about where to find shelter. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)A rescue team recovers the body of a woman who was killed by the earthquake, in the town of Imi N’tala, outside Marrakech, Morocco, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy
AMIZMIZ, Morocco (AP) — With their arms around each other, three boys walked through the streets of their town at the foot of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.
It could have been a scene like millions around the world that day. But in the Moroccan town of Amizmiz, the boys were walking through rubble, one week after an earthquake rattled their community’s homes, schools, mosques and cafes. Their possessions were buried beneath tons of mud and clay bricks, along with an untold number of people whom the boys knew.
A little girl held her palms to her cheeks, stunned at the destruction.
Entire villages higher up the mountains were leveled. In many, at least half of the population appears to have died.
Photos of the disaster show how fathers, mothers, children and their animals remain trapped under bricks, appliances and fallen ceilings. Going without power for days, residents see at night by the light of their phones.
“It felt like a bomb went off,” 34-year-old Mohamed Messi of Ouirgane said.
When mud and clay brick — traditional materials used for construction in the region — turn to rubble, they leave less space for oxygen than collapsed construction materials in countries like Turkey and Syria, which were also hit by quakes this year.
The day after the quake, hundreds of residents of the mountain town of Moulay Brahim gathered to perform funeral rites, praying on rugs arranged neatly in the street before carrying blanket-covered bodies from the town’s health center to its cemetery.
“People are suffering here very much. We are in dire need of ambulances. Please send us ambulances to Moulay Brahim. The matter is urgent. This appeal must reach everyone, and on a large scale. Please save us,” said Ayoub Toudite, the head of a community group in Moulay Brahim. “We hope for urgent intervention from the authorities. There is no network. We are trying to call, but to no avail.”
The United Nations reported that roughly 300,000 people were likely affected by the earthquake. UNICEF said that likely included 100,000 children.
As the Moroccan government approved only limited assistance from four countries and certain NGOs, Salah Ancheu, a 28-year-old from Amizmiz, told The Associated Press that nearby villages desperately needed more assistance. Residents of his town swept all the rubble off the main road so that cars, motorycles and aid crews can reach villages further along the mountain roads. A giant pile of steel rods, baskets and broken cinderblocks lay just off the center of the road.
“It’s a catastrophe,” he said. ‘’There aren’t ambulances, there aren’t police, at least for right now. We don’t know what’s next.’’
In parts of Amizmiz that weren’t leveled by the temblor, families began to return on Sunday to sort through the wreckage and retrieve valuables from homes where at least one floor remained standing. People cheered the trucks full of soldiers speeding through the road bisecting the town, as women and children sat under tents eating bread, cheese and vegetable stew.
Hafida Fairouje, who came from Marrakech to help her sister’s family in Amizmiz, said smaller nearby villages had nothing left, expressing shock that it took authorities about 20 hours after the earthquake to reach some of the nearby villages.
Morocco on Monday created a special government fund for earthquake-related efforts, to which King Mohammed VI later donated the equivalent of $97 million (91 million euros). Enaam Mayara, the president of the parliament’s House of Councilors, said it would likely take five or six years to rebuild some affected areas.
A foul stench permeated the air through the beginning of the week as rescuers worked to dig out bodies and sort through wreckage in smaller villages.
Aid began to arrive and piles of flour, blankets and yogurts were stacked in villages where most buildings were reduced to rubble. People said they had been given food and water, but they still worried about shelter and their long-term prospects.
Moroccan military forces and international teams from four approved countries — Qatar, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom — erected tents near Amizmiz while their teams wound through mountain roads to contribute to ongoing rescue efforts in villages such as Imi N’Tala, where a slice of mountain fell and destroyed the vast majority of homes and killed many residents.
Young boys sang “Hayya Hayya” — the theme song of the 2022 World Cup hosted in Qatar — as the country’s trucks drove through the mountains.
“The mountain was split in half and started falling. Houses were fully destroyed,” a local man, Ait Ougadir Al Houcine, said Tuesday as crews worked to recover bodies, including his sister’s. “Some people lost all their cattle. We have nothing but the clothes we’re wearing. Everything is gone.”
Families and children relocated to yellow tents provided by Moroccan authorities as fears set in about the time it would likely take to rebuild their homes.
“We just started the new school year but the earthquake came and ruined everything,” Naima Ait Brahim Ouali said, standing under an umbrella outside of a yellow tent as children play inside. “We just want somewhere to hide from the rain.”
After King Mohammed VI donated blood in Marrakech and later presided over an emergency response meeting, Moroccan officials said the government would fund both emergency relief and future rebuilding for residents of roughly 50,000 homes that were damaged or destroyed by allocating cash, depending on the level of destruction.
New tool reveals swaths of American coastline are expected to be underwater by 2050: ‘Time is slipping away’
Brittany Davies – September 11, 2023
If you ask Climate Central — which has a coastal risk screening tool that shows an area’s risk for rising sea levels and flooding over the coming decades — Texas’s coastline is in trouble.
The new map-based tool compiles research into viewable projections for water levels, land elevation, and other factors in localized areas across the U.S. to assess their potential risk.
The predictive technology indicates that, under some scenarios, many of Texas’s coastal areas, such as much of Galveston Island, Beaumont, and the barrier islands, will be underwater during floods by 2050.
What’s happening?
Coastal areas face threats from rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps and warming oceans, as well as flooding from storms intensified by changing temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates more than 128 million people live in coastal communities, many of which will be severely impacted by the effects of higher tides and dangerous storms.
CNN reports that coastal flooding could cost the global economy $14.2 trillion in damages, not including loss of life and well-being, by the end of the century. The loss of land due to sea level rise is also detrimental to the entire ecosystem, disrupting important wetlands and freshwater supplies.
Why is this concerning?
The coastal risk screening tool provides startling insight into how many areas will likely be affected by rising tides and floods, especially if nothing is done to mitigate Earth’s rapidly rising temperatures. As 2050 quickly approaches, time is slipping away to prepare and protect communities and ecosystems from the rising waters.
Planning, approving, and implementing new infrastructure and other major projects to keep communities safe can take years to complete. Because the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, cities need to start planning now before they find themselves in too deep.
What’s being done to reduce the risk?
Many of the most vulnerable regions are densely populated and people are already dealing with personal and economic damages from intensified flooding. While some may be able to move or make changes to their homes and communities to prepare for rising waters, not everyone has the means or desire to make these changes.
Several actions may be taken by individuals, organizations, municipalities, and the government to reduce the impacts of coastal flooding. The first step is understanding where the vulnerabilities are, indicates Peter Girard of Climate Central. Protecting existing wetlands and utilizing nature-based solutions such as living shorelines or sand dunes can lessen the impacts of flooding, storm surges, and erosion.
Community developers are encouraged to consider those most vulnerable when implementing coastal resiliency strategies such as shifting populations or building flood walls. Individuals living in flood zones should learn about the risks and obtain insurance protection if available.
