Coast prepares for wet winter

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 20, 1997 | by Gayle M.B. Hanson

The government is warning Californians to boost their insurance coverage as meteorologists predict wild weather connected with El Nino.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has issued a dire warning to California residents: Better ante up for some additional flood insurance. Should predictions of El Nino's devastation come true, there's no guarantee that the federal government will come to the rescue.

El Nino, the name given to warm currents in the Pacific Ocean that periodically upset weather patterns along the West Coast and elsewhere, has begun to wreak havoc with the state's fish and wildlife, which are shifting their migratory patterns in response to rapidly increasing ocean temperatures. Californians fear that rains of a duration not seen in this century could bring the state to its knees before the end of winter.

"Without flood insurance, many people could lose everything," warns one dramatic FEMA ad being broadcast in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. "Don't wait for El Nino's rains to start." The federal agency, which provides relief in the case of disasters, cautions that the president must declare a region a disaster area before it can provide financial help.

But flood insurance is a tough sell, say agents, because most people believe high waters won't drown their dreams. In fact, statistics bear them out. For FEMA to declare an area high risk, it need only have a 0.02 percent chance of flooding in any given year.

Californians are used to risk -- many decline to buy into the state's earthquake-insurance program, which sells minimum coverage for maximum prices. Now they are opting to protect their assets themselves, creating a boom for roofers from San Francisco to San Diego. "People are really worried," says Robert Elliott of Elliott and Elliott Roofing in Oakland. "People started calling up in July. Now we're 165 appointments behind."

Even as homeowners fortify their property, municipalities from Oakland to San Diego are preparing for disaster. The last big El Nino, during the winter of 1982-83, caused upward of $200 million in damage and killed 14 people. While Northern California may avoid the battering storms altogether, the southern part of the state is likely to take a hit.

"We've been working really hard to get ready for this," says Chris Balch, emergency management coordinator for the City of San Diego. "We have 200 potential evacuation centers ready and we're working closely with the city of Tuuana to make sure that we have coordinated efforts along the Tuuana River."

According to Balch, one of the biggest concerns for his region is controlling the brush fires likely to break out in the dry, early fall. If large fires occur, El Nino could be devastating.

"If we have a loss of vegetation on the hillsides followed by heavy rains, we'll end up with mountains of mud," Balch tells Insight. "Things can become very unstable and that's when houses can come down off the hillsides."

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography is among those banging the drum for storm preparedness. Scientists have used complex computer modeling to try and predict the severity of the climate change. Some call for an increase in rain of up to 300 percent during the months of January, February and March and for pounding waves that could hammer the vulnerable beach communities that dot the coast.

Daniel Cayan, director of Scripps' Climate Research Division, cautions that despite the sophistication of their predictions, "this is not a cast-in-concrete sort of event. There are a lot of qualifiers here. Every event is different."

There's always the possibility that the storms just won't materialize. Long-range forecasting is in its infancy, and anyone who watches the nightly weather knows that even three-day predictions often come to naught.

"One thing that happens is that people hear that they're going to get hit by something like Hurricane Lucy and then it doesn't happen," says Willard Lewis, director of the San Diego County Office of Disaster Preparedness. "The media gets the word out, people get ready and then, nothing. In the case of El Nino, the predictions could end up being exaggerated. But we can't afford to take any chances. We need to get ready Now."

If the County of San Diego is taking the precaution of ordering an additional 100,000 sand bags, other communities remain vulnerable. Malibu, where movie stars live elbow to elbow with each other in a ramshackle beach community of multimillion-dollar homes, always has been susceptible to Mother Nature's wrath -- be it in the form of hillside fires or beachfront storms. Yet it only has a public-works staff of five. Hit hard by El Nino in 1982-83, the enclave could be destroyed if the predictions about this year's weather come true. "Our storm drains are 50 years old," says John Clement, public-works director for the community. "They're at the end of their lifespan."