People were aware of danger before it could happen. That is something to value.
By Benjamin Oreskes, Shelby Grad
The Big One: (click here) A storm that forecasters billed as the most powerful in years barreled into Southern California with a vengeance on Friday, flooding multiple freeways, triggering dramatic mudslides and downing hundreds of trees and power lines. The deluge created surreal scenes: Cars trapped by rising waters along the 5 and 110 freeways, churning mud flows ripping through canyon and high-desert roads, and a massive landslide. To the north in Santa Barbara County, communities were battered by up to an inch of rain an hour, turning the Santa Barbara Airport into a lake with small aircraft playing the role of boats. Los Angeles Times
Watch: Check out this wild footage captured by San Bernardino County firefighters of the moment a massive landslide the length of three football fields crumbled down a mountain. Los Angeles Times
Some risks are worth it: Living below the Lake Oroville dam has never been simple. It requires a great deal of “faith in the engineers who designed the nation’s tallest dam and the construction workers who built it more than a half century ago, and faith in the government agencies that maintain and operate it.” Los Angeles Times
A scary thought: The state’s water agency advised five years ago that, if the Lake Oroville dam were to fail, residents living downstream wouldn’t have time to evacuate. Associated Press...
