Here's how many people in the Bay Area could be affected by PG&E's potential power outages
PG&E announced Wednesday that 647 customers in Alameda County, 276 customers in Contra Costa County and 48 customers in Santa Clara County could be affected by 'public safety power shutoffs.'
The proactive power outages will be determined based on weather conditions in each location, PG&E said, with forecasts predicting windy weather and dry vegetation raising concerns about fire risk.
On Thursday, a deepening upper-level low over the Pacific Northwest will induce a stronger onshore flow into the Bay Area, dragging cooler air inland and whipping up gusts across the region. Temperatures are expected to be cooler Thursday through the weekend. Inland temperatures by Friday and Saturday are expected to be 10 to 15 degrees below average, with even parts of the Central Valley struggling to reach the 80s.
'PG&E initiates PSPS when the fire-weather forecast is severe enough that people's safety, lives, homes and businesses may be in danger of wildfires,' PG&E said in a statement. 'Our overarching goal is to stop catastrophic wildfires by proactively turning off power in targeted areas when extreme weather threatens our electric grid.'
On Wednesday, a grass fire in Antioch broke out in the evening, prompting evacuations that were later lifted by 10 p.m. The blaze, known as the Somersville Fire, injured one person.
PG&E will have centers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties — at Costco in Livermore and Balfour-Guthrie Park in Southern Brentwood — for affected customers, where there will be power and air conditioning, the utility said.
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Axios
3 days ago
- Axios
Floodwaters still pose risk in Austin lakes
Swimmers and boaters should be cautious this week as floodwaters move through Austin waterways, but Austin Water officials say the area's drinking water remains safe. Why it matters: The Highland Lakes are a main source of water for Central Texas, and the July 4 floods moved debris and bacteria into popular recreational waterways. Driving the news: The Lower Colorado River Authority, the nonprofit utility that manages the Highland Lakes and the river, urged visitors to use caution on the lakes through the rest of this week. What they're saying:"Anyone who chooses to boat or swim in the lakes now needs to understand there is a risk of encountering flood debris and heightened bacteria levels, including E. coli," LCRA spokesperson Clara Tuma told Axios in an emailed statement Monday. Catch up quick: LCRA opened floodgates at five of the six dams along the Highland Lakes — Buchanan, Inks, Wirtz, Starcke and Tom Miller — over the last two weeks to move storm runoff downstream and into Lake Travis. Between the lines: Swimming remains safe in San Marcos and New Braunfels, according to Virginia Parker, the executive director of the San Marcos River Foundation. Zoom in: Recent rains haven't resulted in drinking water quality changes, according to Austin Water spokesperson Martin Barbosa. "Austin Water closely monitored recent rains and floods upstream, and our water treatment plants remained fully prepared," Barbosa said in an emailed statement. "During the recent weather conditions, there have been no issues with water pressure." What's next: LCRA expects bacteria levels to normalize in the Highland Lakes by later this week, but urges caution in murky, stagnant or smelly areas.
Scientific American
14-07-2025
- Scientific American
Texas Failed to Spend Millions in Federal Aid for Flood Protection
CLIMATEWIRE | In the past decade, as extreme weather killed nearly 700 people in Texas, the state relinquished $225 million in federal grant money that it was supposed to spend on protecting residents from disasters, federal records show. The money had come from a special federal disaster program that's given states billions of dollars for projects such as flood protection, tornado safety and the type of warning systems that could have saved some of the 129 people killed in Texas' recent flash flooding. Texas had rejected two requests from the flooded county for a small portion of the federal money to set up a flood-warning system. But Texas, like most states, has chosen not to spend a significant chunk of its mitigation grant money. States routinely let the government reclaim unspent money — or let available money go unused for as long as 20 years, according to an analysis of federal records by POLITICO's E&E News. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In addition to ceding the $225 million, Texas has not spent $505 million of the $820 million — 62 percent — that it got for mitigation projects nearly eight years ago after Hurricane Harvey killed 89 people and caused $160 billion in damage, records show. The funds remain available. The unspent money highlights a central flaw in the nation's approach to protecting against climate change: The federal government gives states and communities both money and responsibility for disaster protection. Yet states and communities often lack the personnel and expertise to spend it fully. Since July 2015, the federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has showered states with more than $23 billion to protect their counties, neighborhoods and homes against future disaster damage. The grants have been given automatically after each federally declared disaster and are separate from the federal money that pays for disaster cleanup and rebuilding. But nearly $21 billion of the grant money remains unspent, E&E News found, leaving people vulnerable to the deadly flooding, winds and wildfires that climate change is intensifying. Some of the grant money was awarded in recent years, but most was awarded more than three years ago. In the same period since 2015, states also relinquished a total of $1.4 billion in mitigation grant funding that had been approved but states never spent. The figure includes the $225 million that Texas gave up over the past 10 years as the government closed a series of partially spent hazard mitigation grants it had awarded the state since 2001. The grants were worth a total of $850 million, which means Texas did not spend more than a quarter of the money. Most recently, on April 29, Texas ceded $5.7 million of a $13 million mitigation grant it got in 2016. 'It's a lost opportunity to build resilience,' said Peter Gaynor, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2019 to 2021. FEMA operates the mitigation grant program. 'What happens time and time again is mitigation money becomes an afterthought,' Gaynor said. The Texas Division of Emergency Management, which handles the FEMA mitigation grants, did not respond directly to questions about unspent money. Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott (R), said in a statement, "The State continues to disburse HMGP funding as grants are awarded and encourages local officials to apply." The large amount of unspent hazard mitigation money prompted President Donald Trump in April to stop approving new allocations, a move that angered some state officials. A FEMA spokesperson said the agency is now helping states 'identify projects and draw down balances in a way that makes the nation more resilient, while also responsibly safeguarding American taxpayer dollars.' Trump has assailed FEMA since taking office but on Friday offered unusual praise when he visited the damaged area in Texas. 'FEMA has been really headed by some very good people,' Trump said. Although states had automatically received FEMA grant money after each disaster, spending the money has been excruciating at times. FEMA typically must approve each grant-funded project. 'It's such a cumbersome process,' said David Fogerson, who ran Nevada's emergency management and homeland security agency from 2020 to 2024. States and communities — or their contractors — must submit detailed plans showing that a project is feasible, complies with environmental and preservation laws and makes sense financially. States, counties and municipalities also must have a written plan — typically a couple of hundred pages and updated every five years — showing its broad strategy to reduce disaster damage. A Government Accountability Office report in 2021 found that state officials were 'overwhelmingly dissatisfied' with the application process. 'It almost becomes overload when you're trying to manage the disaster and then you're trying to measure how to protect against the next disaster,' Fogerson said. Nevada has spent only a quarter of the $3.4 million hazard grant it got from FEMA after a wildfire in 2016, records show. 'It's a blessing and a curse,' Fogerson said of the grant money. Federal funds rarely used for warning systems Kerr County, Texas, the site of the flash flooding that began July 4, encountered the administrative gantlet in 2016 when it asked the state in 2016 and in 2018 for a small piece of its FEMA mitigation money to establish a flood warning system. Warning systems are a crucial but low-profile part of worldwide strategies to protect against natural hazards, particularly in places prone to flash flooding, which occurs when sudden, intense precipitation causes rivers to overflow. Texas officials are scrutinizing the limited warnings that were transmitted as the Guadalupe River surged in the middle of the night and devoured areas including a girls' sleepaway camp where at least 27 campers and counselors were killed. In Kerrville, Texas, which was at the center of the flash flooding, City Manager Dalton Rice on Saturday pledged 'a full review of the disaster response.' Trump's staff reductions and proposed budget cuts to the National Weather Service offices have set off their own alarms that inadequate weather alerts will increase the number of disaster-related deaths. Kerr County's request for grant money was denied in 2016 by the Texas Division of Emergency Management because the county did not have the required mitigation plan. When the county of 50,000 people in central Texas Hill Country applied again after Hurricane Harvey, the state denied the application after deciding to spend all the grant money in Harvey-damaged counties. 'If localities do not meet federal requirements, they will not be able to access the funding. The State works with applicants to support efforts to bring them into compliance,' said Mahaleris, the spokesperson for Gov. Abbott. The Texas Legislature will convene a special session July 21 to consider new laws that would improve warning systems in flood-prone areas. 'We're going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don't happen,' Abbott said Friday. Despite the importance of warning systems and their moderate cost, states have spent only a tiny amount of their mitigation grants installing them, E&E News' analysis of federal records shows. The largest chunk of grant money has gone to flood protection, usually for individual properties. Roughly $4.5 billion has been given to homeowners in flood-prone coastal or riverside areas to elevate their house above flood level or to buy the property, demolish the home and leave the land vacant, E&E News' analysis shows. Each project costs federal taxpayers roughly $250,000. By contrast, states have spent just $275 million on warning systems. 'The cost of warning systems proportionately to other flood mitigation activities is relatively cheaper,' said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. 'For a small community, it could be a siren and a gauging apparatus that's tied to that. That could end up being cheaper than one buyout.' Low-income nations such as Bangladesh have spent heavily on flood-warning systems, said Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies disasters. 'They're doing that without a lot of resources,' Labowitz said. 'We should be learning from other places and investing in early warning systems.' But one problem with using FEMA mitigation money for warning systems is that their benefits are nearly impossible to quantify, Berginnis said. FEMA generally requires proof that a mitigation project funded with its grants has a positive benefit-cost ratio. Although the agency makes exceptions for some projects such as warning systems, FEMA requires grant-funded warning systems to be part of a 'planned, adopted, and exercised risk reduction plan.' Berginnis acknowledged that states struggle to spend their mitigation grants. But he opposes Trump's recent decisions not to approve new grants. 'Mitigation happens when people are receptive to doing mitigation, and they are the most receptive to doing it in the immediate aftermath to do it, period. We are missing a key opportunity to do that,' Berginnis said.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Yahoo
Flood victims find new resources in Burnet County
Burnet County, TX (KXAN) — Flood victims in Burnet County are finding new relief Friday morning. The Burnet County Community Center opened up for people seeking resources. Located at the center are tables for volunteers from Ark of the Highland Lakes, Bluebonnet Trails, Texas Housing Foundation, H-E-B and the American Red Cross. 'We can walk you through this process from start to finish,' said Kim Holtzclaw with the Ark of the Highland Lakes. The group was founded to help people following the 2018 flood in Marble Falls. 'At the end of the day, we're the ones that are still here, in the community long term,' Holtzclaw said. The organization helps people recover beyond the initial shock. That includes providing repair services, new furniture and even dental work. The services are at the Burnet County Community Center at 401 E. Jackson St. in Burnet, TX. The various non-profits will be at the center until July 18th. The center is opened from 7am to 7am. 'Donations management is the secondary disaster after any disaster,' said Derek Marchio, Emergency Management Coordinator for Burnet County. He said that Ark helps funnel volunteers and ensure they're being used properly. HOME Center out of San Marcos is working alongside the American Red Cross to provide mental health services for people in need. 'After you've watched cars pass by you in a flood,' said Hannah Durrance with HOME Center, 'you envision this in your mind for days, weeks, even years.' Having a one stop shop for survivors and volunteers is the goal. 'We love the volunteers, we need the volunteers and we'll be needing them for weeks,' Holtzclaw said. Burnet County has seen some of the greatest flood damage in Central Texas. On Saturday, July 5, residents at the Hamilton Creek Manor community were forced to evacuate their homes as floodwaters rushed in. The community is primarily made up of seniors and is low-income housing. They were asked to evacuate their homes fully by Wednesday, collecting any goods they wanted to keep. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
