Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

We still have time to mess this up!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Bark louder, little dog.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Come on, man.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / How about that weather? / Climate Catastrophes Open Thread: Fire *and* Flood

Climate Catastrophes Open Thread: Fire *and* Flood

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Climate Catastrophes Open Thread: Fire *and* Flood

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

Lest we forget (as if that were possible)…

As ever, BJ community — check in when and how you can. Suggestions on how to help, with donations or by volunteering, always welcome.

Better-than-feared news:

Not so comforting:

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Jefferson Parish estimates 20 days to restore power.

    I wonder how I am going to deliver a generator and 1000 gallons of gas to my son.

  3. 3.

    Ken

    Why isn’t this trending? — Ava DuVernay

    In related news, at yesterdays WH press conference, the reporters did not ask a single question about Hurricane Ida or New Orleans.

  5. 5.

    Flanders Other Neighbor

    I rode my motorcycle through the Seirra on three separate trips this summer, and stopped quite a few places on the way just to try and take it all in.  The scenery along Hwys 80, 50 and 88 is stunning.  I fear much of what I saw will just be memories and photos.​

  6. 6.

    RSA

    No power. Sewage out. No water. Nearly 1 million structures in Louisiana affected. It’s 89 degrees there as I type this. Jefferson Parish estimates 20 days to restore power. We haven’t heard from any crew member west of Orleans Parish. No cell/internet. Why isn’t this trending?

    24 hours ago we were afraid of massive flooding and death. Maybe this isn’t trending just yet.

  7. 7.

    S. Cerevisiae

    Up here in northeast Minnesota we are also in an extreme drought, there are several wildfires burning and the BWCAW is closed. Thankfully we got an inch or two of rain a few days ago but there is still a lot of dry fuel in the woods.

    I have friends down near Houma, one checked in as ok a couple days ago right after the storm went through, hoping everyone is ok.

  8. 8.

    Nora Lenderbee

    All National Forest land in California is closed to visitors from now through September 17.
    We didn’t do our annual hiking/scrambling trip last year because of the fires and bad air (and Covid). Not looking good for this year. I really miss the mountains–and I’m not going to be able to do this kind of trip forever. I hate missing another year.
    (First-world problem, yeh.)

    Edit: Nine National Forests are closed, not all of them.

  9. 9.

    Eunicecycle

    @Ken: Did you see Biden making his statements about Hurricane Ida on Saturday, I think? He wasn’t supposed to take questions, but he said he’d take one. So the reporter starts to ask about Afghanistan! He waved her away and walked off. I don’t blame him a bit!

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken: @Kay:

    In related news, at yesterdays WH press conference, the reporters did not ask a single question about Hurricane Ida or New Orleans.

    I am nearly halfway through Jen Psaki’s press briefing from yesterday, and there has already been at least one question about the hurricane.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    I saw a story late Sunday or early Monday about people living on Grand Isle, LA, who defied/ignored a mandatory evacuation order. I wasn’t immediately familiar with that area, so took a look on Google Maps. Ho Lee Shit. That doesn’t seem like a smart place to try to ride out a Cat 4 hurricane/

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    Sigh. The California wild fires are also adding fuel to the recall effort. A bunch of lies and oversimplifications heaped up on the governor and the Democrats.

    Meanwhile…

    Hurricane Ida knocked out all eight transmission lines that deliver power to New Orleans, leaving the entire city without electricity. Some of the hardest-hit areas won’t see power for weeks.

    Is it maybe time to abandon New Orleans, shut it down and re-establish the city elsewhere?

  17. 17.

    Chris Sherbak

    @Brachiator: I was going to propose that as a thought problem at the very least. However I think there are large shipping and oil processing there so even if you moved out the residents, you’d still need the state for all that. I mean, aren’t we mostly agreed that with sea rise most of southern Florida will be under water at some point?

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    @Nora Lenderbee:

    To unedit the edit, the original closure was for nine national forests in northern California and intended to expire by Labor Day. Today’s order extends the closures to all national forests in California.

    With fires raging across the state, the USDA Forest Service is closing all 20 million acres of California’s national forests to public access for two weeks beginning Tuesday.

    In an announcement Monday, the Forest Service said the closure will extend through at least Sept. 17.

    “I have made the difficult decision to temporarily close all (California) National Forests in order to better provide public and firefighter safety due to extreme fire conditions throughout the state, and strained firefighting resources throughout the country,” California’s regional forester, Jennifer M. Eberlien, said in an email to employees obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

    Those caught entering Forest Service lands — including developed campgrounds, hiking trails and recreation sites — typically face fines of up to $5,000 for violating closure orders.

    The closure order only applies to Forest Service lands. State and national parks and private lands set their own rules.

    The announcement extends a closure that was already in place for the Forest Service’s nine national forests in Northern California.

    That closure began on Aug. 23 and was set to expire after the Labor Day weekend.

    “I do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety,” Eberlien said. “It is especially hard with the approaching Labor Day weekend, when so many people enjoy our national forests.”

    Earlier this summer, two of California’s largest private forest companies — Sierra Pacific Industries, and W.M. Beaty & Associates — closed nearly 2 million acres of private timberlands to public access due to what the companies’ foresters described as unprecedented dry conditions.

    Last year, during the worst fire season in modern history, the Forest Service took the then-unprecedented step in September of closing all of its California forests to the public for nearly two weeks.

    Four Southern California national forests — the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino — stayed closed through early October.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article253864053.html#storylink=cpy

  22. 22.

    Scout211

    We are all worried here in NorCal.  The Caldor fire is raging and the red flag weather is here for the next few days.

    https://www.kcra.com/article/caldor-fire-el-dorado-county-aug-31-evacuations-tahoe/37442715

    The Caldor Fire, which ignited Aug. 14 near Little Mountain between Omo Ranch and Grizzly Flats, had burned at least 191,607 acres, or more than 299 square miles, and containment stood at 16% as of Tuesday morning, Cal Fire said.

    As of Tuesday morning, Cal Fire said 486 homes and 11 commercial properties had been confirmed destroyed. The fire also damaged fiber lines.

    KCRA 3’s Lysee Mitri confirmed Monday that flames had jumped east of Highway 89 by Echo Summit.

    They have worked very hard at containing the fire lines to the west (toward most of the population centers), for which most of us are very grateful.  But the eastern lines are harder to contain.

    https://www.kcra.com/article/caldor-fire-outlook-thom-porter-cal-fire/37435501

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —Cal Fire Director Thom Porter spoke at a news conference Monday about the challenges the state is facing with the Caldor Fire, which has prompted evacuations for the city of South Lake Tahoe.

    “Caldor is a real tough one for us,” Porter said, from California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services headquarters.

    Porter said crews have been able to make good progress on the west side of the fire, “which is important in case we get a north or east wind event, that fire pushing back out and then into communities closer to the Valley floor,” he said.

    The east side of the fire is a different situation, as firefighters have been dealing with difficult road conditions, hard-to-access areas and embers in heavy timber.

    The Caldor Fire’s footprint grew by more than 20,000 acres on Sunday and has reached the Lake Tahoe Basin.

    It was “massive growth for that fire,” Porter said. “Not the biggest growth of its life, but it was the biggest in the last week and a half, and it, unfortunately, grew toward South Lake Tahoe.”

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    Today’s Cal Fire briefing encapsulates why the Caldor Fire (and others) is so difficult to contain, when it notes embers are starting fires as far as three-quarters of a mile from the main fire itself. This is the mechanism its using to cross the Sierra crest, counter to typical fire behavior and directly attributable to two years of drought. September 13 the latest prediction for full containment, currently 16%.

    https://twitter.com/CALFIREAEU/status/1432712033296953360/photo/1

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I don’t think Biden had a press conference yesterday.  It wasn’t on his schedule and I didn’t hear anything about Biden speaking yesterday.

    Did I miss it?

  27. 27.

    Eunicecycle

    @WaterGirl: I hope it is closed. You know ahead of time the questions will include bullshit framing. Joe’s pretty good at rejecting the premise of the questions but the bullshittery is still laid out there.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @Brachiator:

    Sigh. The California wild fires are also adding fuel to the recall effort. A bunch of lies and oversimplifications heaped up on the governor and the Democrats.

    I read comments occasionally in the online “news” site (really, mostly advertising) in my county and I was surprised to find out that Newsom is actually responsible for everything that goes wrong in our county and our state!  He’s even responsible for cattle that wander onto the highway and and cause traffic problems!  I did not know this.

    The voters who believe that nonsense would never vote for Newsom (or a Democrat) in any election, so I choose to ignore them.  My county is full of them.  Sigh.

  30. 30.

    Eunicecycle

    @Baud: maybe I added to the confusion by talking about the Saturday (or maybe Sunday?) event where FEMA made some comments and then Joe made some, too. It wasn’t supposed to be a press “conference”, I don’t think. He kinda laughed and said he was told not to take any questions but he took one anyway. And it was about Afghanistan, so he walked away. And probably got yelled at by Jen for taking a question!

  33. 33.

    zeecube

    @Brachiator: WTF? No A.C. in New Orleans, but we lived through worse (Katrina).  Plus, not just N.O. without power.  No power in my neck of the woods for at least 2 weeks.  We can still rub 2 sticks together to start a fire.  Plenty sticks lying around …

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @trollhattan:

    Four pups — one black, the rest gray, and weighing about 40 pounds (about the size of a Brittany spaniel)

    Traditionally this should be “about the size of a fox terrier”. (Stephen J. Gould, “The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone”, collected in Bully for Brontosaurus.)

  37. 37.

    Scout211

    So this is unfortunate.  I guess this is combining the disaster thread and the COVID-19 thread:

    https://www.sfgate.com/california-wildfires/article/Caldor-Fire-Tahoe-COVID-outbreak-firefighters-mask-16425706.php

    An outbreak of COVID-19 has sidelined a strike team of 16 firefighters battling the Caldor Fire, which is currently approaching the South Lake Tahoe area.

    During a Tuesday morning operations briefing, Cal Fire incident commander Jeff Veik announced the loss of the crews, and warned other firefighters to follow the agency’s COVID-19 protocols.

    “We lost a whole strike team of crews yesterday, we lost a finance section chief due to [being] COVID positive, so understand, do not come to this briefing without a mask on,” he said. “I understand your views are important and I will always respect that as one of our leaders, but you are here at a briefing. One more COVID firefighter getting sick could take out our actions to protect the community and the people we’re here to serve.”

    Note in the photo in the linked article:  None of the firefighters from that team are wearing masks–not even N95 masks to protect their lungs from the dangerous, unhealthy air.

    Hmmm.

  38. 38.

    Azelie

    Mostly a lurker – no power in Baton Rouge and the energy company is telling my neighbors who’ve called that it may be three weeks. Schools are closed through Labor Day at least. Going to stay with relatives about an hour away who have power and we’ll see how it goes.

  39. 39.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Gin & Tonic: I saw a later story which reported some of those folks later called 911 and wanted help to evacuate and had to be told, “sorry, it’s too late” for rescuers to safely reach them until the storm has passed.  It reminded me of some non-vaxed people sick with COVID wanting to (finally) get vaccinated when it is too late for them, too. Sigh.

  40. 40.

    S. Cerevisiae

    I know nobody actually knows me but I mentioned my friends in Houma and they are all safe but no electric, I have a feeling they will be able to cook whatever critters without it…

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