Governor Newsom Addresses Heat Wave, Wildfires, and COVID-19
By edhat staff
Governor Gavin Newsom addressed a series of emergencies throughout California during a press conference on Wednesday including wildfires, a heatwave, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The extreme heat has caused rolling blackouts in California as extra stress is placed on the power grid. A Flex Alert was issued from 2:00 p.m. through 9:00 p.m. Wednesday evening urging residents to conserve energy to avoid blackouts. Temperatures are expected to cool considerably by the weekend.
The governor signed an "emergency proclamation to free up energy capacity" allowing energy users and utilities to use backup energy sources to relieve pressure on the grid during peak times. Large energy users are also shifting to back-up power during peak hours and utility companies are using power they stored from the Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS).
"Even with all of that, we are likely to fall short," Newsom said. "I am not pleased with what's happened. I take a backseat to no one."
California Wildfires
California is also battling 367 wildfires and 23 major wildfire complexes as of Wednesday. The governor said the state experienced 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours and world record heat temperatures.
Some of the active fires along the Central Coast span from Monterey County to Los Angeles County. Thankfully all wildfires caused by the recent lightning strikes in Santa Barbara County were successfully extinguished.
The Lake Fire which broke out a week ago near Lake Hughes in the Angeles National Forest, between Palmdale and Santa Clarita. It has covered 25,498 acres and was 38% contained, destroyed at least 12 structures and 21 outbuildings, and also damaged three others. 4,570 buildings remain threatened and about 100 homes remain under mandatory evacuation orders as of Wednesday.
The Holser Fire sparked on Monday in the area of Holser Canyon in the community of Piru. The fire is estimated at 3,000 acres and is 45% contained. Firefighters have been consistently taking advantage of higher relative humidity to perform firing operations to secure the edge of the fire while taking advantage of natural barriers. Two firefighter injuries have been reported and all evacuation warnings have been lifted.
The River Fire, burning south of Salinas, has grown to 10,672 acres Wednesday morning and was 7% contained. More than 5,000 people have been evacuated, 6 homes have been destroyed and an estimated 1,527 structures are threatened. Four firefighters suffered heat-related injuries while fighting the fire, reported Cal Fire. Full containment is expected by August 30.
COVID-19 Status
As of Wednesday California had more than 640,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and over 11,000 deaths related to the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Gov. Newsom reported a statewide 6.6% positivity rate, 17% decrease in hospitalizations, and a 13% decrease in ICU admissions in last 14 days.
There are 40 counties on the monitoring list with Placer and San Diego counties recently removed. Newsom added that San Francisco will likely come off the list on Thursday.
During Tuesday's Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, local Public Health Director Dr. Van Do-Reynoso stated she hopes Santa Barbara County will soon join the ranks of being removed from the monitoring list as the county's numbers decline.
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47 Comments
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Aug 21, 2020 04:42 AMwe can only Hope for Change, lets plan on making him a 1 term wonder
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Aug 20, 2020 04:21 PMAfter a decade and a half of promoting unlimited population growth in California, Newsom can't understand why we don't have enough electricity. Maybe forgetting to grow the infra structure while growing the population had something to do with it.
Santa Barbara City Council, are you listening and learning anything?
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Aug 21, 2020 10:26 PMTeachers unions needed to keep failing K-12 classrooms filled every year, so they needed to "outsource" enrollments just to keep the teacher union dues flowing at ever increasing rates.
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Aug 20, 2020 11:13 AMCan't keep the lights on, but at least California has the cleanest air in the nation. Er.......uhhhh.
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Aug 20, 2020 04:04 PMI have some people I'd like to nominate!
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Aug 20, 2020 03:59 PMGet rid of all of the people, then we will have clean air. Anybody volunteering to go?
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Aug 20, 2020 12:17 PMYes indeed. But sadly it isn't working here.
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Aug 20, 2020 11:31 AMLCP112233 - No, Hawaii has the cleanest air. CA isn't even in the top 10. Just because we are striving to clean up the environment, doesn't mean we've succeeded yet. I would think working toward clean air is a good thing, wouldn't you? ---- https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/air-quality-by-state
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Aug 20, 2020 11:14 AMNow that's progress.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:22 AMThe earth is feeling all the stressful and fear embedded vibes being sent out...#thoughtscreate
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Aug 20, 2020 09:16 AMNothing like magical thinking.
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Aug 19, 2020 08:06 PMThe smoke from these fires has set back ANY small gains made by strangling the CA economy in the name of the hoax of global warming.
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Aug 21, 2020 10:23 PMIn the year 14,000 Vega will become The North Star. Amazing.
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Aug 20, 2020 11:33 AMSANDY1 - why do you and other republicans hate the environment so much that you refuse to even lift a finger to help clean it up? I'm really curious.
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Aug 20, 2020 10:54 AMThe only hoax is you science deniers trying to pretend everything is normal. Hard to see what you might gain from it.
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Aug 20, 2020 10:02 AMWow. Talk about pontificating on a subject you obviously know nothing about!
"We are in our U turn around the Sun, closest and warmest part of our natural 26,000 year elliptical orbit. Global cooling will occur as we head away ." The Earth's orbit around the Sun takes one year. The precession of the Earth's axis, like a wobbly top, takes approximately 26,000 years. Neither has enough effect on insolation to cause the rapid, and rapidly accelerating accumulation of heat energy in our atmosphere. That is caused by the greenhouse effect and the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gasses. Likewise, Milankovitch cycles in our orbit, which is probably where your confusion arises, do not account for our current situation.
It's most likely hopeless, since you're firmly ensconced in your erroneous conclusion, but here's some explanation:
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/
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Aug 20, 2020 09:14 AMClaiming it's "all natural" and "climate has always changed" shows that the NASA/NOAA climate information presented in the link was neither read, nor comprehended, but that's the stock in trade of deniers. Facts don't matter to them, only their fantasy-based opinion.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:45 AMGotta have my daily Sandy post to keep me in the loop on what the fringe is doing. Thanks!
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Aug 20, 2020 07:41 AMThe Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. We are in our U turn around the Sun, closest and warmest part of our natural 26,000 year elliptical orbit. Global cooling will occur as we head away . All natural, from your link.
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Aug 19, 2020 08:28 PMhttps://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
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Aug 19, 2020 07:57 PMI believe the Ranch 2 Fire was determine to be arson after an argument... https://ktla.com/news/local-news/man-suspected-of-starting-ranch-2-fire-turns-himself-in-to-azusa-police/
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Aug 20, 2020 01:57 PMSeems like there is a lot of that going around.
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Aug 19, 2020 07:11 PM"School choice" is just another dog whistle for racism and religious indoctrination. No thanks; not with my tax dollars.
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Aug 21, 2020 11:13 PMLEONK: Seriously. I half Native-American, and I want shool choice so I guess that makes me a racist. I'm also a biochemist, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that I'm also an atheist, so I guess that makes me in favor of religious indoctrination. And the "not with my tax dollars", ugh, if we all stood firm on that there'd probably be no funding for the arts. And speaking of that, I find a lot of beauty in art, particularly the cathedrals in Europe and much of the religious paintings of the renaissance. It's amazing to me how close minded some progressive people really are.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:44 AMToo bad it is not up to you.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:15 AMSchool choice would give us minorities funds to hire tutors, like the wealthy! Don’t ruin it for us...my kids are suffering!!
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Aug 19, 2020 06:24 PMBrookings institute findings: School districts in states with stronger teachers unions are also significantly less likely to reopen in-person this fall
73% of school districts in Florida are planning to reopen in-person
Only 4% are planning to do so in California, a state with much stronger teachers unions.
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Aug 20, 2020 11:00 AMFlorida has a higher concentration of elderly, which is a known confounding health factor.
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Aug 20, 2020 10:41 AMFlorida has had 47 deaths per hundred thousand residents, while California has had 30. In the past seven days, Florida has had 154 cases per 100,000 vs 131 per 100,000 in California. You have to look at the per capita numbers for the stats to mean anything. California has way more people (roughly 39 million vs Florida’s 21 million).
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Aug 20, 2020 07:43 AMCSF, or it may not.
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Aug 19, 2020 07:15 PMFL is a crazy state, and you'll get no argument from me there. I assume you'd agree that Newson shut down CA to a greater extent than was done in FL, right? Let's look at those numbers you reference. Positive cases in CA are higher by 109.4% compared to FL. Deaths in CA are higher by 114.5% compared to FL. What conclusions to you draw from that comparison? As far as my point on school choice, the LAUSD union has made recent attempts to kneecap charter schools, private schools and school choice in general during negotiations about resuming in person teaching. It's fine if they don't want to go back to work, but they're taking this opportunity to crush their competitions. I think people who have children are taking notice, regardless of their political affiliation. Whether this will cause them to reassess their priorities when voting this November is the question I posed. A lot of things that affect the way we live our lives are now being closely looked at, from theaters vs. VOD to brick-and-mortar vs. online order/delivery. COVID may now speed up the time table in making choices that could put the way we used to live well in the rear view mirror, including the way we school our children.
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Aug 19, 2020 06:55 PM6:24 - before you go blaming teacher unions, take a look at the moron running FL. He has been refusing to shut anything down since day one and now look at the numbers over there.
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Aug 19, 2020 06:54 PMSchool choice and the opposition of that by teachers unions and Democrats may become a serious issue this year.
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Aug 19, 2020 05:41 PMKeep mind that Gov. Newsome is going to be "cemented" in with the incoming administration. This happily means we are probably going to have mandatory renewable energy, increased wages, cleaner air/beaches/water, less cops/more security, ...basically, things are going to only get better.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:43 AMBaby is whining with sarcasm and thinks it comes across well. It doesn't.
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Aug 19, 2020 08:31 PMWhat if a few select communities opted to pay a collective fee to keep armed police, while other communities could opt to have unarmed community ushers? I know which one I'd move to. How about you? I think that's what it's going to come down to. Then you'll really end up with a serious imbalance in quality of life, the type of inequity that many like to complain about, but this time it will be your own choice and there's no way you can put the blame on others.
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Aug 19, 2020 07:53 PMYou can also have cheaper health care by defunding County Fire and AMR and just having someone in a minivan show up at your house... And ask the residents who are facing rolling blackouts due to renewable energy not being sufficient
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Aug 19, 2020 07:50 PMDreams are healthy, delusions are not.
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Aug 19, 2020 07:33 PMI think you can have security without all police interactions being with someone with a gun and taser. Hence the security part.
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Aug 19, 2020 07:28 PMDream on Babycakes. Less cops/more security? What dark place did you pull that idea from?
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Aug 19, 2020 04:31 PMhopefully, this time around, when we are taken off the monitoring list we won't have as many people act as though its 2019 again.
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Aug 19, 2020 04:26 PMWith respect to Gov. Newsom addressing wildfires, I cannot find any mention of the Ranch 2 fire (Azusa, CA) or it's suspected cause in any articles published about his Wednesday address. Did he discuss the origin of this fire? This fire has been burning for a week and is 19% contained at 4,300 acres burned. The cause of this fire is given on InciWeb (https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6961/), and at least one person is in custody.
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Aug 20, 2020 11:09 AMI know the one started last weekend in Big Sur was arson. The guy is in jail. We also know the fire in Shell Beach a while back was arson. They have not caught the person. I think it happens more than we are aware of.
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Aug 19, 2020 05:28 PM@ 5:13 PM: "@Chem, no this article is about the wildfires in the past 72 hours. " Oh, I see. I guess following sentence in the article confused me, "The Lake Fire which broke out a week ago near Lake Hughes in the Angeles National Forest..."
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Aug 19, 2020 05:13 PM@Chem, no this article is about the wildfires in the past 72 hours. All of those that took place in SB county were due to lightning strikes. Fires started near homeless camps are a different thread/article and different problem. It would be odd for the Governor to randomly throw that in when it's not an immediate threat like the heatwave, lightning fires, and COVID.
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Aug 19, 2020 05:09 PMTranslation of subtext: Lightening strikes are mentioned as the cause of wildfires a couple of times, with respect to statewide fires as well as those in Santa Barbara County. However, the truth is many of the recent, local fires were caused by the homeless. Same with the Ranch 2 fire. It's a curious omission.
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Aug 19, 2020 04:30 PMAre you expecting him to address every single fire? There are 367 happening right now. Edhat just mentioned the ones closest to SB, the governor didn't highlight those specifically.