The approaching El Ni\u00f1o weather has drawn attention from the federal down to the local level. In September, the local Mountain Disaster Preparedness group held a meeting that attracted more than 100 people to hear about the forecast of a wet winter.<\/p>\n
Riverside County has initiated plans. All fall, Cal Trans and the county Transportation Department have been clearing culverts and scraping berms along roadsides to prevent flooding and pooling of run-off. Last week, the county Emergency Management Department held a meeting at the Nature Center. Besides discussing plans, actions and preparedness, the agency distributed bags for sand.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the Federal Emergency Management Agency held a drill and press conference to announce the work it has begun to prepare for possible significant disasters from inundating rains.<\/p>\n
Among FEMA\u2019s actions was preparing its Severe El Ni\u00f1o Disaster Response plan. The El Ni\u00f1o task force focused on interpreting data in areas of California, Arizona and Nevada (FEMA\u2019s Region 9), which have proved historically vulnerable to heavy and prolonged rains. Through this assessment, the task force seeks to identify critical decision points during all phases of a potential incident \u2014 from pre-incident, incident onset, to response and recovery.<\/p>\n
The latest National Weather Service forecast for this winter, released last week, states, \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is expected to remain strong through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, with a transition to ENSO-neutral anticipated during the late spring or early summer 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FEMA report identified several important aspects of a strong El Ni\u00f1o pattern. Not only are there more wet days, but the wet days tend to be wetter than a normal rainy winter day. Looking at records from the 1997-98 El Ni\u00f1o, several California communities experienced rain on 25 or more days in both January and February.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lack of any significant letup in rains allowed almost no days for drying,\u201d the report\u2019s authors wrote. \u201cEach period of heavy rain sent more earth sliding to lower elevations at a number of locations in the central and south part of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstand the risk of where you live and where are the flood areas,\u201d advised Robert Fenton, the FEMA Region 9 administrator. \u201cHave a plan; know where to go during and after the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
This would include extra batteries, a radio, flashlights and potable water. He recommended individuals purchase flood insurance. Already this fall, more than 7,100 new policies have been issued.<\/p>\n
But FEMA did identify a slight silver lining in the four-year drought: \u201cThere is a reduced expectation for main-stem river flooding compared to previous El Ni\u00f1o seasons. This is mainly attributed to the drought and current reservoir capacity to store more water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of the drought, storage basins are much lower than in 1997-98, thus they have more capacity to store water as streams and rivers flow into the storage areas. For example, in 1997, Lake Perris was at 81 percent of its capacity. In October 2015, it was at 36 percent of capacity.<\/p>\n
However, the severity of the drought has hardened soils, and during and after the first rains, soil may \u201cact like cement, making it difficult to soak up rains increasing run off \u2026 From a meteorology standpoint, this is the greater concern for flooding for this upcoming season,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n
Todd Morris of the National Weather Service advised, \u201cThe current El Ni\u00f1o has reached the strong category \u2026 This one is very similar to the 1997 El Ni\u00f1o, at least to its strength and may exceed it within 30 days \u2026 The impacts will be seen mainly in January through March and it has the potential for one of the strongest El Ni\u00f1os in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Ghilarducci, director of California\u2019s Office of Emergency Service, said besides flooding, residents should be aware of areas where soils and rocks could move and slide, such as the Mountain Fire burned areas. \u201cDebris could tumble down with little warning,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to empower the public with as much information as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The approaching El Ni\u00f1o weather has drawn attention from the federal down to the local level. In September, the local Mountain Disaster Preparedness group held a meeting that attracted more than 100 people to hear about the forecast of a wet winter. Riverside County has initiated plans. All fall, Cal Trans and the county Transportation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":12770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n