Why California Isn’t Built To Handle This Kind Of Storm

The “atmospheric river” deluging the Golden State shows how far infrastructure has to go to catch up to a growing nation — and a changing climate.

A rare weather event that brought catastrophic flooding and wind gusts exceeding 100 miles per hour to California has already incapacitated much of the state — including two of the richest and most developed parts of the country, which still lack the infrastructure needed to withstand such extreme weather.

In the nation’s high-tech hub of Northern California, nearly 1 million households suffered blackouts Sunday evening, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. More than 456,000 remained without electricity, including nearly a quarter-million in the San Francisco Bay Area, as of 8 a.m. local time Monday. Including those outside PG&E’s coverage area, more than 500,000 people statewide were still in the dark, data from the website PowerOutage.us.

In Southern California, home to the country’s second most populous city and the biggest port through which goods from Asia flow, federal weather forecasters put nearly 14 million people on notice for a rare “high risk” of flash flooding. The National Weather Service warned early Monday that the risk of landslides and flooding in the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood Hills area had become, as described in all capitals, an “EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SITUATION.”

Even during normal conditions, rain can render the oil-slicked freeways crisscrossing Los Angeles slippery and risky to drive, dramatically slowing movement in the U.S.’s notoriously car-dependent metropolis. Despite the potential risks and widespread power outages, no evacuation notices have been issued, and schools remained open on Monday.

The storm is expected to continue through Tuesday.