Go to the beach, just don't get wet. Bacteria warnings issued ahead of July 4th at 8 beaches
The warnings have been issued ahead of the holiday weekend due to excessive bacterial levels, county officials said.
The Los Angeles County Public Health Department released a statement on Wednesday warning residents to avoid surfing, swimming and any other ocean-water activity after tests indicated that street runoff had increased bacterial levels at certain beaches.
'Swimming in water with bacteria can make you sick or cause skin infections,' the department said in astatement. 'Children, the elderly, and those who have weak immune systems are at higher risk of getting sick or infected.'
The department could not estimate when the warnings would be lifted, but state law requires weekly tests be conducted on the waters.
The following beaches were affected:
· Avalon Beach at Catalina Island: the swimming area 50 feet west of Green Pleasure Pier and the Step Beach swim area east of the Casino arch.
· Santa Monica Beach: Santa Monica North Lifeguard Tower 12 and 100 yards up and down the coast from the Wilshire Boulevard storm drain.
· Ramirez Creek at Paradise Cove in Malibu: 100 yards up and down the coast from the pier.
· Will Rogers State Beach: 100 yards up and down coast from the Bel Air Bay Club border fence.
· Mothers Beach in Marina Del Rey: the entire swim area.
· Topanga Beach: 100 yards up and down the coast from the Castlerock storm drain.
· Santa Monica Beach: 100 yards up and down the coast from the Santa Monica Pier.
· Inner Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro: the entire swim area.
The health department will issue updates as they become available.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Texas officials face scrutiny over response to catastrophic and deadly flooding
KERRVILLE, Texas — Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather while staying at a friend's house along the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast alarmed him. Hours later, he was rushing to safety: He woke up in darkness to electrical sockets popping and ankle-deep water. Quickly, his family scrambled nine people into the attic. Phones buzzed with alerts, Flowers recalled Saturday, but he did not remember when in the chaos they started. 'What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,' Flowers, 44, said. The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing. Those still unaccounted for included 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered. But as authorities launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in recent Texas history, they have come under intensifying scrutiny over preparations and why residents and youth summer camps that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate. The National Weather Service sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger. Local officials have insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming and have defended their actions. 'There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,' said Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, whose district includes Kerr County. 'There's a lot of people saying 'why' and 'how,' and I understand that.' An initial flood watch — which generally urges residents to be weather-aware — was issued by the local National Weather Service office at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. It predicted between 5 to 7 inches (12.7 to 17.8 centimeters) of rain. Weather messaging from the office, including automated alerts delivered to mobile phones to people in threatened areas, grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas, said Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office. At 4:03 a.m., the office issued an urgent warning that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company that uses National Weather Service data, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities. 'People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,' Porter said in a statement. Local officials have said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area. 'We know we get rains. We know the river rises,' said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official. 'But nobody saw this coming.' Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he was jogging along the river early in the morning and didn't notice any problems at 4 a.m. A little over an hour later, at 5:20 a.m., the water level had risen dramatically and 'we almost weren't able to get out of the park,' he said. Rice also noted that the public can become desensitized to too many weather warnings. Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because of the expense. 'We've looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,' Kelly said. He said he didn't know what kind of safety and evacuation plans the camps may have had. 'What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don't know where the kids were,' he said. 'I don't know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.' U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Saturday it was difficult for forecasters to predict just how much rain would fall. She said the Trump administration would make it a priority to upgrade National Weather Service technology used to deliver warnings. 'We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that's why we're working to upgrade the technology that's been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,' Noem said during a press conference with state and federal leaders. The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, which delivers forecasts for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, Runyen said. Where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had up to five on staff. 'There were extra people in here that night, and that's typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,' Runyen said. Murphy and Vertuno write for the Associated Press. Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says flash flood alerts went out — but not everyone got them
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Miami Herald
4 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Texas flood deaths pass 50 with more bad weather expected
More than 50 people have died and dozens of children are missing in Texas Hill Country after catastrophic flooding, leaving officials struggling to explain if they had done enough to warn people of the fast-rising waters. At least 27 campers from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, remain unaccounted for, officials said at a briefing. They said they are maintaining that number even as more bodies were discovered. Of the dead in Kerr County, 28 were adults and 15 were children. At least eight others have died in nearby counties. Authorities are warning the casualty count will climb as more rain is forecast, increasing the risk of further flash floods in the coming days. Officials declined to give a figure for the total number of people missing, in part because so many visitors came to the area to camp during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The flood took Texas officials by surprise. Thunderstorms, combined with the remnants of short-lived Tropical Storm Barry, produced much more rain than had been forecast. "This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States. And we deal with floods on a regular basis," Kerr County Judge Robert Kelly told reporters. "We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever." The Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said at a briefing Friday. The National Weather Service had predicted only three to six inches of rain in the area. Gov. Greg Abbott expressed gratitude to the first responders who had poured into the area, and said the search for survivors continues. At a news conference earlier on Saturday, Abbott, flanked by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, thanked the federal government for providing assistance. Abbott later said in a post on X that he visited Camp Mystic on Saturday. Mystic is one of several youth camps in the Hill Country that cater to middle- and upper-class families from Dallas, Houston and Austin who send kids for month-long getaways at places like Camp Longhorn and Camp Waldemar. Authorities were able to confirm that no other camps have missing children. When the unexpected deluge hit Friday, there were about 750 children at Camp Mystic, which is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio. The Hill Country sprawls across all or part of more than 20 counties in central Texas, with booming Austin and San Antonio on the region's eastern fringe driving a transformation from ranchland to suburbia. The camp and "the river running beside it, were horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I've seen in any natural disaster," Abbott wrote. "The height the rushing water reached to the top of cabins was shocking. We won't stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins." President Donald Trump said in a social media post that federal officials are working with state and local counterparts. "Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best," Trump wrote. "GOD BLESS THE FAMILIES, AND GOD BLESS TEXAS!" The National Weather Service warned of more extreme rainfall and life-threatening flash flooding in parts of the region, issuing flood watches and warnings in central Texas, including parts of Austin and San Antonio. The service also reported numerous water rescues. Climate change has driven more extreme rainfall around the world. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, upping the odds of deluges like the one that struck Texas. Scientists haven't yet examined these floods for the fingerprints of climate change. A rapid analysis by Colorado State University climatologist Russ Schumacher shows the six-hour rainfall totals made this a 1,000-year event - that is, it had less than a 0.1% chance of occurring in any given year. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said weather predictions underestimated the severity of the storms. "The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of the forecasts," Kidd said. The weather service "is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County," according to an emailed statement late Saturday that included a timeline of its flood-hazard outlook and warnings. Noem said federal officials will look at whether more warning could have been provided. "For decades, for years, everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict, but also that the National Weather Service, over the years, at times, has done well, and at times we have all wanted more time and more warning and more alerts and more notification," she said. Officials have rescued around 850 people, and are using helicopters, boats and drones to search for others in need of assistance, Abbott said. Many roads were washed out, limiting access to some areas. At Camp Mystic, aging bunks with names of former campers carved in the rafters sat on a slope near the river. Some were washed away by the surging waters. Its website was overloaded with visitors Saturday, according to an error message. Photos said to be of missing children spread on social media, but officials declined to release names of any of the missing. President Lyndon Johnson's daughters spent several summers at Mystic among the live oak trees and cedar brush, and former first lady Laura Bush was a Mystic counselor in college, according to Texas Monthly. Posts on a Facebook page called Kerrville Breaking News were filled with photos of people and pets said to be missing. One woman said she was trying to locate a 19-year-old counselor at Mystic. "People need to know today will be a hard day," said Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring. (Yi Wei Wong, Susanne Barton, Brian K. Sullivan and Adam Majendie contributed to this report.) 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