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"title": "Proven Schizophrenia Treatments Keep People in School, at Work and off the Street. Why Won't Insurance Companies Cover Them?",
"headTitle": "Proven Schizophrenia Treatments Keep People in School, at Work and off the Street. Why Won’t Insurance Companies Cover Them? | KQED",
"content": "\u003ch2>\u003cem>What if, instead of telling patients with schizophrenia to prepare for a lifetime of disability, we asked them what they want and worked with them toward full recovery?\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Yvonne was walking across campus and heard someone calling her name, she stopped and looked around, but the other students flowed around her, oblivious. She continued on, then heard it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yvonne?\u003c/em> Stop. Look. Nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was confused, but like anyone else would, Yvonne brushed it off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sat down in her anatomy class, in the middle of a big lecture hall, and when the professor began his lesson on the renal system, Yvonne started to feel funny, like he was talking about \u003cem>her\u003c/em> body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Why is he talking about \u003cem>my\u003c/em> kidneys? How dare he,’” she remembered. “I got really scared and I ran out of class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She shook this off, too. As she crunched through the rust-colored leaves of an East Coast autumn, she started to hear chattering, like a radio was on in the background of her life. She ignored it as long as she could — until the voices started speaking to her in full sentences, telling her what to do: “You should jump off a bridge. Take that knife and cut yourself,” they said. “You’re worthless.”[pullquote citation='Yvonne, who has schizoaffective disorder']‘My life wasn’t my own. It was up to these voices because they told me what to do. They wouldn’t go away.’[/pullquote]Her doctor prescribed some medications, but Yvonne, 22 at the time, continued to lose perspective. Maybe the voices weren’t just her mind playing tricks on her? Maybe they were real? That’s when the aliens arrived. She heard the loud, screeching sound of their ship hovering outside her window at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to remove you from this planet,” the aliens told Yvonne. Then they spoke to each other in their own gargled alien language that she couldn’t understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne had no doubt this was real. And when God started talking to her a few weeks later, that was real, too. He told her she was going to be the next Jesus and he was going to give her instructions on how to save the world. At first, this made Yvonne feel great. God had chosen her. But then she got scared, overwhelmed by the responsibility. What if she couldn’t fulfill what God wanted for her?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s going to send me to hell and I’m a terrible person,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne’s mom convinced her to check herself into the hospital. But it was almost six months after she left the hospital that she got an accurate diagnosis: schizoaffective disorder — roughly, schizophrenia with bouts of mania or depression. And for another six months after that, she sat on her parents’ couch, unable to read, unable to go to school, waiting for a spot to open up in a treatment program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My life wasn’t my own,” said Yvonne, who asked that we use a family name to protect her mental health history. “It was up to these voices because they told me what to do. They wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t do anything with them. So they ruled my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne is one of \u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/DMHAS/Initiatives/Evidence-Based/First-Episode-Psychosis#:~:text=Psychosis%20impacts%20approximately%20100%2C000%20youth,others%20may%20have%20ongoing%20symptoms.\">100,000 young adults or adolescents\u003c/a> who have a psychotic episode every year in the U.S. For most of them, it takes \u003ca href=\"https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ps.201400124\">a year and a half to get into meaningful treatment\u003c/a>, if they ever do at all. Treatment programs\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/coverage-early-intervention-services-first-episode-psychosis\"> recommended by the National Institute of Mental Health \u003c/a>as the gold standard of care for early psychosis rarely have enough slots available for the people who need them, and health insurance companies typically refuse to cover the full cost of these programs, even when they are available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981638\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981638 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"A woman with light skin, dark brown hair, glasses, and a purple knit hat holds a sign that says "Depressed? Suicidal? I'll see in you 6 weeks." She faces the camera and stands amid a crowd of people marching on a sidewalk, many of whom are, like the woman, wearing red T-shirts, and holding signs on wooden dowels that say "Kaiser Don't Deny."\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician.jpeg 1832w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente went on strike in December 2018 and 2019 over long patient wait times. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Instead, many young people like Yvonne inch through the country’s fragmented mental health care system, struggling to find a clinician with adequate training in psychosis. Yvonne waited \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11791527/kaiser-therapists-strike-again-over-long-wait-times\">up to six weeks between therapy appointments\u003c/a> at Kaiser Permanente, and said she made little progress with a clinician who always seemed to change the subject when Yvonne wanted to talk about her voices. “She would skip over it and talk about my anxiety instead,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, Kaiser agreed to pay for Yvonne to go to the \u003ca href=\"https://pathprogram.ucsf.edu/\">UCSF Path Program for Early Psychosis\u003c/a>, a two-year outpatient treatment program designed specifically for young people in the earliest stages of psychotic illness. The clinic is one of about 50 in California and 340 across the country that began operating in the mid-2000s. Right away, Yvonne knew this would be different. In her first session, Yvonne’s therapist had her set goals for what she wanted to achieve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one had ever asked me what my goals for treatment were,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A revolutionary idea for treating schizophrenia\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in the ’80s and ’90s, doctors didn’t really know what to do with schizophrenia, and they \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990328/#:~:text=The%20NIMH%20RAISE%20initiative%20aimed,costs%20associated%20with%20psychotic%20disorders.\">didn’t have many options\u003c/a>. They prescribed high doses of antipsychotic medications that sedated people into zombie-like depths. They advised patients to give up on any career ambitions and sign up for disability payments instead. Even today, some doctors still see schizophrenia as a lost cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a real failure to appreciate how much potential there is to manage the illness and symptoms,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsfhealth.org/providers/dr-daniel-mathalon\">Dr. Daniel Mathalon\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist at UCSF’s early psychosis program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the turn of the century, a new generation of doctors started thinking, What if we ask patients what they want and actually work with them toward full recovery? “It’s not just about stabilizing you clinically. It’s about making sure we don’t lose track of your future,” said \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/psychiatry/team/1290/tara-niendam---pediatric-and-transition-age-youth-mental-health-sacramento/\">Tara Niendam\u003c/a>, a child psychologist who runs \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/psychiatry/specialties/edapt/\">the early psychosis clinic at UC Davis\u003c/a>. “You \u003cem>should\u003c/em> be in college. You \u003cem>should\u003c/em> be living on your own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other conditions like diabetes or cancer, the sooner people get into care, the better they do. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">The same is true of psychotic illness.\u003c/a> Upwards of 80 studies from early psychosis clinics show that patients see \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26481174/\">a greater reduction of symptoms\u003c/a>, like voices or delusions, and a greater improvement in functioning at school, at work and in their social lives, compared to people who get treatment as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons why earlier treatment is more effective, Niendam said. People respond more quickly to medication and at a lower dose, so they have fewer side effects that make them want to stop taking them. Families are more involved and more supportive, and patients themselves are more curious about their psychotic experiences. “They come out of it and they’re like, ‘Whoa! What was that?’” Niendam said. “Folks are still in that questioning phase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When someone is deep in psychosis, their beliefs are rigid, intractable. They might not see themselves as being sick. But if they get help earlier, Niendam said, they’re more likely to engage in treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981632 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with gray black, short cropped hair and a purple lanier around her neck speaks to a person with blond hair. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clinical psychologist Tara Niendam speaks with a colleague at the UC Davis Behavioral Health Center in Sacramento on Feb. 7, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Yvonne, even though she believed the alien ship outside her window was real, her doctors at UCSF started her on a new medication that shook that belief loose. Her new therapist then used targeted cognitive behavioral techniques that helped Yvonne challenge those beliefs further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So for example, I’d have a thought: ‘Aliens are going to abduct me,’” she said. “So then we do ‘evidence for’ that thought and ‘evidence against’ that thought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, she made a list of all the evidence she had that the alien abduction plan was real: I hear the aliens. They’re talking to me. I hear their ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she had to list the evidence that they weren’t real. For this, the therapist had Yvonne set up a jar in her bedroom. Every morning that she woke up and had not been abducted, she would put a blue marble in the jar. If she had been abducted, she was supposed to put a white marble in the jar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I had all blue marbles,” Yvonne said. “So that’s evidence against ‘they’re going to get me,’ cause they haven’t yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get control over the voices in her head, Yvonne learned to talk back to them. She would sit in the therapist’s office, in the chair on the right side of the room, and pretend to be her voices, telling her to go back to bed or not to go outside. “It’s dangerous,” she’d say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then Yvonne would go sit in the chair on the left side of the room and practice her response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you, voices, for wanting to protect me and watch out for me,” she’d say back. “But I’m going to get up and be brave and go out into the world today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It took a while to get the hang of it, maybe a year, but when she did, Yvonne was able to go back to school. When the voices would start yelling at her while she was in class, calling her dumb, she was ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981731\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1981731\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"A drawing of a clear jar filling with round, blue marbles.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Illustration by Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’d be like, ‘You know what? I really don’t appreciate the way you talk to me. Let’s talk after class, let’s talk at 2 p.m.,’” she told them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The voices wouldn’t go away completely, but they would fade into the background, enough where Yvonne could finish class or read a book or do her homework. “I just started to feel more in control,” said Yvonne, now 27.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She graduated college last spring, summa cum laude, and she’s now working a full-time job. She’s about to move into her own place. She keeps up with her broad circle of friends, going to shows in the city or having bonfires on the beach. If she thinks she hears a voice or an alien, she does a literal reality check. “Oh, did you hear that?” she’ll ask a friend or her mom. And if they don’t, she tells herself, “Okay, that’s just a voice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mostly, Yvonne doesn’t like talking about her illness with her friends. She’d rather talk about the Kardashians instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just like to be normal when I’m with them,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Independent, career-oriented people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even though the skills Yvonne learned from therapy at UCSF were a revelation, there was actually a whole other dimension of care that she never got. That’s because UCSF’s program only accepts private insurance, and private health insurers only cover about half of the services of early psychosis treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who get care under government health coverage, like Medi-Cal, can enroll in programs like the \u003ca href=\"https://felton.org/\">Felton Institute\u003c/a>‘s, which offer not just specialized therapy, like Yvonne got, but a full array of social support, as well. At Felton’s five clinic locations, they believe it takes a full team of specialists who all talk to each other, who are all looking out for every aspect of a young person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes specialists like Monet Burpee, an education and employment coach. On a typical workday, she’ll drive her clients to the local mall or downtown shopping district, charting their path according to the “Help Wanted” signs. Together, they’ll chat with store managers about open positions, then sit down and fill out the applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burpee says helping her clients who have psychosis find work is about more than landing a job; it’s about helping them see themselves differently, as independent, career-oriented people, rather than permanent patients receiving government wage assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you work, you’re going to notice a huge improvement in your self-esteem,” she tells them. “It has better long-term, positive results versus you just sitting around on SSI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981636\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981636 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman with a green cutoff t-shirt and beige hat speaks through a black mask to a man in a blue surgical mask inside a bright space with tables and colorful art on the wall. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monet Burpee (right) talks to the manager of a restaurant in Redwood City on one of her job-scouting expeditions in July 2022. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is what she said to one of her clients, Sandy, after she had her first psychotic episode. Sandy was taking new medications that made her really sleepy, and she was struggling to get motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since I didn’t really have anything to do, I would just take superlong naps during the day,” said Sandy, now 20, who asked that we call her by a family name so her health history doesn’t disrupt her career path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her, psychosis hit when she was working her first job after high school, at a fast-food restaurant making burgers. Her co-workers were chatting over the fryer one day when Sandy got this weird feeling, that somehow they knew what she was thinking. It was like her co-workers could read her mind and were discussing her thoughts with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, are they talking about burgers or are they talking about me?” Sandy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one co-worker in particular, a guy she had a crush on, that she was pretty sure was watching her — even following her around. If she was walking down the street, or hanging out in the park, she saw him. Her mom remembers Sandy wanted to sleep with the lights on, repeatedly asking her, “Mom, is someone here?”[pullquote size='medium' citation='Sandy, who has schizophrenia']‘I was like, are they talking about burgers or are they talking about me?’[/pullquote]One day, her mom said Sandy got so scared, she locked herself in the bathroom and just screamed and screamed and screamed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom wanted to call for help. But she didn’t have a job at the time. This was about a year into the pandemic, and the hotel where Sandy’s mom worked had been closed since the first government lockdown. When she lost her job, her union helped her hold on to her health benefits for a while, but that extension was about to run out. “My husband was like, ‘What is that going to cost?’” her mom remembers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy’s mom called 911 anyway. In the hospital, Sandy was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From there, she was enrolled in the Felton Institute’s outpatient early psychosis treatment program. At this point, she and her family were covered by Medi-Cal, the state’s public insurance. They wouldn’t have to pay a dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right away, Sandy was introduced to a team of providers who would be by her side for the next two years: a physician, a psychotherapist, an occupational therapist, an education and employment specialist, a peer specialist and a family support specialist for her mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy’s mom found she needed almost as much support as her daughter did after the diagnosis. She blamed herself. She started meeting once a week with Mike Krechevsky, Felton’s family specialist. He walked her through what schizophrenia was, explained that it was no one’s fault, and helped her manage her own feelings about it so that she didn’t pass them on to Sandy. “When you express anxiety to your child, they don’t feel as though they have any capability of going out in the world, stumbling, falling, picking themselves up, learning from their mistakes and moving forward. You infantilize them,” Krechevsky said. “If you continue to do that, they’re never going to recover.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sandy was ready to look for work, she and Burpee went to the mall on a job-scouting expedition. They filled out the applications together. “Next thing I know, I was being interviewed and I got hired,” Sandy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started out as a cashier at a new fast-food restaurant and within three months she got promoted to a manager role. Now Burpee is coaching her on how to ask for a raise. “She has a brand-new car,” Burpee said, beaming with pride. “She’s meeting new friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Sandy, it was just one step in her long-term recovery plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to focus on getting a degree, to get a better career,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A reverse disparity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In an unusual twist of the U.S.’ separate and unequal health system favoring the wealthy, the reason Sandy was able to get the best care after her psychotic episode was primarily because her mom had lost her job and her insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation='Tara Niendam, UC Davis clinical psychologist']‘I can give the Rolls-Royce of care if you walk in and you have Medi-Cal. But 60% of Californians have commercial insurance. That’s 60% of kids who can’t get care, 60% of kids whose parents call me crying when I tell them they can’t access my clinic.’[/pullquote]This is because the state and federal government are the main funders of these early psychosis clinics, investing tens of millions of dollars into them every year. Officials believe it will save money in the long run, because \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">without sufficient treatment, people with schizophrenia can deteriorate so much\u003c/a>, they end up on wage assistance, in a group home, on the street or in jail — all things the government pays for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But commercial insurance companies, like Anthem or Blue Shield, don’t face those risks. They don’t have the incentive to cover full-scope psychosis treatment. For that reason, and others, they don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This means lower-income families with public insurance like Medi-Cal can get the gold standard of care, while middle-class families with commercial plans cannot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a reverse disparity,” said UC Davis’ Niendam, testifying at a state Senate Committee on Health hearing last year, about the impact of this disparity at the early psychosis clinic she runs in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give the Rolls-Royce of care if you walk in and you have Medi-Cal,” she said. But “60% of Californians have commercial insurance. That’s 60% of kids who can’t get care, 60% of kids whose parents call me crying when I tell them they can’t access my clinic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Felton Institute in the Bay Area, early psychosis director \u003ca href=\"https://felton.org/about-us/who-we-are/leadership/adriana-furuzawa/\">Adriana Furuzawa\u003c/a> said the same. For every one person who has Medi-Cal and is eligible for care at her Alameda clinic, there are another two with commercial insurance who are turned away. Last year, they turned about 100 people away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very difficult to think that behind each number, there is a young person, there is a family, that we’re saying no to, when we have the resources right here,” Furuzawa said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981634\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981634 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A woman with dark red hair and glass sits in a black office chair in a room with \"positive\" painted on the wall above a white lamp and alongside a brown door. ' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adriana Furuzawa, division director for early psychosis services at the Felton Institute, sits in her office in Alameda on Feb. 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So what happens to these kids? Generally, they’re on their own to find a psychiatrist and therapist who accepts their insurance. Health plans will pay for these medical services. But they won’t cover anything else: the job and education support, the peer specialist, the family coach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is discrimination, health advocates argue. If someone has cancer, insurers would never just pay for surgery and radiation, but not chemotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a package of services,” said David Lloyd, chief of policy at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.thekennedyforum.org/\">Kennedy Forum\u003c/a>. “So the idea that you can split apart the package of services and only reimburse for little components of it really destroys the whole evidence base of what the service is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This almost happened to Sandy. A few months into her treatment, her mom got her job back at the hotel, and the family was back on her commercial insurance plan. In most counties, this would have meant Sandy got kicked out of the program. Her mom said there would have been no way she could afford to pay for a job coach, a family coach and a peer specialist on her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t do it. I would definitely stop all the help,” she said, even though it was keeping Sandy alive. Maybe she would have turned to Craigslist to find other parents to talk to, she said, or looked up mental health advice on YouTube to pass on to Sandy. “I just hope and pray for the best,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, state lawmakers wanted to help families like Sandy’s, by forcing insurance companies to cover the full spectrum of early psychosis treatment. One state has done this already — \u003ca href=\"https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/101/101-0461.htm\">Illinois\u003c/a> — while Massachusetts and Virginia are working on a similar effort. But the proposal in California, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1337\">Senate Bill 1337\u003c/a>, died under pressure from the insurance lobby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, insurers have not covered the costs of services provided by non-licensed staff, like job or family coaches. More importantly, they do not like being cornered into covering specific treatments, according to Nick Louizos, a lobbyist with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.calhealthplans.org/\">California Association of Health Plans\u003c/a>, a trade group that represents companies like Anthem, Blue Shield and Kaiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Science evolves. Research evolves. There could be evidence-based techniques that are better in the future,” he testified at the Senate health committee hearing last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While scores of studies show \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1337\">the treatment works in the short term\u003c/a> — people are more likely to stay in school, in jobs, in treatment and out of the hospital — the treatment hasn’t been around long enough for researchers to know how long the positive effects last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lack of evidence of this model’s long-term effectiveness,” Louizos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser Permanente is currently running a pilot project, sending 30 of its patients to a full-scope early psychosis clinic based in Solano County. Louizos claims insurers want to see the results from that study — although they are short-term results — before the industry considers investing in the treatment as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Early Psychosis Treatment By County\" aria-label=\"Map\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-GXdZu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GXdZu/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"845\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Perverse incentives\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The insurance restrictions create a perverse incentive for middle-income families who need help now. Some parents are so desperate to give their kids the best care, they actually drop them from their health plans and enroll them in Medi-Cal so they can access county-funded clinics like Felton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some counties, including Sacramento and San Mateo, have taken an even bolder step. Health officials there said denying young people the full suite of care is unethical, enough so that they decided to use taxpayer dollars from the county’s coffers to pay for the services that private insurers refuse to cover. In the end, this is what allowed Sandy to stay in the Felton program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But all of these workarounds are problematic, said the Kennedy Forum’s Lloyd. For-profit insurance companies are essentially making more profits by allowing the public to pay their bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s not an appropriate role for taxpayers, to be picking up that burden,” he said, adding that insurers’ lack of investment is stifling the growth that’s needed in these programs to provide care for all the young people who need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formal consumer protections may ultimately come from a novel 2021 California law designed to expand the kinds of mental health care insurers are required to cover. Under \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB855\">SB 855\u003c/a>, health plans must make mental health coverage decisions based on expert-recognized guidelines for treatment, rather than their own internal criteria, which are often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/series/state-of-mind\">arbitrary or cost-driven\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple agencies, including the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">National Institute of Mental Health\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/coverage-early-intervention-services-first-episode-psychosis\">Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.177901\">American Psychiatric Association\u003c/a>, all recommend full-scope early psychosis care for treatment of a first psychotic episode. State regulators are considering inscribing this guidance explicitly into the official rules they will use to enforce SB 855, with regulatory agencies planning to finalize draft rules this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until that happens, psychosis patients with commercial insurance are stuck navigating the status quo of in-network providers. Finding one who understands psychosis, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614988/\">who can accurately identify it\u003c/a>, can be a serious challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation='Marie, who has bipolar disorder with psychotic features']‘When I had my first episode of psychosis, my therapist thought I was on drugs. She had absolutely no clue what was going on.’[/pullquote]“When I had my first episode of psychosis, my therapist thought I was on drugs. She had absolutely no clue what was going on,” said Marie, 27, who asked us to refer to her by her middle name because of the stigma she’s experienced around her illness, bipolar disorder with psychotic features.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Marie was in high school, her bedroom walls started talking to her. She read a book about Buddhism and it took over her thoughts completely. For three months, she skipped school and went to the beach to meditate instead. “Because I thought I was chosen and I needed to go meditate to attain nirvana,” she said. The entire time, she was seeing a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not even close to enough training to be able to say, ‘Oh, I think you’re having psychosis. Let’s go to the hospital,’” Marie remembers. “No. Instead it took months for me to end up in the hospital.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the hospital was also horrible. There was no empathy, no respect. Marie later researched this and found that mental health providers hold the same level of \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21954319/\">stigmatizing beliefs about mental illness\u003c/a> as the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that has a lot to do with why people hate the hospital,” she said. “It’s because the people in the hospital hate them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie made her own way through college, and when she got a job at a residential treatment program for people with mental illness, she was horrified to discover this thinking was baked into the way staff got trained: Marie’s supervisors warned her to watch out for clients who lied, and constantly referred to the clients as “manipulative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie quit, and found a different approach at the early psychosis program at UC Davis. She got hired to be their peer specialist, drawing on her own experience to counsel young people after their first psychotic episode, when they’re the most scared and confused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The people around them don’t understand it at all,” Marie said. “But I totally get it. I think that’s the point of my existence — I get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She talks to her clients about symptoms, about how to come out to their friends. She becomes a role model to them, a living example of someone who was able to manage her symptoms and get better. Marie is now in nursing school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for her, recovery was a long and very lonely road. She said she can hardly imagine what it would have meant to her, to her self-esteem, if her insurance had covered the kind of peer support that she provides to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believed I wouldn’t get better,” she said. “It would have been life changing to see someone who got better say that I could.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Sandy and her family, the full-scope early psychosis care has been life changing. Sandy has struggled with some of her symptoms recently at her fast-food job. The difference is, now she knows what’s happening. She has skills to quiet the voices. She knows her mom will understand. She knows there are half a dozen providers who will pick up if she calls for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When her mom thinks about the generosity, she thinks about her own father. He was a doctor in the Philippines, and none of his patients had insurance. If they didn’t have money, he treated them anyway. “I remember people paying him with chicken and rice,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She thinks, maybe all the help Sandy got was because of him. The luck of landing in a county that paid for all her care — maybe it was her dad’s karma paying off. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED is part of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://publicintegrity.org/health/health-parity/mental-health-parity-collaborative/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mental Health Parity Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a group of newsrooms that are covering the challenges and solutions to accessing mental health care in the U.S. in partnership with The Center for Public Integrity and The Carter Center.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch2>\u003cem>What if, instead of telling patients with schizophrenia to prepare for a lifetime of disability, we asked them what they want and worked with them toward full recovery?\u003c/em>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hen Yvonne was walking across campus and heard someone calling her name, she stopped and looked around, but the other students flowed around her, oblivious. She continued on, then heard it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yvonne?\u003c/em> Stop. Look. Nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was confused, but like anyone else would, Yvonne brushed it off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sat down in her anatomy class, in the middle of a big lecture hall, and when the professor began his lesson on the renal system, Yvonne started to feel funny, like he was talking about \u003cem>her\u003c/em> body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Why is he talking about \u003cem>my\u003c/em> kidneys? How dare he,’” she remembered. “I got really scared and I ran out of class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She shook this off, too. As she crunched through the rust-colored leaves of an East Coast autumn, she started to hear chattering, like a radio was on in the background of her life. She ignored it as long as she could — until the voices started speaking to her in full sentences, telling her what to do: “You should jump off a bridge. Take that knife and cut yourself,” they said. “You’re worthless.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Her doctor prescribed some medications, but Yvonne, 22 at the time, continued to lose perspective. Maybe the voices weren’t just her mind playing tricks on her? Maybe they were real? That’s when the aliens arrived. She heard the loud, screeching sound of their ship hovering outside her window at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to remove you from this planet,” the aliens told Yvonne. Then they spoke to each other in their own gargled alien language that she couldn’t understand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne had no doubt this was real. And when God started talking to her a few weeks later, that was real, too. He told her she was going to be the next Jesus and he was going to give her instructions on how to save the world. At first, this made Yvonne feel great. God had chosen her. But then she got scared, overwhelmed by the responsibility. What if she couldn’t fulfill what God wanted for her?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s going to send me to hell and I’m a terrible person,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne’s mom convinced her to check herself into the hospital. But it was almost six months after she left the hospital that she got an accurate diagnosis: schizoaffective disorder — roughly, schizophrenia with bouts of mania or depression. And for another six months after that, she sat on her parents’ couch, unable to read, unable to go to school, waiting for a spot to open up in a treatment program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My life wasn’t my own,” said Yvonne, who asked that we use a family name to protect her mental health history. “It was up to these voices because they told me what to do. They wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t do anything with them. So they ruled my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yvonne is one of \u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/DMHAS/Initiatives/Evidence-Based/First-Episode-Psychosis#:~:text=Psychosis%20impacts%20approximately%20100%2C000%20youth,others%20may%20have%20ongoing%20symptoms.\">100,000 young adults or adolescents\u003c/a> who have a psychotic episode every year in the U.S. For most of them, it takes \u003ca href=\"https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ps.201400124\">a year and a half to get into meaningful treatment\u003c/a>, if they ever do at all. Treatment programs\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/coverage-early-intervention-services-first-episode-psychosis\"> recommended by the National Institute of Mental Health \u003c/a>as the gold standard of care for early psychosis rarely have enough slots available for the people who need them, and health insurance companies typically refuse to cover the full cost of these programs, even when they are available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981638\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981638 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"A woman with light skin, dark brown hair, glasses, and a purple knit hat holds a sign that says "Depressed? Suicidal? I'll see in you 6 weeks." She faces the camera and stands amid a crowd of people marching on a sidewalk, many of whom are, like the woman, wearing red T-shirts, and holding signs on wooden dowels that say "Kaiser Don't Deny."\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Kaiser-clinician.jpeg 1832w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente went on strike in December 2018 and 2019 over long patient wait times. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Instead, many young people like Yvonne inch through the country’s fragmented mental health care system, struggling to find a clinician with adequate training in psychosis. Yvonne waited \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11791527/kaiser-therapists-strike-again-over-long-wait-times\">up to six weeks between therapy appointments\u003c/a> at Kaiser Permanente, and said she made little progress with a clinician who always seemed to change the subject when Yvonne wanted to talk about her voices. “She would skip over it and talk about my anxiety instead,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, Kaiser agreed to pay for Yvonne to go to the \u003ca href=\"https://pathprogram.ucsf.edu/\">UCSF Path Program for Early Psychosis\u003c/a>, a two-year outpatient treatment program designed specifically for young people in the earliest stages of psychotic illness. The clinic is one of about 50 in California and 340 across the country that began operating in the mid-2000s. Right away, Yvonne knew this would be different. In her first session, Yvonne’s therapist had her set goals for what she wanted to achieve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one had ever asked me what my goals for treatment were,” Yvonne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A revolutionary idea for treating schizophrenia\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Back in the ’80s and ’90s, doctors didn’t really know what to do with schizophrenia, and they \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990328/#:~:text=The%20NIMH%20RAISE%20initiative%20aimed,costs%20associated%20with%20psychotic%20disorders.\">didn’t have many options\u003c/a>. They prescribed high doses of antipsychotic medications that sedated people into zombie-like depths. They advised patients to give up on any career ambitions and sign up for disability payments instead. Even today, some doctors still see schizophrenia as a lost cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a real failure to appreciate how much potential there is to manage the illness and symptoms,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsfhealth.org/providers/dr-daniel-mathalon\">Dr. Daniel Mathalon\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist at UCSF’s early psychosis program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around the turn of the century, a new generation of doctors started thinking, What if we ask patients what they want and actually work with them toward full recovery? “It’s not just about stabilizing you clinically. It’s about making sure we don’t lose track of your future,” said \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/psychiatry/team/1290/tara-niendam---pediatric-and-transition-age-youth-mental-health-sacramento/\">Tara Niendam\u003c/a>, a child psychologist who runs \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/psychiatry/specialties/edapt/\">the early psychosis clinic at UC Davis\u003c/a>. “You \u003cem>should\u003c/em> be in college. You \u003cem>should\u003c/em> be living on your own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other conditions like diabetes or cancer, the sooner people get into care, the better they do. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">The same is true of psychotic illness.\u003c/a> Upwards of 80 studies from early psychosis clinics show that patients see \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26481174/\">a greater reduction of symptoms\u003c/a>, like voices or delusions, and a greater improvement in functioning at school, at work and in their social lives, compared to people who get treatment as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons why earlier treatment is more effective, Niendam said. People respond more quickly to medication and at a lower dose, so they have fewer side effects that make them want to stop taking them. Families are more involved and more supportive, and patients themselves are more curious about their psychotic experiences. “They come out of it and they’re like, ‘Whoa! What was that?’” Niendam said. “Folks are still in that questioning phase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When someone is deep in psychosis, their beliefs are rigid, intractable. They might not see themselves as being sick. But if they get help earlier, Niendam said, they’re more likely to engage in treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981632\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981632 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with gray black, short cropped hair and a purple lanier around her neck speaks to a person with blond hair. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/DrTaraNeindamSacramento_02072023-qut_action.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clinical psychologist Tara Niendam speaks with a colleague at the UC Davis Behavioral Health Center in Sacramento on Feb. 7, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Yvonne, even though she believed the alien ship outside her window was real, her doctors at UCSF started her on a new medication that shook that belief loose. Her new therapist then used targeted cognitive behavioral techniques that helped Yvonne challenge those beliefs further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So for example, I’d have a thought: ‘Aliens are going to abduct me,’” she said. “So then we do ‘evidence for’ that thought and ‘evidence against’ that thought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, she made a list of all the evidence she had that the alien abduction plan was real: I hear the aliens. They’re talking to me. I hear their ship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she had to list the evidence that they weren’t real. For this, the therapist had Yvonne set up a jar in her bedroom. Every morning that she woke up and had not been abducted, she would put a blue marble in the jar. If she had been abducted, she was supposed to put a white marble in the jar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And I had all blue marbles,” Yvonne said. “So that’s evidence against ‘they’re going to get me,’ cause they haven’t yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get control over the voices in her head, Yvonne learned to talk back to them. She would sit in the therapist’s office, in the chair on the right side of the room, and pretend to be her voices, telling her to go back to bed or not to go outside. “It’s dangerous,” she’d say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then Yvonne would go sit in the chair on the left side of the room and practice her response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you, voices, for wanting to protect me and watch out for me,” she’d say back. “But I’m going to get up and be brave and go out into the world today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It took a while to get the hang of it, maybe a year, but when she did, Yvonne was able to go back to school. When the voices would start yelling at her while she was in class, calling her dumb, she was ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981731\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1981731\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"A drawing of a clear jar filling with round, blue marbles.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/IMG_0142-e1677283844671.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Illustration by Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’d be like, ‘You know what? I really don’t appreciate the way you talk to me. Let’s talk after class, let’s talk at 2 p.m.,’” she told them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The voices wouldn’t go away completely, but they would fade into the background, enough where Yvonne could finish class or read a book or do her homework. “I just started to feel more in control,” said Yvonne, now 27.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She graduated college last spring, summa cum laude, and she’s now working a full-time job. She’s about to move into her own place. She keeps up with her broad circle of friends, going to shows in the city or having bonfires on the beach. If she thinks she hears a voice or an alien, she does a literal reality check. “Oh, did you hear that?” she’ll ask a friend or her mom. And if they don’t, she tells herself, “Okay, that’s just a voice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mostly, Yvonne doesn’t like talking about her illness with her friends. She’d rather talk about the Kardashians instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just like to be normal when I’m with them,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Independent, career-oriented people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even though the skills Yvonne learned from therapy at UCSF were a revelation, there was actually a whole other dimension of care that she never got. That’s because UCSF’s program only accepts private insurance, and private health insurers only cover about half of the services of early psychosis treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who get care under government health coverage, like Medi-Cal, can enroll in programs like the \u003ca href=\"https://felton.org/\">Felton Institute\u003c/a>‘s, which offer not just specialized therapy, like Yvonne got, but a full array of social support, as well. At Felton’s five clinic locations, they believe it takes a full team of specialists who all talk to each other, who are all looking out for every aspect of a young person’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes specialists like Monet Burpee, an education and employment coach. On a typical workday, she’ll drive her clients to the local mall or downtown shopping district, charting their path according to the “Help Wanted” signs. Together, they’ll chat with store managers about open positions, then sit down and fill out the applications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burpee says helping her clients who have psychosis find work is about more than landing a job; it’s about helping them see themselves differently, as independent, career-oriented people, rather than permanent patients receiving government wage assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you work, you’re going to notice a huge improvement in your self-esteem,” she tells them. “It has better long-term, positive results versus you just sitting around on SSI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981636\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981636 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A Black woman with a green cutoff t-shirt and beige hat speaks through a black mask to a man in a blue surgical mask inside a bright space with tables and colorful art on the wall. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Monet-Burpee-2_edited.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monet Burpee (right) talks to the manager of a restaurant in Redwood City on one of her job-scouting expeditions in July 2022. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is what she said to one of her clients, Sandy, after she had her first psychotic episode. Sandy was taking new medications that made her really sleepy, and she was struggling to get motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since I didn’t really have anything to do, I would just take superlong naps during the day,” said Sandy, now 20, who asked that we call her by a family name so her health history doesn’t disrupt her career path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her, psychosis hit when she was working her first job after high school, at a fast-food restaurant making burgers. Her co-workers were chatting over the fryer one day when Sandy got this weird feeling, that somehow they knew what she was thinking. It was like her co-workers could read her mind and were discussing her thoughts with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, are they talking about burgers or are they talking about me?” Sandy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one co-worker in particular, a guy she had a crush on, that she was pretty sure was watching her — even following her around. If she was walking down the street, or hanging out in the park, she saw him. Her mom remembers Sandy wanted to sleep with the lights on, repeatedly asking her, “Mom, is someone here?”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>One day, her mom said Sandy got so scared, she locked herself in the bathroom and just screamed and screamed and screamed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom wanted to call for help. But she didn’t have a job at the time. This was about a year into the pandemic, and the hotel where Sandy’s mom worked had been closed since the first government lockdown. When she lost her job, her union helped her hold on to her health benefits for a while, but that extension was about to run out. “My husband was like, ‘What is that going to cost?’” her mom remembers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy’s mom called 911 anyway. In the hospital, Sandy was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From there, she was enrolled in the Felton Institute’s outpatient early psychosis treatment program. At this point, she and her family were covered by Medi-Cal, the state’s public insurance. They wouldn’t have to pay a dime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right away, Sandy was introduced to a team of providers who would be by her side for the next two years: a physician, a psychotherapist, an occupational therapist, an education and employment specialist, a peer specialist and a family support specialist for her mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy’s mom found she needed almost as much support as her daughter did after the diagnosis. She blamed herself. She started meeting once a week with Mike Krechevsky, Felton’s family specialist. He walked her through what schizophrenia was, explained that it was no one’s fault, and helped her manage her own feelings about it so that she didn’t pass them on to Sandy. “When you express anxiety to your child, they don’t feel as though they have any capability of going out in the world, stumbling, falling, picking themselves up, learning from their mistakes and moving forward. You infantilize them,” Krechevsky said. “If you continue to do that, they’re never going to recover.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Sandy was ready to look for work, she and Burpee went to the mall on a job-scouting expedition. They filled out the applications together. “Next thing I know, I was being interviewed and I got hired,” Sandy said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started out as a cashier at a new fast-food restaurant and within three months she got promoted to a manager role. Now Burpee is coaching her on how to ask for a raise. “She has a brand-new car,” Burpee said, beaming with pride. “She’s meeting new friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Sandy, it was just one step in her long-term recovery plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to focus on getting a degree, to get a better career,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A reverse disparity\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In an unusual twist of the U.S.’ separate and unequal health system favoring the wealthy, the reason Sandy was able to get the best care after her psychotic episode was primarily because her mom had lost her job and her insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I can give the Rolls-Royce of care if you walk in and you have Medi-Cal. But 60% of Californians have commercial insurance. That’s 60% of kids who can’t get care, 60% of kids whose parents call me crying when I tell them they can’t access my clinic.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This is because the state and federal government are the main funders of these early psychosis clinics, investing tens of millions of dollars into them every year. Officials believe it will save money in the long run, because \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">without sufficient treatment, people with schizophrenia can deteriorate so much\u003c/a>, they end up on wage assistance, in a group home, on the street or in jail — all things the government pays for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But commercial insurance companies, like Anthem or Blue Shield, don’t face those risks. They don’t have the incentive to cover full-scope psychosis treatment. For that reason, and others, they don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This means lower-income families with public insurance like Medi-Cal can get the gold standard of care, while middle-class families with commercial plans cannot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a reverse disparity,” said UC Davis’ Niendam, testifying at a state Senate Committee on Health hearing last year, about the impact of this disparity at the early psychosis clinic she runs in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can give the Rolls-Royce of care if you walk in and you have Medi-Cal,” she said. But “60% of Californians have commercial insurance. That’s 60% of kids who can’t get care, 60% of kids whose parents call me crying when I tell them they can’t access my clinic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Felton Institute in the Bay Area, early psychosis director \u003ca href=\"https://felton.org/about-us/who-we-are/leadership/adriana-furuzawa/\">Adriana Furuzawa\u003c/a> said the same. For every one person who has Medi-Cal and is eligible for care at her Alameda clinic, there are another two with commercial insurance who are turned away. Last year, they turned about 100 people away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very difficult to think that behind each number, there is a young person, there is a family, that we’re saying no to, when we have the resources right here,” Furuzawa said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981634\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981634 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A woman with dark red hair and glass sits in a black office chair in a room with \"positive\" painted on the wall above a white lamp and alongside a brown door. ' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS63024_005_KQED_AdrianaFuruzawaFeltonInst_02132023-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adriana Furuzawa, division director for early psychosis services at the Felton Institute, sits in her office in Alameda on Feb. 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So what happens to these kids? Generally, they’re on their own to find a psychiatrist and therapist who accepts their insurance. Health plans will pay for these medical services. But they won’t cover anything else: the job and education support, the peer specialist, the family coach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is discrimination, health advocates argue. If someone has cancer, insurers would never just pay for surgery and radiation, but not chemotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a package of services,” said David Lloyd, chief of policy at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.thekennedyforum.org/\">Kennedy Forum\u003c/a>. “So the idea that you can split apart the package of services and only reimburse for little components of it really destroys the whole evidence base of what the service is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This almost happened to Sandy. A few months into her treatment, her mom got her job back at the hotel, and the family was back on her commercial insurance plan. In most counties, this would have meant Sandy got kicked out of the program. Her mom said there would have been no way she could afford to pay for a job coach, a family coach and a peer specialist on her own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t do it. I would definitely stop all the help,” she said, even though it was keeping Sandy alive. Maybe she would have turned to Craigslist to find other parents to talk to, she said, or looked up mental health advice on YouTube to pass on to Sandy. “I just hope and pray for the best,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, state lawmakers wanted to help families like Sandy’s, by forcing insurance companies to cover the full spectrum of early psychosis treatment. One state has done this already — \u003ca href=\"https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/101/101-0461.htm\">Illinois\u003c/a> — while Massachusetts and Virginia are working on a similar effort. But the proposal in California, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1337\">Senate Bill 1337\u003c/a>, died under pressure from the insurance lobby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, insurers have not covered the costs of services provided by non-licensed staff, like job or family coaches. More importantly, they do not like being cornered into covering specific treatments, according to Nick Louizos, a lobbyist with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.calhealthplans.org/\">California Association of Health Plans\u003c/a>, a trade group that represents companies like Anthem, Blue Shield and Kaiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Science evolves. Research evolves. There could be evidence-based techniques that are better in the future,” he testified at the Senate health committee hearing last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While scores of studies show \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1337\">the treatment works in the short term\u003c/a> — people are more likely to stay in school, in jobs, in treatment and out of the hospital — the treatment hasn’t been around long enough for researchers to know how long the positive effects last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lack of evidence of this model’s long-term effectiveness,” Louizos said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser Permanente is currently running a pilot project, sending 30 of its patients to a full-scope early psychosis clinic based in Solano County. Louizos claims insurers want to see the results from that study — although they are short-term results — before the industry considers investing in the treatment as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Early Psychosis Treatment By County\" aria-label=\"Map\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-GXdZu\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GXdZu/2/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"845\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Perverse incentives\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The insurance restrictions create a perverse incentive for middle-income families who need help now. Some parents are so desperate to give their kids the best care, they actually drop them from their health plans and enroll them in Medi-Cal so they can access county-funded clinics like Felton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some counties, including Sacramento and San Mateo, have taken an even bolder step. Health officials there said denying young people the full suite of care is unethical, enough so that they decided to use taxpayer dollars from the county’s coffers to pay for the services that private insurers refuse to cover. In the end, this is what allowed Sandy to stay in the Felton program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But all of these workarounds are problematic, said the Kennedy Forum’s Lloyd. For-profit insurance companies are essentially making more profits by allowing the public to pay their bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s not an appropriate role for taxpayers, to be picking up that burden,” he said, adding that insurers’ lack of investment is stifling the growth that’s needed in these programs to provide care for all the young people who need it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Formal consumer protections may ultimately come from a novel 2021 California law designed to expand the kinds of mental health care insurers are required to cover. Under \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB855\">SB 855\u003c/a>, health plans must make mental health coverage decisions based on expert-recognized guidelines for treatment, rather than their own internal criteria, which are often \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/series/state-of-mind\">arbitrary or cost-driven\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple agencies, including the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/research-initiatives/recovery-after-an-initial-schizophrenia-episode-raise\">National Institute of Mental Health\u003c/a>, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/coverage-early-intervention-services-first-episode-psychosis\">Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.177901\">American Psychiatric Association\u003c/a>, all recommend full-scope early psychosis care for treatment of a first psychotic episode. State regulators are considering inscribing this guidance explicitly into the official rules they will use to enforce SB 855, with regulatory agencies planning to finalize draft rules this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until that happens, psychosis patients with commercial insurance are stuck navigating the status quo of in-network providers. Finding one who understands psychosis, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614988/\">who can accurately identify it\u003c/a>, can be a serious challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘When I had my first episode of psychosis, my therapist thought I was on drugs. She had absolutely no clue what was going on.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“When I had my first episode of psychosis, my therapist thought I was on drugs. She had absolutely no clue what was going on,” said Marie, 27, who asked us to refer to her by her middle name because of the stigma she’s experienced around her illness, bipolar disorder with psychotic features.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Marie was in high school, her bedroom walls started talking to her. She read a book about Buddhism and it took over her thoughts completely. For three months, she skipped school and went to the beach to meditate instead. “Because I thought I was chosen and I needed to go meditate to attain nirvana,” she said. The entire time, she was seeing a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not even close to enough training to be able to say, ‘Oh, I think you’re having psychosis. Let’s go to the hospital,’” Marie remembers. “No. Instead it took months for me to end up in the hospital.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the hospital was also horrible. There was no empathy, no respect. Marie later researched this and found that mental health providers hold the same level of \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21954319/\">stigmatizing beliefs about mental illness\u003c/a> as the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that has a lot to do with why people hate the hospital,” she said. “It’s because the people in the hospital hate them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie made her own way through college, and when she got a job at a residential treatment program for people with mental illness, she was horrified to discover this thinking was baked into the way staff got trained: Marie’s supervisors warned her to watch out for clients who lied, and constantly referred to the clients as “manipulative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie quit, and found a different approach at the early psychosis program at UC Davis. She got hired to be their peer specialist, drawing on her own experience to counsel young people after their first psychotic episode, when they’re the most scared and confused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The people around them don’t understand it at all,” Marie said. “But I totally get it. I think that’s the point of my existence — I get it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She talks to her clients about symptoms, about how to come out to their friends. She becomes a role model to them, a living example of someone who was able to manage her symptoms and get better. Marie is now in nursing school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for her, recovery was a long and very lonely road. She said she can hardly imagine what it would have meant to her, to her self-esteem, if her insurance had covered the kind of peer support that she provides to others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believed I wouldn’t get better,” she said. “It would have been life changing to see someone who got better say that I could.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Sandy and her family, the full-scope early psychosis care has been life changing. Sandy has struggled with some of her symptoms recently at her fast-food job. The difference is, now she knows what’s happening. She has skills to quiet the voices. She knows her mom will understand. She knows there are half a dozen providers who will pick up if she calls for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When her mom thinks about the generosity, she thinks about her own father. He was a doctor in the Philippines, and none of his patients had insurance. If they didn’t have money, he treated them anyway. “I remember people paying him with chicken and rice,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She thinks, maybe all the help Sandy got was because of him. The luck of landing in a county that paid for all her care — maybe it was her dad’s karma paying off. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED is part of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://publicintegrity.org/health/health-parity/mental-health-parity-collaborative/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mental Health Parity Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a group of newsrooms that are covering the challenges and solutions to accessing mental health care in the U.S. in partnership with The Center for Public Integrity and The Carter Center.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Bay Could Soon Have Its First Region-Wide Sea Level Rise Plan. But Who Would Enforce It?",
"headTitle": "The Bay Could Soon Have Its First Region-Wide Sea Level Rise Plan. But Who Would Enforce It? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A coalition of advocates, academics and government officials are throwing their weight behind a regional strategy to address future sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They argue that, for the plan to work, state regulators spearheading the effort need new authority to implement it — a policy idea that many stakeholders agree is necessary, but that would require the equivalent of a political Hail Mary pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to learn how to be a 21st-century sea level rise permitting agency and we’re working on addressing that right now,” said Dana Brechwald, assistant planning director for climate adaptation with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). She also oversees the Adapting to Rising Tides program, which seeks to help shoreline communities across nine counties plan for sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our timeline is fairly short, so we have to hit the ground running,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald is leading the effort to complete the agency’s Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan, hoping to have it completed by mid-2024 as stipulated by guidelines around more than $5 million in grant funding BCDC won from the Ocean Protection Council and the Coastal Conservancy to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald’s team must get buy-in from more than 40 cities and nine counties in the region, engage environmental justice communities and develop uniform sea level rise standards. The BCDC guidance will incorporate the state’s most up-to-date sea level rise models, which come out in the fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, preparing for rising seas is mostly a free-for-all. Counties, cities and developers are coming up with plans separately and not all to the same level of protection, which has created a patchwork of inconsistent zoning and differing interpretations of state law. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1977890/the-bay-is-rising-newark-residents-wonder-why-the-city-plans-to-develop-its-shoreline\">Developers have been able to dodge regulations\u003c/a> in places like Newark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure we’re considering impacts on neighbors so that we don’t have this issue of one city behind a tall wall and everybody around it flooding,” said Brechwald.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of whether agency staff are able to expand BCDC’s mandate successfully, they will present a vision of what a climate-adapted Bay Area shoreline could become. But at this point, the participation of cities, counties, advocacy groups and agencies would be voluntary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald acknowledged it takes a long time to gain consensus from local governments and residents who aren’t regularly considering the effects of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest challenge is ensuring that we’re not rushing so much, that our engagement seems cursory, or like we’re checking a box,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Centering environmental justice in their climate plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Agency officials have created advisory groups of local elected officials and representatives from environmental justice communities. Some of the environmental justice advisers and consultants will draft an outreach strategy with the agency’s equity subcommittee in the coming months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phoenix Armenta, BCDC’s senior manager for climate equity and community engagement, works with at least six community organizations and hopes to grow that number.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Getting down to the folks we consider to be front-line communities is one of the biggest challenges for us,” said Armenta, who took the job at BCDC after working as a regional resilience manager for the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a prominent East Bay environmental justice organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' align='left' citation='Will Travis, former executive director, BCDC']‘You can’t just expect that local government by local government will do the right thing.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armenta said the regional plan would include direct input from communities of color and people living in lower-income shoreline neighborhoods, many of which already deal with environmental burdens like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980525/it-comes-to-race-marin-city-residents-demand-flood-protections\">flooding\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979645/see-a-map-of-hazardous-sites-at-risk-from-rising-seas\">contaminated sites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are collectively looking at how we can adjust our processes to reverse that trend and strengthen those communities, so they’re not the ones first hit,” Armenta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the regional plan to succeed, BCDC needs to treat front-line communities as climate experts, said Julio Garcia, a BCDC environmental justice adviser and director of the nonprofit Rise South City, which focuses on climate issues in South San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By validating the voices of front-line communities, people of color and [non-English] speakers, we can develop something valuable,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stakeholder concern over a voluntary approach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many advocates, academics and officials are skeptical that this regional plan could work if it’s voluntary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[BCDC] trying to create one document, putting an 18-month timeline on it and build a consensus of everybody, that’s just not going to happen,” said Len Materman, chief executive officer of the San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, who is on BCDC’s task force of elected officials, said that in his experience, it takes decades to change policies. He agreed that the voluntary nature of the project isn’t sufficient and there needs to be an agency with regional authority to get cities, counties and property owners to take sea level rise as an imminent threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no real mechanism to require implementation of the plan,” he said. “BCDC has goodwill and expertise and is there to help local jurisdictions. But in the final analysis, it doesn’t have the ability to set the conditions in many areas. And I think that’s what we really need.”[pullquote size='small' align='right' citation='Mark Lubell, professor, UC Davis']‘Regardless of how rational it might be from a risk management perspective, I just think the politics of it are currently not there. I just don’t see it happening.’[/pullquote]A bill vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, SB 867, sought to address the governance gap around planning for future rising tides by requiring local cities to complete sea level rise plans and submit them to the state for approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom blocked the bill because of “lower-than-expected revenues over the first few months of the fiscal year” and said in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SB-867-VETO.pdf?emrc=ca7567\">veto message (PDF)\u003c/a> that bills requiring ongoing funds should be considered part of the state’s annual budget. Central Coast Democratic State Sen. John Laird reintroduced the legislation in late January as \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB272\">SB 272\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature formed BCDC to protect the bay from being filled in. To change its mission, established by the McAteer-Petris Act in 1965, would likely take new legislation. Will Travis, former executive director of BCDC, said he doesn’t believe there is enough political will to alter the law. He suggested the state create a different agency to enforce sea level rise adaptation across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For there to be any kind of a regional strategy for dealing with sea level rise, you can’t just expect that local government by local government will do the right thing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A first step could be to expand BCDC’s governance, from 100 feet from the shoreline to further inland, where future sea level rise will expand the shoreline, too. From a risk and flood management perspective, UC Davis professor Mark Lubell said growing this jurisdiction will prepare people for a far wetter future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s zero taste for new authority,” said Lubell, who studies governance, including sea level rise. “But regardless of how rational it might be from a risk management perspective, I just think the politics of it are currently not there. I just don’t see it happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald, with BCDC, recently hired an assistant regulatory director for climate adaptation whose role includes analyzing whether or not BCDC’s jurisdiction and authority could expand under current law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know what changes we’re going to make,” she said. “I think we will inevitably go to some sort of mandated adaptation plan. But starting with an incentive-driven plan might be a soft launch into the expectation in the future that everybody will be doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "The Bay Could Soon Have Its First Region-Wide Sea Level Rise Plan. But Who Would Enforce It? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A coalition of advocates, academics and government officials are throwing their weight behind a regional strategy to address future sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They argue that, for the plan to work, state regulators spearheading the effort need new authority to implement it — a policy idea that many stakeholders agree is necessary, but that would require the equivalent of a political Hail Mary pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to learn how to be a 21st-century sea level rise permitting agency and we’re working on addressing that right now,” said Dana Brechwald, assistant planning director for climate adaptation with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). She also oversees the Adapting to Rising Tides program, which seeks to help shoreline communities across nine counties plan for sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our timeline is fairly short, so we have to hit the ground running,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald is leading the effort to complete the agency’s Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan, hoping to have it completed by mid-2024 as stipulated by guidelines around more than $5 million in grant funding BCDC won from the Ocean Protection Council and the Coastal Conservancy to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald’s team must get buy-in from more than 40 cities and nine counties in the region, engage environmental justice communities and develop uniform sea level rise standards. The BCDC guidance will incorporate the state’s most up-to-date sea level rise models, which come out in the fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, preparing for rising seas is mostly a free-for-all. Counties, cities and developers are coming up with plans separately and not all to the same level of protection, which has created a patchwork of inconsistent zoning and differing interpretations of state law. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1977890/the-bay-is-rising-newark-residents-wonder-why-the-city-plans-to-develop-its-shoreline\">Developers have been able to dodge regulations\u003c/a> in places like Newark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure we’re considering impacts on neighbors so that we don’t have this issue of one city behind a tall wall and everybody around it flooding,” said Brechwald.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of whether agency staff are able to expand BCDC’s mandate successfully, they will present a vision of what a climate-adapted Bay Area shoreline could become. But at this point, the participation of cities, counties, advocacy groups and agencies would be voluntary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald acknowledged it takes a long time to gain consensus from local governments and residents who aren’t regularly considering the effects of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest challenge is ensuring that we’re not rushing so much, that our engagement seems cursory, or like we’re checking a box,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Centering environmental justice in their climate plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Agency officials have created advisory groups of local elected officials and representatives from environmental justice communities. Some of the environmental justice advisers and consultants will draft an outreach strategy with the agency’s equity subcommittee in the coming months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phoenix Armenta, BCDC’s senior manager for climate equity and community engagement, works with at least six community organizations and hopes to grow that number.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Getting down to the folks we consider to be front-line communities is one of the biggest challenges for us,” said Armenta, who took the job at BCDC after working as a regional resilience manager for the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a prominent East Bay environmental justice organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armenta said the regional plan would include direct input from communities of color and people living in lower-income shoreline neighborhoods, many of which already deal with environmental burdens like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1980525/it-comes-to-race-marin-city-residents-demand-flood-protections\">flooding\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979645/see-a-map-of-hazardous-sites-at-risk-from-rising-seas\">contaminated sites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are collectively looking at how we can adjust our processes to reverse that trend and strengthen those communities, so they’re not the ones first hit,” Armenta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the regional plan to succeed, BCDC needs to treat front-line communities as climate experts, said Julio Garcia, a BCDC environmental justice adviser and director of the nonprofit Rise South City, which focuses on climate issues in South San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By validating the voices of front-line communities, people of color and [non-English] speakers, we can develop something valuable,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stakeholder concern over a voluntary approach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many advocates, academics and officials are skeptical that this regional plan could work if it’s voluntary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[BCDC] trying to create one document, putting an 18-month timeline on it and build a consensus of everybody, that’s just not going to happen,” said Len Materman, chief executive officer of the San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, who is on BCDC’s task force of elected officials, said that in his experience, it takes decades to change policies. He agreed that the voluntary nature of the project isn’t sufficient and there needs to be an agency with regional authority to get cities, counties and property owners to take sea level rise as an imminent threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no real mechanism to require implementation of the plan,” he said. “BCDC has goodwill and expertise and is there to help local jurisdictions. But in the final analysis, it doesn’t have the ability to set the conditions in many areas. And I think that’s what we really need.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A bill vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, SB 867, sought to address the governance gap around planning for future rising tides by requiring local cities to complete sea level rise plans and submit them to the state for approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom blocked the bill because of “lower-than-expected revenues over the first few months of the fiscal year” and said in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SB-867-VETO.pdf?emrc=ca7567\">veto message (PDF)\u003c/a> that bills requiring ongoing funds should be considered part of the state’s annual budget. Central Coast Democratic State Sen. John Laird reintroduced the legislation in late January as \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB272\">SB 272\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature formed BCDC to protect the bay from being filled in. To change its mission, established by the McAteer-Petris Act in 1965, would likely take new legislation. Will Travis, former executive director of BCDC, said he doesn’t believe there is enough political will to alter the law. He suggested the state create a different agency to enforce sea level rise adaptation across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For there to be any kind of a regional strategy for dealing with sea level rise, you can’t just expect that local government by local government will do the right thing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A first step could be to expand BCDC’s governance, from 100 feet from the shoreline to further inland, where future sea level rise will expand the shoreline, too. From a risk and flood management perspective, UC Davis professor Mark Lubell said growing this jurisdiction will prepare people for a far wetter future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s zero taste for new authority,” said Lubell, who studies governance, including sea level rise. “But regardless of how rational it might be from a risk management perspective, I just think the politics of it are currently not there. I just don’t see it happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brechwald, with BCDC, recently hired an assistant regulatory director for climate adaptation whose role includes analyzing whether or not BCDC’s jurisdiction and authority could expand under current law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know what changes we’re going to make,” she said. “I think we will inevitably go to some sort of mandated adaptation plan. But starting with an incentive-driven plan might be a soft launch into the expectation in the future that everybody will be doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "That Bright Green Comet Looked Exactly as Cool as You'd Think",
"headTitle": "That Bright Green Comet Looked Exactly as Cool as You’d Think | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>If you missed the recent passage of the green-hued \u003ca href=\"https://science.nasa.gov/comet-2022-e3-ztf\">comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)\u003c/a>, or only saw a blurry smudge through binoculars, take heart!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comets visible to the human eye attract a lot of attention from stargazers, and some of them are equipped with cameras, telescopes and a desire to share the experience. We’ve collected some of those here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discovered in March 2022 by astronomers using the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ztf.caltech.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Zwicky Transient Facility\u003c/a> at the Palomar Observatory, the comet made its closest approach to the sun on Jan. 12, 2023. Almost three weeks later, on Feb. 1, it cruised within 26 million miles of Earth, moving across the northern sky as it began its voyage back toward deep space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 991px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981618 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator.jpg\" alt=\"The bright orb of the sun in the middle of black space, with a lighter, vertical swath of the Milky Way to the left, overlaid with graphical concentric circles representing the orbits of the planets, with a vertical graphical line going through them to indicate the path of the comet.\" width=\"991\" height=\"655\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator.jpg 991w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-800x529.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-768x508.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 991px) 100vw, 991px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The orbit of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) as it passed perihelion on Jan. 12 and its closest approach to Earth on Feb. 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(3D Solar System Simulator/TheSkyLive.com)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In that brief flash of days, eyes turned skyward, cameras snapped image after image, and telescopes bent a collective stare at the fleeting visitor. And though the comet remained elusive to the naked eye except under dark, moonless conditions, the photographs are stunning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The color of ZTF — called the “green comet” by some — is not that unusual. Green can be seen in the gaseous haloes of many comets. The color is believed to come from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/why-do-some-comets-glow-green\">photochemical reaction\u003c/a> between sunlight and certain molecules (like diatomic carbon) exuded by the comet when it gets close to the sun. Some comets even have a bluish hue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Comet apparitions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Naked-eye comets can be one of the most thrilling sky shows we can behold, right up there with eclipses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike eclipses, their appearances are unpredictable. Forecasting how visible a comet becomes and how long a tail it grows — if it grows a tail at all — is often guesswork until weeks, or even days, before it passes by. Every near-Earth encounter with a comet raises hopes that it will bloom into a brilliant nocturnal spectacle, like \u003ca href=\"https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-comet-hale-bopp/\">Hale-Bopp\u003c/a> in 1997 or the passage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/955-years-ago-halley-s-comet-and-the-battle-of-hastings\">Halley’s Comet\u003c/a> in 1910.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981619\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981619\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1366\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Jan. 30, 2023. Picture taken from Saguaro National Park near Tucson, Arizona. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Robert Sparks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But, more like \u003ca href=\"https://astronomy.com/news/2013/11/comet-ison-fizzles-as-it-rounds-the-sun\">comet ISON in 2013\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://skynews.ca/kohoutek-fiasco/\">Kohoutek in 1973\u003c/a>, both of which were predicted to be “comets of the century,” ZTF did not rise to the level of captivating naked-eye drama. It became much more famous for its alien green coloration and wispy multiple tails revealed in astrophotos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the naked-eye fizzle, the comet’s eerie hue and mysterious point of origin made it grow large in the eye of the public’s imagination.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When will it come back?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Going, going … gone? Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will not return for a very long time, if ever. Since its discovery, \u003ca href=\"https://theskylive.com/3dsolarsystem?obj=c2022e3\"> astronomers have tracked its orbit\u003c/a> to figure out where it came from, whether it originated in the Oort Cloud, the vast and diffuse cloud of comets, ice and dust surrounding the solar system, or somewhere farther out. Does it orbit our sun in a periodic cycle like most known comets, or did it wander in from interstellar space and is it now headed back there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now the answer isn’t clear. If it \u003ci>is\u003c/i> gravitationally bound to our solar system, then it follows a long, looping elliptical orbit that would carry it repeatedly past the sun — though the far end of that orbit is projected to stretch at least 4.3 light years into space, equivalent to the distance to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. At such great distance, who knows what the comet will do within the error margins of the orbital math. Will it come to a crawling halt and begin the slow fall back toward the sun, or break free of our solar system’s feeble gravity and drift away into the galaxy at large?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981617\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1420\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-800x568.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1020x724.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-768x545.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1536x1091.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1920x1363.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) seen near the planet Mars. The image was taken on Feb. 10 near Rush Valley, southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. \u003ccite>(Martin Ratcliffe/StarryNightSkyArt)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even if it does swing back toward us, it won’t pass through our neighborhood again for millions of years. So, if you managed a glimpse of this ancient space traveler, count that as a blessing, a rare peek at something humans had never seen before, and probably never will again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Anatomy of a comet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As enormous as a comet may appear, most of the visual spectacle is actually a cosmic form of “smoke and mirrors” deception — or, in the comet’s case, \u003ca href=\"https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/comets/anatomy.cfm#:~:text=The%20coma%20is%20a%20cloud,about%202%20million%20miles)%20across\">ionized gas and reflected sunlight\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of every comet is a nucleus of frozen materials: water, ammonia, methane and other compounds. This nucleus is typically no larger than half a mile to 6 miles across — so small that we’d never see it unless it whizzed very close to Earth. ZTF is on the lower end of that range, estimated to be a bit more than half a mile across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981678\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981678\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_-160x113.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram of a typical comet and the relationship of its iconic tails. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When a \u003ca href=\"https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comets/en/\">comet swings by the sun\u003c/a>, it is heated by sunlight, and some of its frozen material sublimates, spewing out into a cloud of gas and dust that engulfs the nucleus. This cloud, called the coma, can grow to become hundreds of thousands of miles across — so big that it could easily engulf the entire Earth and moon system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gasses of the coma may be blown off into space by the solar wind, forming the comet’s iconic tail. The solar wind is a stream of ionized particles flowing outward from the sun, so the comet’s gas tail always points away from the sun, like a giant wind sock. The gas tail may grow to millions, or hundreds of millions, of miles long, depending on the size of the nucleus and how much gas it dumps into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A comet often develops more than one tail. Dust embedded in the nucleus is carried into space by the spewing gasses and drifts along the comet’s path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981621\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 885px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981621 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Backdrop of a stary night sky, a bright circle in the center surrounded by a white and green hue, along with several tails. \" width=\"885\" height=\"696\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped.jpg 885w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-800x629.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-768x604.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 885px) 100vw, 885px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">You can clearly see the details of the coma (bright spot), ion tail (right), dust tail (curving veil) and antitail (left) in this picture taken Jan. 20, 2023, from Yosemite National Park. \u003ccite>(Tara Mostofi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In pictures of \u003ca href=\"https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/understanding-the-tails-of-comet-ztf-c-2022-e3/\">C/2022 E3 (ZTF)\u003c/a>, \u003ci>three \u003c/i>tails can be seen clearly: a long, thin gas-ion tail; a wide, curving dust tail; and a pale, spikey “antitail” pointing in the opposite direction from the other two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The antitail, a fairly uncommon feature of comets, is formed of dust particles larger than the finer-grained dust tail. The larger grains are less affected by the blowing force of the solar wind, and tend to be left behind in the wake of the comet’s passage, like dust kicked up by a car moving down a dirt road.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bad omens?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Being objects that can be sometimes seen with the naked eye, comets have been talked about by humans since prehistory. And because they occasionally come close to Earth and can grow to \u003ca href=\"https://allthatsinteresting.com/halleys-comet-1910\">startling proportions\u003c/a>, ancient cultures often interpreted them as portents of calamity, bad omens or heralds of impending disaster. And in a way they weren’t wrong, considering the catastrophe one would cause were it to actually collide with Earth. Fortunately, most comets only deliver a visual warning of that possibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the word “disaster,” used in the mid-16th century in connection with the passage of a comet, derives from the Italian “disastro,” meaning an “ill-starred” event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bad omens or good sightseeing opportunities, comets are rare celestial gems, sights to cherish when they come our way. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) won’t catch our eye again, but there are plenty more comets out there to anticipate.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Missed the green-hued comet that made a trip across the sky earlier this month ? Check out these photos.",
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"description": "Missed the green-hued comet that made a trip across the sky earlier this month ? Check out these photos.",
"title": "That Bright Green Comet Looked Exactly as Cool as You'd Think | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you missed the recent passage of the green-hued \u003ca href=\"https://science.nasa.gov/comet-2022-e3-ztf\">comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)\u003c/a>, or only saw a blurry smudge through binoculars, take heart!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comets visible to the human eye attract a lot of attention from stargazers, and some of them are equipped with cameras, telescopes and a desire to share the experience. We’ve collected some of those here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discovered in March 2022 by astronomers using the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ztf.caltech.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Zwicky Transient Facility\u003c/a> at the Palomar Observatory, the comet made its closest approach to the sun on Jan. 12, 2023. Almost three weeks later, on Feb. 1, it cruised within 26 million miles of Earth, moving across the northern sky as it began its voyage back toward deep space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 991px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981618 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator.jpg\" alt=\"The bright orb of the sun in the middle of black space, with a lighter, vertical swath of the Milky Way to the left, overlaid with graphical concentric circles representing the orbits of the planets, with a vertical graphical line going through them to indicate the path of the comet.\" width=\"991\" height=\"655\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator.jpg 991w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-800x529.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/comet_orbit_solarsystemsimulator-768x508.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 991px) 100vw, 991px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The orbit of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) as it passed perihelion on Jan. 12 and its closest approach to Earth on Feb. 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(3D Solar System Simulator/TheSkyLive.com)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In that brief flash of days, eyes turned skyward, cameras snapped image after image, and telescopes bent a collective stare at the fleeting visitor. And though the comet remained elusive to the naked eye except under dark, moonless conditions, the photographs are stunning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The color of ZTF — called the “green comet” by some — is not that unusual. Green can be seen in the gaseous haloes of many comets. The color is believed to come from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/why-do-some-comets-glow-green\">photochemical reaction\u003c/a> between sunlight and certain molecules (like diatomic carbon) exuded by the comet when it gets close to the sun. Some comets even have a bluish hue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Comet apparitions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Naked-eye comets can be one of the most thrilling sky shows we can behold, right up there with eclipses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike eclipses, their appearances are unpredictable. Forecasting how visible a comet becomes and how long a tail it grows — if it grows a tail at all — is often guesswork until weeks, or even days, before it passes by. Every near-Earth encounter with a comet raises hopes that it will bloom into a brilliant nocturnal spectacle, like \u003ca href=\"https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-comet-hale-bopp/\">Hale-Bopp\u003c/a> in 1997 or the passage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/955-years-ago-halley-s-comet-and-the-battle-of-hastings\">Halley’s Comet\u003c/a> in 1910.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981619\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981619\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1366\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/Robert_Sparks_Saguaro-National-Park-Arizona_013023-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Jan. 30, 2023. Picture taken from Saguaro National Park near Tucson, Arizona. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Robert Sparks)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But, more like \u003ca href=\"https://astronomy.com/news/2013/11/comet-ison-fizzles-as-it-rounds-the-sun\">comet ISON in 2013\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://skynews.ca/kohoutek-fiasco/\">Kohoutek in 1973\u003c/a>, both of which were predicted to be “comets of the century,” ZTF did not rise to the level of captivating naked-eye drama. It became much more famous for its alien green coloration and wispy multiple tails revealed in astrophotos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the naked-eye fizzle, the comet’s eerie hue and mysterious point of origin made it grow large in the eye of the public’s imagination.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When will it come back?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Going, going … gone? Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will not return for a very long time, if ever. Since its discovery, \u003ca href=\"https://theskylive.com/3dsolarsystem?obj=c2022e3\"> astronomers have tracked its orbit\u003c/a> to figure out where it came from, whether it originated in the Oort Cloud, the vast and diffuse cloud of comets, ice and dust surrounding the solar system, or somewhere farther out. Does it orbit our sun in a periodic cycle like most known comets, or did it wander in from interstellar space and is it now headed back there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now the answer isn’t clear. If it \u003ci>is\u003c/i> gravitationally bound to our solar system, then it follows a long, looping elliptical orbit that would carry it repeatedly past the sun — though the far end of that orbit is projected to stretch at least 4.3 light years into space, equivalent to the distance to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. At such great distance, who knows what the comet will do within the error margins of the orbital math. Will it come to a crawling halt and begin the slow fall back toward the sun, or break free of our solar system’s feeble gravity and drift away into the galaxy at large?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981617\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1420\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-800x568.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1020x724.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-768x545.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1536x1091.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/c2022e3ztf-martin_ratcliffe-feb102023-1920x1363.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) seen near the planet Mars. The image was taken on Feb. 10 near Rush Valley, southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. \u003ccite>(Martin Ratcliffe/StarryNightSkyArt)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even if it does swing back toward us, it won’t pass through our neighborhood again for millions of years. So, if you managed a glimpse of this ancient space traveler, count that as a blessing, a rare peek at something humans had never seen before, and probably never will again.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Anatomy of a comet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As enormous as a comet may appear, most of the visual spectacle is actually a cosmic form of “smoke and mirrors” deception — or, in the comet’s case, \u003ca href=\"https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/comets/anatomy.cfm#:~:text=The%20coma%20is%20a%20cloud,about%202%20million%20miles)%20across\">ionized gas and reflected sunlight\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of every comet is a nucleus of frozen materials: water, ammonia, methane and other compounds. This nucleus is typically no larger than half a mile to 6 miles across — so small that we’d never see it unless it whizzed very close to Earth. ZTF is on the lower end of that range, estimated to be a bit more than half a mile across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981678\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981678\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/anatomy-of-a-comet.en_-160x113.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram of a typical comet and the relationship of its iconic tails. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When a \u003ca href=\"https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comets/en/\">comet swings by the sun\u003c/a>, it is heated by sunlight, and some of its frozen material sublimates, spewing out into a cloud of gas and dust that engulfs the nucleus. This cloud, called the coma, can grow to become hundreds of thousands of miles across — so big that it could easily engulf the entire Earth and moon system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The gasses of the coma may be blown off into space by the solar wind, forming the comet’s iconic tail. The solar wind is a stream of ionized particles flowing outward from the sun, so the comet’s gas tail always points away from the sun, like a giant wind sock. The gas tail may grow to millions, or hundreds of millions, of miles long, depending on the size of the nucleus and how much gas it dumps into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A comet often develops more than one tail. Dust embedded in the nucleus is carried into space by the spewing gasses and drifts along the comet’s path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981621\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 885px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981621 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Backdrop of a stary night sky, a bright circle in the center surrounded by a white and green hue, along with several tails. \" width=\"885\" height=\"696\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped.jpg 885w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-800x629.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/ZTF_27_Jan_2023-fullres_Tara-Mostofi-cropped-768x604.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 885px) 100vw, 885px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">You can clearly see the details of the coma (bright spot), ion tail (right), dust tail (curving veil) and antitail (left) in this picture taken Jan. 20, 2023, from Yosemite National Park. \u003ccite>(Tara Mostofi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In pictures of \u003ca href=\"https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/understanding-the-tails-of-comet-ztf-c-2022-e3/\">C/2022 E3 (ZTF)\u003c/a>, \u003ci>three \u003c/i>tails can be seen clearly: a long, thin gas-ion tail; a wide, curving dust tail; and a pale, spikey “antitail” pointing in the opposite direction from the other two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The antitail, a fairly uncommon feature of comets, is formed of dust particles larger than the finer-grained dust tail. The larger grains are less affected by the blowing force of the solar wind, and tend to be left behind in the wake of the comet’s passage, like dust kicked up by a car moving down a dirt road.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bad omens?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Being objects that can be sometimes seen with the naked eye, comets have been talked about by humans since prehistory. And because they occasionally come close to Earth and can grow to \u003ca href=\"https://allthatsinteresting.com/halleys-comet-1910\">startling proportions\u003c/a>, ancient cultures often interpreted them as portents of calamity, bad omens or heralds of impending disaster. And in a way they weren’t wrong, considering the catastrophe one would cause were it to actually collide with Earth. Fortunately, most comets only deliver a visual warning of that possibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the word “disaster,” used in the mid-16th century in connection with the passage of a comet, derives from the Italian “disastro,” meaning an “ill-starred” event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bad omens or good sightseeing opportunities, comets are rare celestial gems, sights to cherish when they come our way. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) won’t catch our eye again, but there are plenty more comets out there to anticipate.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Half of California Hospitals Are in the Red': Pandemic Troubles Pile Up for ERs",
"headTitle": "‘Half of California Hospitals Are in the Red’: Pandemic Troubles Pile Up for ERs | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The pandemic created a perfect financial storm for California hospitals, and some, reeling from that stress, have even gone bankrupt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Madera County near Yosemite, \u003ca href=\"https://fresnoland.org/2023/01/14/patients-are-going-to-die-the-human-cost-of-madera-county-losing-its-only-hospital/\">the area’s only general hospital closed\u003c/a> in January. That left 150,000 residents without an emergency room or specialty care, and many of the hospital’s 700 employees without a job. State lawmakers and industry officials warn many more facilities will be forced to reduce services and some will shutter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moment COVID-19 started spreading in California, hospitals started losing money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, patient volumes dropped drastically because, well, a deadly virus was spreading and people didn’t want to catch it at the hospital. Then, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1962104/thousands-of-bay-area-patients-wait-for-surgery-while-hospitals-brace-for-coronavirus-surge\">facilities postponed profitable elective procedures\u003c/a>. Shortages of ventilators, masks and gloves led to substantial cost increases. Hospitals scrambled to implement new protocols, construct specialized COVID-19 units, and build vaccine sites. During each surge in infections, a lot of hospitals depended on travel nurses — who charge upwards of $250 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The net impact of that was that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/KH-CHA-2021-Financial-Analysis-Ebook-final-4-18-22.pdf\">California’s hospitals during the two years of the pandemic, at its peak, lost $20 billion [PDF]\u003c/a>,” said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, referring to findings in a report from the consulting firm KaufmanHall. “The federal government provided $8 billion in relief. But that has left California hospitals with $12 billion in losses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyle argued in a \u003ca href=\"https://calhospital.org/hospital-fragility-spells-danger-for-ca-patients/\">recent blog post\u003c/a> that what “transpired in Madera County will be replicated in other parts of California” unless the hospitals receive financial assistance from the state. The hospital association has asked the state for $1.5 billion in immediate relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the floodwaters of the COVID pandemic may have receded,” Coyle told KQED, “the damage that was done remains widespread. We have more than half of all California hospitals are operating in the red, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/KH-CHA-2021-Financial-Analysis-Ebook-final-4-18-22.pdf\">losing money on every patient that they care for (PDF)\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanhall.com/sites/default/files/2023-01/KH_NHFR_2023-01.pdf\">hospital margins in the Western United States were down 69% compared to 2019 (PDF)\u003c/a>. Coyle said that hospital profits being low or negative can lead to fewer nurses, X-ray technicians and behavioral health specialists, and reduced supplies like blood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These disruptions led to unexpected, unbudgeted cash shortfalls,” said Glenn Melnick, USC professor and health economist. “I think there will be more [hospitals] that just don’t have enough cash or financial reserves to weather the downturn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today, nearly three years after the pandemic started, many facilities are still depending on costly temporary or contract labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The nurses all quit,” said Dr. Guy Shochat, who works in the ER at UCSF’s Parnassus campus in San Francisco. “We lost 20 nurses in the first year and a half of the pandemic. And they were senior nurses, so this was well over 200 years of institutional memory just disappearing. And it’s hurt us. Everyone’s just well and truly burnt out. And patient care suffers when staff are overwhelmed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is especially true for emergency departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no bed with which to see the patient,” said Dr. Nicole Braxley, an emergency medicine physician who worked in Sacramento during the pandemic and recently transferred to the East Coast. “And all I want to do is see the patient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says patients all across the state and the country are waiting six, eight and sometimes 24 hours for care in the emergency department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lengthy wait times recently were driven partly by this winter’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11935500/this-is-chaos-hospitalizations-surge-amid-mounting-winter-tripledemic\">tripledemic\u003c/a>, when respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, influenza and a wave of COVID-19 slammed the state, all at once. The problem gets exacerbated by the fact that many Californians \u003ca href=\"https://letsgethealthy.ca.gov/goals/redesigning-the-health-system/increasing-access-to-healthcare-providers/#:~:text=2%2C000%20per%20provider.-,Access%20to%20Primary%20Care%20Providers,available%20is%2044.8%20(2018).\">do not have a primary care doctor\u003c/a>. Not a new issue, this forces people to use the ER for all their medical needs. And emergency departments often cannot transfer patients to severely short-staffed rehabilitation hospitals or long-term care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a 2021 UCSF report, \u003ca href=\"https://healthworkforce.ucsf.edu/sites/healthworkforce.ucsf.edu/files/Impact%20of%20the%20COVID-19%20Pandemic%20on%20California%E2%80%99s%20Registered%20Nurse%20Workforce%20-%20Preliminary%20Data.pdf\">the percentage of registered nurses planning to retire by 2023 more than doubled in 2020 (PDF)\u003c/a>. And that was before the pandemic fueled a severe rise in burnout. The forecast for 2022 remained bleak, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.rn.ca.gov/pdfs/forms/forecast2022.pdf\">a follow-up report (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2022 stressing the “need to rapidly develop and implement strategies to mitigate the potential harm of shortages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increasingly, hospitals are training doctors to treat people in the lobby of the ER.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We call it vertical care,” Braxley said. “We say if a patient can stay vertical and they don’t need to be horizontal on a bed, they don’t get a bed. You sit in a chair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patients can still receive blood tests, electrocardiograms and even an IV in the waiting room. Braxley says doctors use safety pins or coat hooks to hang IV bags. She admits lobby medicine is miserable for both patients and doctors, but it’s often the only option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Patients sit for days, unbathed, not ambulated, using urinals standing in corners in view of everyone. A patient I admitted three days ago stopped me, asking, ‘Why?’ Hands reach out from gurneys as I pass asking for food, water, help to the bathroom, a blanket, or someone to simply talk to and show they care,” wrote an ER doctor in a report titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.acep.org/boarding-stories\">\u003cem>A Nation in Crisis\u003c/em>.\u003c/a> The American College of Emergency Physicians published a collection of 100 harrowing stories from practitioners all across the country on the front lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, inflation gets added to the mix. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanhall.com/insights/research-report/analysis-california-hospitals-endured-significant-financial-strain-2021#:~:text=Analysis%3A%20California%20Hospitals%20Endured%20Significant%20Financial%20Strain%20in%202021,-April%2019%2C%202022&text=COVID%2D19%20continued%20to%20place,more%20than%20triple%20previous%20projections\">Labor costs have increased by 19%. Pharmaceutical prices are up 40%.\u003c/a> And finally, there’s Medi-Cal reimbursements: \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/dataandstats/statistics/Pages/RASD_Statistical_Briefs.aspx#:~:text=Data%20Symposium%20on%20High%20Utilizers,the%20nation's%20largest%20Medicaid%20program.\">A third of Californians are enrolled\u003c/a> in the state’s lower-income health plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But the state pays only $0.74 for every dollar of care that’s provided to a Medi-Cal enrollee,” said Coyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, private insurance payers typically make up Medi-Cal losses, but Coyle says that scale is beginning to tip in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many towns are in danger of losing critical medical services, like \u003ca href=\"https://sjvsun.com/uncategorized/as-pressure-mounts-kaweah-health-set-to-shed-200-jobs/\">Kaweah Health\u003c/a> in Tulare County, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksbw.com/article/hazel-hawkins-receives-loan-extending-timeline-to-solve-fiscal-emergency/42477641\">Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital\u003c/a> in Hollister, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ivpressonline.com/featured/el-centro-regional-medical-center-keeps-base-hospital-status-for-now/article_41fdde22-9c4d-11ed-af8c-f3d5bd41e009.html\">El Centro Regional Medical Center\u003c/a> in Imperial County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When will this implode? It’s not a matter of if, but when will this implode?” Braxley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[hearken id=\"10393\" src=\"https://modules.wearehearken.com/kqed/embed/10393.js\"]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The pandemic created a perfect financial storm for California hospitals, and some, reeling from that stress, have even gone bankrupt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Madera County near Yosemite, \u003ca href=\"https://fresnoland.org/2023/01/14/patients-are-going-to-die-the-human-cost-of-madera-county-losing-its-only-hospital/\">the area’s only general hospital closed\u003c/a> in January. That left 150,000 residents without an emergency room or specialty care, and many of the hospital’s 700 employees without a job. State lawmakers and industry officials warn many more facilities will be forced to reduce services and some will shutter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moment COVID-19 started spreading in California, hospitals started losing money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, patient volumes dropped drastically because, well, a deadly virus was spreading and people didn’t want to catch it at the hospital. Then, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1962104/thousands-of-bay-area-patients-wait-for-surgery-while-hospitals-brace-for-coronavirus-surge\">facilities postponed profitable elective procedures\u003c/a>. Shortages of ventilators, masks and gloves led to substantial cost increases. Hospitals scrambled to implement new protocols, construct specialized COVID-19 units, and build vaccine sites. During each surge in infections, a lot of hospitals depended on travel nurses — who charge upwards of $250 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The net impact of that was that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/KH-CHA-2021-Financial-Analysis-Ebook-final-4-18-22.pdf\">California’s hospitals during the two years of the pandemic, at its peak, lost $20 billion [PDF]\u003c/a>,” said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, referring to findings in a report from the consulting firm KaufmanHall. “The federal government provided $8 billion in relief. But that has left California hospitals with $12 billion in losses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyle argued in a \u003ca href=\"https://calhospital.org/hospital-fragility-spells-danger-for-ca-patients/\">recent blog post\u003c/a> that what “transpired in Madera County will be replicated in other parts of California” unless the hospitals receive financial assistance from the state. The hospital association has asked the state for $1.5 billion in immediate relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the floodwaters of the COVID pandemic may have receded,” Coyle told KQED, “the damage that was done remains widespread. We have more than half of all California hospitals are operating in the red, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/KH-CHA-2021-Financial-Analysis-Ebook-final-4-18-22.pdf\">losing money on every patient that they care for (PDF)\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanhall.com/sites/default/files/2023-01/KH_NHFR_2023-01.pdf\">hospital margins in the Western United States were down 69% compared to 2019 (PDF)\u003c/a>. Coyle said that hospital profits being low or negative can lead to fewer nurses, X-ray technicians and behavioral health specialists, and reduced supplies like blood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These disruptions led to unexpected, unbudgeted cash shortfalls,” said Glenn Melnick, USC professor and health economist. “I think there will be more [hospitals] that just don’t have enough cash or financial reserves to weather the downturn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even today, nearly three years after the pandemic started, many facilities are still depending on costly temporary or contract labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The nurses all quit,” said Dr. Guy Shochat, who works in the ER at UCSF’s Parnassus campus in San Francisco. “We lost 20 nurses in the first year and a half of the pandemic. And they were senior nurses, so this was well over 200 years of institutional memory just disappearing. And it’s hurt us. Everyone’s just well and truly burnt out. And patient care suffers when staff are overwhelmed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is especially true for emergency departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no bed with which to see the patient,” said Dr. Nicole Braxley, an emergency medicine physician who worked in Sacramento during the pandemic and recently transferred to the East Coast. “And all I want to do is see the patient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says patients all across the state and the country are waiting six, eight and sometimes 24 hours for care in the emergency department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lengthy wait times recently were driven partly by this winter’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11935500/this-is-chaos-hospitalizations-surge-amid-mounting-winter-tripledemic\">tripledemic\u003c/a>, when respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, influenza and a wave of COVID-19 slammed the state, all at once. The problem gets exacerbated by the fact that many Californians \u003ca href=\"https://letsgethealthy.ca.gov/goals/redesigning-the-health-system/increasing-access-to-healthcare-providers/#:~:text=2%2C000%20per%20provider.-,Access%20to%20Primary%20Care%20Providers,available%20is%2044.8%20(2018).\">do not have a primary care doctor\u003c/a>. Not a new issue, this forces people to use the ER for all their medical needs. And emergency departments often cannot transfer patients to severely short-staffed rehabilitation hospitals or long-term care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a 2021 UCSF report, \u003ca href=\"https://healthworkforce.ucsf.edu/sites/healthworkforce.ucsf.edu/files/Impact%20of%20the%20COVID-19%20Pandemic%20on%20California%E2%80%99s%20Registered%20Nurse%20Workforce%20-%20Preliminary%20Data.pdf\">the percentage of registered nurses planning to retire by 2023 more than doubled in 2020 (PDF)\u003c/a>. And that was before the pandemic fueled a severe rise in burnout. The forecast for 2022 remained bleak, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.rn.ca.gov/pdfs/forms/forecast2022.pdf\">a follow-up report (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2022 stressing the “need to rapidly develop and implement strategies to mitigate the potential harm of shortages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Increasingly, hospitals are training doctors to treat people in the lobby of the ER.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We call it vertical care,” Braxley said. “We say if a patient can stay vertical and they don’t need to be horizontal on a bed, they don’t get a bed. You sit in a chair.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patients can still receive blood tests, electrocardiograms and even an IV in the waiting room. Braxley says doctors use safety pins or coat hooks to hang IV bags. She admits lobby medicine is miserable for both patients and doctors, but it’s often the only option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Patients sit for days, unbathed, not ambulated, using urinals standing in corners in view of everyone. A patient I admitted three days ago stopped me, asking, ‘Why?’ Hands reach out from gurneys as I pass asking for food, water, help to the bathroom, a blanket, or someone to simply talk to and show they care,” wrote an ER doctor in a report titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.acep.org/boarding-stories\">\u003cem>A Nation in Crisis\u003c/em>.\u003c/a> The American College of Emergency Physicians published a collection of 100 harrowing stories from practitioners all across the country on the front lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, inflation gets added to the mix. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kaufmanhall.com/insights/research-report/analysis-california-hospitals-endured-significant-financial-strain-2021#:~:text=Analysis%3A%20California%20Hospitals%20Endured%20Significant%20Financial%20Strain%20in%202021,-April%2019%2C%202022&text=COVID%2D19%20continued%20to%20place,more%20than%20triple%20previous%20projections\">Labor costs have increased by 19%. Pharmaceutical prices are up 40%.\u003c/a> And finally, there’s Medi-Cal reimbursements: \u003ca href=\"https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/dataandstats/statistics/Pages/RASD_Statistical_Briefs.aspx#:~:text=Data%20Symposium%20on%20High%20Utilizers,the%20nation's%20largest%20Medicaid%20program.\">A third of Californians are enrolled\u003c/a> in the state’s lower-income health plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But the state pays only $0.74 for every dollar of care that’s provided to a Medi-Cal enrollee,” said Coyle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historically, private insurance payers typically make up Medi-Cal losses, but Coyle says that scale is beginning to tip in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many towns are in danger of losing critical medical services, like \u003ca href=\"https://sjvsun.com/uncategorized/as-pressure-mounts-kaweah-health-set-to-shed-200-jobs/\">Kaweah Health\u003c/a> in Tulare County, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksbw.com/article/hazel-hawkins-receives-loan-extending-timeline-to-solve-fiscal-emergency/42477641\">Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital\u003c/a> in Hollister, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ivpressonline.com/featured/el-centro-regional-medical-center-keeps-base-hospital-status-for-now/article_41fdde22-9c4d-11ed-af8c-f3d5bd41e009.html\">El Centro Regional Medical Center\u003c/a> in Imperial County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When will this implode? It’s not a matter of if, but when will this implode?” Braxley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that rocked parts of Turkey and Syria on Monday, killing more than 23,000 people, resembles a threat that Californians could potentially face. The same type of fault runs across most of the state. Here’s the science behind these huge earthquakes and how to be prepared.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What makes a big earthquake?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earthquakes result from a slip along a fault line, a geological term for a crack in Earth’s crust. Basically, two slabs of rock suddenly and violently slip past one another, radiating energy in all directions in the form of seismic waves that cause the shaking that people experience. The Turkey earthquake occurred along the East Anatolian fault, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/strike-slip-fault\">strike-slip fault \u003c/a>— where two tectonic plates slide past each other horizontally — that measures hundreds of miles long. The portion that ruptured is at least 100 miles long. Essentially, the longer the length of the fault that ruptures, the larger the magnitude of the earthquake it produces. And the larger the population surrounding the fault lines, the more devastation is caused by the earthquake.[aside postID=news_11940413,science_1933064]“You’re not necessarily seeing stronger ground motions, but you’re seeing a longer duration of ground motion and a greater area that is exposed to the most extreme shaking just because more of the fault is involved in producing the shaking,” said Austin Elliott, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center based in Mountain View’s Moffett Field in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have several long faults in the Bay Area that are capable of producing strong earthquakes similar to what happened in Turkey. A strike-slip quake can occur along the San Andreas Fault, for example. The fault line runs 800 miles long from the Salton Sea in Southern California to Cape Mendocino through the Peninsula and San Francisco and along the North Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tectonically and seismologically, the earthquakes we expect in California are very similar to the earthquakes that have just happened in Turkey,” said Elliott, but, “geographically and demographically, the situation is different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Andreas Fault is largely offshore as it goes north, and is distant from some of the major population centers, Elliott said. Other faults that run through cities, like the Hayward Fault, the Rodgers Creek Fault and the Calaveras Fault, are also capable of large earthquakes, potentially involving more communities in the temblor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Explaining Earthquakes - KQED QUEST\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDfIgoXaXis?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have calculated about a \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\">30% chance that the Hayward Fault will “break big” (PDF)\u003c/a> — with a magnitude 6.7 event or bigger — within 30 years. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/programs/science-application-for-risk-reduction/science/haywired-scenario?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects\">“HayWired” scenario\u003c/a> from the USGS projects that in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.0 quake in Hayward, 2,500 people would need immediate rescue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still consider the Hayward Fault to be the one with the highest probability of producing a large event in the Bay Area in years and decades to come,” said Roland Bürgmann, a UC Berkeley seismologist. ”The damages will be tremendous given the continuing exposure, despite all the great efforts made to mitigate the impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists use triangulation to find the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/quest/136760/how-to-find-the-epicenter-of-an-earthquake\">epicenter of an earthquake\u003c/a>, collecting seismic data from at least three locations. Every earthquake is recorded on numerous seismographs located in different directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Improved building codes and infrastructure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has experienced multiple large-scale earthquakes in history. The 1857 earthquake in Central California was an estimated magnitude 7.8, the 1868 Hayward Fault quake was a magnitude 6.8, and the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake was at a 7.9 magnitude along the San Andreas Fault. In comparison, the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 was a magnitude 6.9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Each new earthquake teaches us more about what works and what doesn’t work in constructing buildings and infrastructure,” said Elliott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has strong building standards and codes, some of the strictest in the world as far as seismic preparedness, he said. Its built environment is generally well-prepared to withstand the earthquakes seismologists expect in the region. That said, there are still a lot of vulnerable facilities and structures that require seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really takes building codes, planning by all the different agencies and communities involved to be more and more ready,” said Bürgmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Earthquake prep from a geologist’s perspective\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To prepare for a big earthquake, Elliott recommends using sites like \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/bayarea/\">Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/a>, which has a wealth of preparedness information. Homeowners should make sure their homes are properly braced and bolted to their foundations. California has \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakebracebolt.com/\">grant programs\u003c/a> to help to improve the structural stability of your home.[aside postID=science_1949019] At home, look around your space and brace things like bookshelves, televisions and furniture that could be toppled by heavy shaking. Have shoes next to your bed so that if it’s dark and there’s glass on the floors, you don’t step on it and hurt yourself. And don’t forget to prepare your \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step3/\">emergency kit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an earthquake, emergency services will be swamped. So it’s important to try to be self-sufficient by having your emergency supplies in hand and knowing basic first aid. Fire departments, paramedics and hospitals are going to be spread thin. So making sure you have your first aid kit within reach is important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay connected with your neighbors and friends during this time. “Your neighbors or your friends may live in more vulnerable buildings than you do or vice versa,” said Elliott. “And you may want to be conscious of that as well in your planning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You’re not necessarily seeing stronger ground motions, but you’re seeing a longer duration of ground motion and a greater area that is exposed to the most extreme shaking just because more of the fault is involved in producing the shaking,” said Austin Elliott, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Science Center based in Mountain View’s Moffett Field in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have several long faults in the Bay Area that are capable of producing strong earthquakes similar to what happened in Turkey. A strike-slip quake can occur along the San Andreas Fault, for example. The fault line runs 800 miles long from the Salton Sea in Southern California to Cape Mendocino through the Peninsula and San Francisco and along the North Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tectonically and seismologically, the earthquakes we expect in California are very similar to the earthquakes that have just happened in Turkey,” said Elliott, but, “geographically and demographically, the situation is different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Andreas Fault is largely offshore as it goes north, and is distant from some of the major population centers, Elliott said. Other faults that run through cities, like the Hayward Fault, the Rodgers Creek Fault and the Calaveras Fault, are also capable of large earthquakes, potentially involving more communities in the temblor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Explaining Earthquakes - KQED QUEST\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDfIgoXaXis?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have calculated about a \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\">30% chance that the Hayward Fault will “break big” (PDF)\u003c/a> — with a magnitude 6.7 event or bigger — within 30 years. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/programs/science-application-for-risk-reduction/science/haywired-scenario?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects\">“HayWired” scenario\u003c/a> from the USGS projects that in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.0 quake in Hayward, 2,500 people would need immediate rescue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still consider the Hayward Fault to be the one with the highest probability of producing a large event in the Bay Area in years and decades to come,” said Roland Bürgmann, a UC Berkeley seismologist. ”The damages will be tremendous given the continuing exposure, despite all the great efforts made to mitigate the impact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists use triangulation to find the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/quest/136760/how-to-find-the-epicenter-of-an-earthquake\">epicenter of an earthquake\u003c/a>, collecting seismic data from at least three locations. Every earthquake is recorded on numerous seismographs located in different directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Improved building codes and infrastructure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has experienced multiple large-scale earthquakes in history. The 1857 earthquake in Central California was an estimated magnitude 7.8, the 1868 Hayward Fault quake was a magnitude 6.8, and the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake was at a 7.9 magnitude along the San Andreas Fault. In comparison, the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 was a magnitude 6.9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Each new earthquake teaches us more about what works and what doesn’t work in constructing buildings and infrastructure,” said Elliott.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has strong building standards and codes, some of the strictest in the world as far as seismic preparedness, he said. Its built environment is generally well-prepared to withstand the earthquakes seismologists expect in the region. That said, there are still a lot of vulnerable facilities and structures that require seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really takes building codes, planning by all the different agencies and communities involved to be more and more ready,” said Bürgmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Earthquake prep from a geologist’s perspective\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To prepare for a big earthquake, Elliott recommends using sites like \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/bayarea/\">Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/a>, which has a wealth of preparedness information. Homeowners should make sure their homes are properly braced and bolted to their foundations. California has \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakebracebolt.com/\">grant programs\u003c/a> to help to improve the structural stability of your home.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> At home, look around your space and brace things like bookshelves, televisions and furniture that could be toppled by heavy shaking. Have shoes next to your bed so that if it’s dark and there’s glass on the floors, you don’t step on it and hurt yourself. And don’t forget to prepare your \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step3/\">emergency kit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an earthquake, emergency services will be swamped. So it’s important to try to be self-sufficient by having your emergency supplies in hand and knowing basic first aid. Fire departments, paramedics and hospitals are going to be spread thin. So making sure you have your first aid kit within reach is important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay connected with your neighbors and friends during this time. “Your neighbors or your friends may live in more vulnerable buildings than you do or vice versa,” said Elliott. “And you may want to be conscious of that as well in your planning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Storm Recovery Begins at Beloved State Beach in Santa Cruz County",
"headTitle": "Storm Recovery Begins at Beloved State Beach in Santa Cruz County | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On Jan. 5, a frightening storm clobbered Seacliff State Beach and its famous ocean pier leading to a sunken cement ship off the coast of Santa Cruz County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high tide carried over 15-foot waves ashore, flipping cement benches and smashing driftwood through bathroom doors. The ground collapsed, forming sinkholes in the park’s day use and campground areas, and over half of its iconic pier was destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This storm was one of the nine atmospheric river storms that would pummel Northern California in a span of three weeks. Landslides from the storm parade persisted for many days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anticipating sea level rise and climate change, the state may need to relocate camping and gathering sites and set bathrooms back from the formidable Pacific Ocean. Officials also are considering building coastal dunes as a buffer against powerful storm waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Shepherd, a California State Parks employee, speculates that many coastal California parks will inevitably have to do the same: reassess what recreational activities they can provide in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want people to lose hope,” Shepherd said. He still foresees RV camping, field trips and fishing returning to Seacliff. “It just may look a little different than it has before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jill Polizzi and Alice Cannella have walked the length of Seacliff State Beach in Santa Cruz County for over 15 years. The longtime friends often stroll along the park’s accessible walkways, preferring that to their own neighborhood and its streets without sidewalks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 25, three weeks after unprecedented storms caused expensive damage to the park, they’re back — with a stroller and sunhats. Unfortunately, for now, their ritual is cut short by large fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s sad now that they’ve blocked off the other end,” Polizzi said. “I just hope they can afford to get all this back to normal.” The Jan. 5 storm cut power to Polizzi’s block for three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These kinds of storms aren’t new for California, or necessarily caused by climate change, said Gary Griggs, an oceanographer with UC Santa Cruz. A similar storm hit the park 40 years ago, for example. But climate models predict wetter atmospheric rivers, more landslides and more flooding in the state’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level is going to continue to rise, so anything on the shoreline is probably going to be more and more affected as the years and the decades go by,” Griggs said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that California’s winter storms could get wetter and cover larger areas. They detailed their findings in a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Their \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01578-0\">soggy storm projections were based on worst-case climate scenarios\u003c/a> of greenhouse gas emissions not reducing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruby Leung, an atmospheric scientist and author on the study, said Californians should engineer more resilient buildings and bridges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The information that we used before to design the infrastructure may not be relevant anymore,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Investing in stronger infrastructure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The January storm brought down Seacliff’s retaining wall, which now needs reengineering. Its job was to protect the park’s campsites and roadways from the ocean. The wall, which has been destroyed eight times now, should be rebuilt differently, Griggs said, fortified with steel and larger wood logs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State park employees are discussing which materials to use, hoping to brace the retaining wall for rising sea levels coupled with larger storms, said Chris Pereira, the Santa Cruz district roads and trails manager for California State Parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything is on the table, he said, from rebuilding the wall as-is, bolstering it with steel or large rocks, or building dunes, stabilized with plants, logs and rocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team is now working with engineers specializing in coastal sea level rise to determine what’s salvageable at the park. The pier, they’ve determined, is not, Pereira said. They’ll have to take it down or rebuild it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visitor center volunteer Dave Miller used to walk his kids along the pier; he taught them how to fish off the ship at the end. He’s optimistic that the park will be revamped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you’re destroyed this far, they’re gonna build it back — as the president said, build it back better,” said Miller, referencing Pres. Biden’s visit to Seacliff on Jan. 19. “These parks were never designed for things like ADA compliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his visit, Biden pledged to help the state rebuild. He expanded \u003ca href=\"https://www.disasterassistance.gov/\">federal assistance to Californians\u003c/a>, in addition to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/disaster-resources/\">state’s resources already in place\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anybody doubts the climate is changing, then they must have been asleep for the last couple years,” Biden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noted California’s vulnerability to extreme weather, from storms to wildfires, saying, “We have to invest in stronger infrastructure to lessen the impact of these disasters, because they become cumulative in a sense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981522\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981522\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut.jpg\" alt=\"Government officials in dark coats walk in front of a broken pier. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">US Pres. Joe Biden (center) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (far right) visit with first responders and state and local officials to survey recovery efforts in Seacliff State Park in Aptos, on Jan. 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding begins at Seacliff State Beach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Park employees don’t have a time estimate for Seacliff’s restoration. But on Jan. 25, a 13-person crew hauled piles of beached wood into a truck, some of it destined for repairing storm-ravaged trails elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team was pulled off fire restoration at Big Basin Redwoods State Park to assist with storm recovery. They helped armor the park with hundreds of tons of rock, to protect it from subsequent swells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t typically do this kind of work,” said Eamon Reynolds, a crewmember. “[It’s] a little overwhelming at first, but very rewarding at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981520\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut.jpg\" alt=\"A bearded man with a chainsaw stands in front of piles of wood. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piles of driftwood litter the post-storm landscape in Santa Cruz County. State park crewmember Eamon Reynolds repurposed a small amount to build retaining walls in other storm-damaged parks. \u003ccite>(Anna Marie Yanny/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reynolds recently built a retaining wall in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park with wood repurposed from Seacliff. Next, he’ll help repair storm damage in other parks, including at Wilder Ranch, Portola Redwoods and Butano state parks. Rebuilding trails takes longer than people may think, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cannella, one of the local walkers, hopes all pathways at Seacliff will be restored soon. Unfortunately, Pereira said, that likely won’t happen by the spring, with all the damage the storm brought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a scary storm, Polizzi recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But, I mean, look where we live. Who could complain?” she said, gesturing at the ocean. “You know, we’re lucky compared to other states that have hurricanes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearby, Reynolds revs his chain saw over the sound of crashing waves.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California officials estimate damages from winter storms that pummeled Seacliff State Beach to be in the tens of millions of dollars.",
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"description": "California officials estimate damages from winter storms that pummeled Seacliff State Beach to be in the tens of millions of dollars.",
"title": "Storm Recovery Begins at Beloved State Beach in Santa Cruz County | KQED",
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"headline": "Storm Recovery Begins at Beloved State Beach in Santa Cruz County",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On Jan. 5, a frightening storm clobbered Seacliff State Beach and its famous ocean pier leading to a sunken cement ship off the coast of Santa Cruz County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high tide carried over 15-foot waves ashore, flipping cement benches and smashing driftwood through bathroom doors. The ground collapsed, forming sinkholes in the park’s day use and campground areas, and over half of its iconic pier was destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This storm was one of the nine atmospheric river storms that would pummel Northern California in a span of three weeks. Landslides from the storm parade persisted for many days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anticipating sea level rise and climate change, the state may need to relocate camping and gathering sites and set bathrooms back from the formidable Pacific Ocean. Officials also are considering building coastal dunes as a buffer against powerful storm waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Shepherd, a California State Parks employee, speculates that many coastal California parks will inevitably have to do the same: reassess what recreational activities they can provide in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want people to lose hope,” Shepherd said. He still foresees RV camping, field trips and fishing returning to Seacliff. “It just may look a little different than it has before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jill Polizzi and Alice Cannella have walked the length of Seacliff State Beach in Santa Cruz County for over 15 years. The longtime friends often stroll along the park’s accessible walkways, preferring that to their own neighborhood and its streets without sidewalks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Jan. 25, three weeks after unprecedented storms caused expensive damage to the park, they’re back — with a stroller and sunhats. Unfortunately, for now, their ritual is cut short by large fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s sad now that they’ve blocked off the other end,” Polizzi said. “I just hope they can afford to get all this back to normal.” The Jan. 5 storm cut power to Polizzi’s block for three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These kinds of storms aren’t new for California, or necessarily caused by climate change, said Gary Griggs, an oceanographer with UC Santa Cruz. A similar storm hit the park 40 years ago, for example. But climate models predict wetter atmospheric rivers, more landslides and more flooding in the state’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level is going to continue to rise, so anything on the shoreline is probably going to be more and more affected as the years and the decades go by,” Griggs said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that California’s winter storms could get wetter and cover larger areas. They detailed their findings in a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Their \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01578-0\">soggy storm projections were based on worst-case climate scenarios\u003c/a> of greenhouse gas emissions not reducing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ruby Leung, an atmospheric scientist and author on the study, said Californians should engineer more resilient buildings and bridges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The information that we used before to design the infrastructure may not be relevant anymore,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Investing in stronger infrastructure\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The January storm brought down Seacliff’s retaining wall, which now needs reengineering. Its job was to protect the park’s campsites and roadways from the ocean. The wall, which has been destroyed eight times now, should be rebuilt differently, Griggs said, fortified with steel and larger wood logs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State park employees are discussing which materials to use, hoping to brace the retaining wall for rising sea levels coupled with larger storms, said Chris Pereira, the Santa Cruz district roads and trails manager for California State Parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything is on the table, he said, from rebuilding the wall as-is, bolstering it with steel or large rocks, or building dunes, stabilized with plants, logs and rocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team is now working with engineers specializing in coastal sea level rise to determine what’s salvageable at the park. The pier, they’ve determined, is not, Pereira said. They’ll have to take it down or rebuild it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visitor center volunteer Dave Miller used to walk his kids along the pier; he taught them how to fish off the ship at the end. He’s optimistic that the park will be revamped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once you’re destroyed this far, they’re gonna build it back — as the president said, build it back better,” said Miller, referencing Pres. Biden’s visit to Seacliff on Jan. 19. “These parks were never designed for things like ADA compliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his visit, Biden pledged to help the state rebuild. He expanded \u003ca href=\"https://www.disasterassistance.gov/\">federal assistance to Californians\u003c/a>, in addition to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.padilla.senate.gov/disaster-resources/\">state’s resources already in place\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anybody doubts the climate is changing, then they must have been asleep for the last couple years,” Biden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He noted California’s vulnerability to extreme weather, from storms to wildfires, saying, “We have to invest in stronger infrastructure to lessen the impact of these disasters, because they become cumulative in a sense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981522\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981522\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut.jpg\" alt=\"Government officials in dark coats walk in front of a broken pier. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62626__qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">US Pres. Joe Biden (center) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (far right) visit with first responders and state and local officials to survey recovery efforts in Seacliff State Park in Aptos, on Jan. 19, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding begins at Seacliff State Beach\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Park employees don’t have a time estimate for Seacliff’s restoration. But on Jan. 25, a 13-person crew hauled piles of beached wood into a truck, some of it destined for repairing storm-ravaged trails elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team was pulled off fire restoration at Big Basin Redwoods State Park to assist with storm recovery. They helped armor the park with hundreds of tons of rock, to protect it from subsequent swells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t typically do this kind of work,” said Eamon Reynolds, a crewmember. “[It’s] a little overwhelming at first, but very rewarding at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981520\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut.jpg\" alt=\"A bearded man with a chainsaw stands in front of piles of wood. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62625__qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piles of driftwood litter the post-storm landscape in Santa Cruz County. State park crewmember Eamon Reynolds repurposed a small amount to build retaining walls in other storm-damaged parks. \u003ccite>(Anna Marie Yanny/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Reynolds recently built a retaining wall in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park with wood repurposed from Seacliff. Next, he’ll help repair storm damage in other parks, including at Wilder Ranch, Portola Redwoods and Butano state parks. Rebuilding trails takes longer than people may think, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cannella, one of the local walkers, hopes all pathways at Seacliff will be restored soon. Unfortunately, Pereira said, that likely won’t happen by the spring, with all the damage the storm brought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a scary storm, Polizzi recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But, I mean, look where we live. Who could complain?” she said, gesturing at the ocean. “You know, we’re lucky compared to other states that have hurricanes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearby, Reynolds revs his chain saw over the sound of crashing waves.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "its-about-time-how-to-get-ready-for-the-next-emergency",
"title": "Prepping for the Next Big Quake: One Hour a Day, Four Days",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>Are you feeling less than secure about how ready you are for a major earthquake emergency? That’s how many of us at KQED were feeling in the wake of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154818692/turkey-earthquake-syria-rescue-disaster\">the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday\u003c/a>. The quake — which has so far killed more than 3,400 people — was followed by at least 55 aftershocks of magnitude 4.3 or greater, \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-30.14513,-76.28906&extent=73.92247,151.34766&sort=smallest&listOnlyShown=true&baseLayer=terrain\">according to the U.S. Geological Survey\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Back in 2019, we asked science reporter Peter Arcuni to lead us through a four-day prep, spending one hour a day. Here’s how to get ready for the next big Bay Area temblor — the one scientists say is inevitable.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Day One was all about making an emergency plan; Days Two and Three he devoted to assembling earthquake kits. For the final day, Peter took steps to make his home more earthquake safe.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published on Oct. 16, 2019. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Let’s get started\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, I awoke to a sound like thunder. Was it a low-flying jet? A truck zooming past? In one, raucous jolt, the mattress, with me atop it, bobbled on its frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time I realized what was going on, the shake, rattle and roll were over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did you feel that?” I shouted to my wife and daughter in the other room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No answer. Of course, they were fine, just too caught up in playing fairies, or trolls, or maybe fairy trolls, to notice a mere 3.6 magnitude quake. But the shock was enough for me to read the writing clear across the bedroom wall: \u003cem>It was time to make an earthquake plan\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve lived in the Bay Area for 16 years, and just about annually I get a brief moment of religion when it comes to quake preparedness. But even though seismic experts offer ample evidence to remind us a big earthquake is not a matter of if, but when, I \u003cem>still\u003c/em> haven’t followed through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]Resources\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/library/Margin_Step_3_Infographics_Flyer.pdf\">Earthquake Country Alliance pamphlet (PDF)\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/plan\">FEMA Ready.gov site\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">American Red Cross survival kit supply list\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/atg/PDF_s/Preparedness___Disaster_Recovery/Disaster_Preparedness/Earthquake/Earthquake.pdf\">earthquake safety checklist\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>True, I’ve got plenty of excuses. In the early days, common sense collided with a misguided feeling of invincibility. Later, it was work, marriage, grad school, fatherhood. Frankly, now in my spare time, I’d simply rather be playing Candyland with my four-year-old daughter than shopping for emergency supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, it’s the same old story: Life is full and busy, and preparing for disaster feels overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But guess what? Now I’ve actually been \u003cem>assigned\u003c/em> earthquake preparation by my editors, in the hope we can show that it’s possible to get ready for a disaster in a reasonable amount of time, even amidst the usual perpetual commitments of work, family and daily living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here are the ground rules for this challenge. For each of four days, I’m allowed to commit just one hour to earthquake preparation, using only the free time I would normally have outside work and family life.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\"]Yesterday, we had only a vague notion of what to do if a big earthquake hit. Today we have a solid plan we feel pretty good about.[/pullquote] Join me in finding out how ready we can be in just one hour a day, over four days. I’ll chronicle my success — or not — right here. We may not get to everything, but as I learned from the experts, doing any amount of preparation matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing I realized while embarking on this project: The difference between preparedness and perpetual optimism could be the difference between life and death. In 2018, KQED’s Craig Miller \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1933064/map-are-you-in-the-severe-damage-zone-for-the-bay-areas-next-big-earthquake\">wrote a story about the Hayward Fault\u003c/a>, which runs 40 miles through the East Bay’s most densely populated areas and could produce the proverbial Big One at any time:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The U.S. Geological Survey projects that in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.0 quake on the Hayward, 2,500 people would need immediate rescue. Serious questions remain about whether emergency responders could get to everyone’s aid, given that roads are likely to be blocked and water for fighting fires cut off in many areas — possibly for weeks or months.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“In terms of exposure of hospitals, schools, lifelines, it’s really unequaled,” said UC Berkeley seismologist Roland Burgmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So … this is a not just an assignment for a journalist, it’s an assignment for \u003cem>everybody\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[audio src=\"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2019/10/ArcuniEarthquakePrep.mp3\" title=\"Day One: Make a Plan\" program=\"KQED Science\" image=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_007.jpg\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day One: Make a plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generally speaking, earthquake preparedness is broken into three categories:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Having survival supplies ready to go\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Safety-proofing your home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Making an emergency plan for the earthquake and its aftermath\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>I decided to begin my four days of preparation by making an emergency plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Ferguson, with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), says it’s one of the most important steps you can take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s a great dinner table conversation that all families should have, if there’s an emergency, here’s what we would do,” he said. “‘We would meet you at this place, we would go this way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He told me there’s no one-size-fits-all blueprint, so you’ll need to tailor your plan to your own circumstances. But some guidelines apply to everybody, such as …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doorways are out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949266\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949266\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-800x593.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"593\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-800x593.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-768x569.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-1020x755.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-1200x889.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Arcuni, his wife, Maureen, and their daughter, Izzy, read a book after collecting all the materials for their earthquake preparedness kit. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/ KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My first conversation today was with my preschooler, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Izzy, do you know what an earthquake is?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s when the ground shakes and you have to go hide under a table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hide under the table. That’s a great idea — you know more than I do!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a widespread \u003ca href=\"https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/10-pieces-of-disaster-safety-advice-you-should-ignore4.htm\">myth\u003c/a> that standing in the doorway is the most protective place to be during a major quake. But most experts say, forget it. Here’s what the U.S. Geological Survey recommends:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON. If you are indoors, when you feel strong earthquake shaking, drop to the floor, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on to it firmly until the shaking stops. If you are not near a desk or table, drop to the floor against an interior wall and protect your head and neck with your arms.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Got it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After we tucked the little one in, my wife Maureen and I went to the couch to write out our emergency plan. For this we decided to focus on a handful of essential items from the USGS handbook:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Locate a safe place outside of your home for your family to meet after the shaking stops.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Establish an out-of-area contact person everyone in the household can call to relay information.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Provide all family members with a list of important contact phone numbers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Determine where you can live if you can’t stay in your home after an earthquake or other disaster. In other words: Ask friends or relatives in advance if they might be willing to put you up when the Big One hits.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Sounds like a lot. But it took us just under an hour — 56 minutes — to hash most of this out. We even called my cousin in Menlo Park, who agreed to shelter us in case we need to evacuate San Francisco. Because we appeared to have woken her from a deep slumber, I’ll need to confirm she actually \u003cem>remembers\u003c/em> what she’s gotten herself into next time I see her. \u003cem>Sorry to wake you up Carin. And, thanks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Final thoughts: Day One\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I admit I was feeling a bit daunted by the thought of starting this challenge. But I agreed with my wife when she said, “It was not \u003cem>so\u003c/em> bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yesterday, we had only a vague notion of what to do if a big earthquake hit. Today we have a solid plan we feel pretty good about. We have more to do, for sure, but this is a good start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Brian Ferguson from Cal OES put it: “People feel intimidated by it, but any amount of preparation will make you safer than no preparation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomorrow for our earthquake prep challenge, I’ll go shopping — fun! — for survival supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[audio src=\"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2019/10/ArcuniPreparingBigOne.mp3\" title=\"Day Two: Earthquake Kits, or Shopping for Survival\" program=\"KQED Science\" image=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1.jpg\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Two: Earthquake kits, or shopping for survival\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yesterday, while my wife, Maureen, and I were mapping out our emergency plan, we took a quick inventory of our emergency supplies. That is, we rifled through the briar patch that is our hallway closet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our key takeaways: The first aid kit was pretty depleted. Why? Because we’ve been dipping into it for everyday scrapes and burns, rendering the “emergency” in “emergency supplies” meaningless. But there were a few good items, including a hand crank AM/FM radio that triples as both a flashlight and phone charger. We also located the student survival kit purchased from my daughter’s day care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All in all, while we had the \u003cem>beginnings\u003c/em> of an earthquake kit, we did not have an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> earthquake kit. There were some glaring omissions, like food and water, for instance, and our organization was lacking. Considering that the USGS \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/science-application-risk-reduction/science/haywired-scenario?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects\">forecasts\u003c/a> the displacement of 77,000 to 152,000 households from a 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault, this was not good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I decided to break my kit preparation into two sessions. First day, shopping; second day, assembling. I used the American Red Cross \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">list of 15 essential items\u003c/a> as a blueprint for the minimum inventory of what we needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>Water: one gallon per person, per day; three-day supply for evacuation, two-week supply for home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Food: nonperishable, easy-to-prepare items; three-day supply for evacuation, two-week supply for home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Flashlight\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Battery-powered or hand-crank radio, a NOAA Weather Radio, if possible\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Extra batteries\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Deluxe family first aid kit\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Medications, seven-day supply, and other necessary medical items\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Multipurpose tool\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sanitation and personal hygiene items\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Copies of personal documents: medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Cellphone with chargers\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Family and emergency contact information\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Extra cash\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Emergency blanket\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Map(s) of the area\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind the American Red Cross \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">recommends additional items\u003c/a> you should consider, like sleeping bags, work gloves and N95 masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949519\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949519\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-800x598.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"598\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-800x598.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-768x574.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-1020x763.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-1200x898.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reporter Peter Arcuni shops for survival supplies to put into his earthquake kit. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We already had some of the essentials, so we just needed to track down the remaining items, plus a few more we thought were important. Our shopping list included water, food, cash, first aid kit, flashlights, batteries, cell phone charging pack, local maps, hygienic items and the ever-popular all-purpose emergency standby, duct tape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this challenge, I headed to nearby 24th Street in Noe Valley to hit the Whole Foods, Walgreens and bank, all within a two-block radius. As on the first day, I limited myself to one hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Timer set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Go.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Canned goods and venison sea salt pepper bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The American Red Cross recommends you keep on hand at least one gallon of water per person per day, for three days. For me, my wife and daughter, that’s nine gallons. At $0.89 a gallon, I was able to cross that off the list for under 10 bucks. Felt like a pretty good deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nonperishable food, I started with the canned goods aisle. I homed in on soups, refried beans and tuna fish, choosing in particular the brands that had pull-off tops so I wouldn’t need a can opener. True, I had a multi-use tool, which included a can opener (of sorts), but do I want to be attempting to poke holes through cans of refried beans during an earthquake emergency? No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next up: granola bars. Lots of options, of course, so I went for variety, making sure to accommodate my wife’s request for those that are peanut-butter flavored. The venison sea salt pepper bars looked classy, if somewhat pricey, so I decided to indulge.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Small bills, please\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Next up was the bank for some cold, hard cash. With power and network outages likely in the event of a big earthquake or other emergency, the places where they still keep the actual money may prove to be inaccessible, and ATMs could very well go down, too. Not to mention credit card machines. So if you end up needing to pay for something, from a bottle of water to a hotel room, you are going to have to use existing cash on hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much? That depends on the number of people in your family and where you live, according to Brian Ferguson, from the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. Emergency experts recommend small denominations, so you won’t have to worry about getting change from stores that may not be able to give it. So I went for a mix of 20s, 10s, fives and ones. And one two-dollar bill for good luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Drugstore\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I found most of my other items at the pharmacy. Medications aren’t a major issue for my family, but I picked up some extra pain reliever, antihistamine and children’s Tylenol, just in case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you do take medications, the American Red Cross recommends having a seven-day supply, as well as a list of what they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Final thoughts: Day Two\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The shopping trip, when factoring in the ride to and from my house, took just about an hour and change. I was able to get most of the items on my list. Here’s where I came up short:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Local maps\u003c/strong>: These are good to keep on hand if you need to evacuate while cell networks are down. Neither Whole Foods nor Walgreens carried them, but you can find maps at \u003ca href=\"https://www.aaa.com/mapgallery/\">AAA\u003c/a> or order online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cellphone battery charging pack\u003c/strong>: Walgreens had one, but I wasn’t sure it was right for me. So I’m planning to do some research before buying. There are \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/s?k=emergency+phone+charger&crid=2CXQDD1XT85YG&sprefix=emergency+phone+c%2Caps%2C205&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_17\">several options\u003c/a> available online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Forgetting to check expiration on food\u003c/strong>: One could assume — and by one, I mean me — that if food is wrapped in plastic, it is nonperishable. This is not true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While evaluating my haul my wife asked if I checked the “best by” dates on the food. I had not. We found that while the canned goods would remain edible for a number of years, about half the granola bars I picked out listed dates about six months from now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Me: But what does date that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maureen: Could we get sick?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Me: Maybe. I don’t think so. But …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end we removed these from the kit. Further research showed we probably would’ve been fine, even if our bars lost their flavor over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a breakdown from \u003ca href=\"https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/how-to-tell-whether-expired-food-is-safe-to-eat/\">Consumer Reports\u003c/a> on good rules of thumb for nonperishables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you should always check the expiration dates on your food items, and you’ll also want check your kit periodically to refresh any expired items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In sum, it appears you can grab many of the basic necessities for a survival kit over the course of an hour or a little longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, if convenience is a priority, both the \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/store/preparedness\">American Red Cross\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/s?k=earthquake+survival+kit&crid=3GMZ4T10S4KQ3&sprefix=earthquak%2Caps%2C247&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_9\">Amazon\u003c/a> have a variety of survival kits available for a range of prices. Consider your time and needs — this may be a good way to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up next, I’ll organize my supplies into a proper earthquake kit!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[audio src=\"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/2019/10/ArcuniPreparingfortheBigOne.mp3\" title=\"Day Three: Putting Together My Earthquake Kits\" program=\"KQED Science\" image=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001.jpg\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Three: Putting together my earthquake kit\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A quick note about fatigue: After the first few days of this challenge, I was riding high. Emergency plan, check. Trunkload of survival supplies, yup. Then … the inevitable crash. After a full day of work, making dinner, cleaning the kitchen, bathing my kid, and putting her to bed, I was spent. So I psyched myself up, mustered all the energy I could, and … watched “The Great British Bake Off” on Netflix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was delightful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re only human. Carving out an hour on a given day may not be possible, emotionally or otherwise. So I decided to give myself credit for what I’d already accomplished and go back at it the next morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which I did. I started by laying out my earthquake supplies on the living room floor. Satisfying as it was to look at, I still needed to put them somewhere I could find them in a true emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“Organize disaster supplies in convenient locations…Keep them where you spend most of your time, so they can be reached even if your building is badly damaged.” — Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2005/15/gip-15.pdf\">U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step3/\">EarthquakeCountry.org\u003c/a> provide an assortment of tips on preparing and storing your kits. Here are a few:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Use backpacks for personal survival kits because they’re easy to grab if you need to evacuate. You want one for each person in your household.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>You can keep a larger disaster kit in a plastic bin or other waterproof container. This should contain additional food and water, first aid items and other supplies, like an emergency radio, for instance, that you would need if you have to stay put for a while. This kit should also be easy to move around the house or load into a car if necessary.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Sifting through the bedroom closet, I found what I needed: a green plastic tub with a lid and handles for my household kit, and a black backpack with compartments for my to-go bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After packing my supplies into them, I scouted for storage locations. The bin slid nicely under the bench beside our bed, and I cleared out the bottom shelf of the hallway closet for the backpack, since it’s centrally located in the house. I then stashed some extra gallon jugs of water alongside the bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949522\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949522\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-800x545.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"545\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-800x545.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-768x523.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-1020x694.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-1200x817.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Organizing survival supplies is an important step in readiness planning, according to emergency experts. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emergency experts recommend that you also have survival kits for your car and workplace. For today, I focused mainly on the home, though I did throw water, towels and a blanket in the car. I’m considering ordering online additional prepacked kits for the car and work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bags for shoes and stuffed animals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Here’s something I hadn’t thought about: Say a big earthquake hits at two in the morning. Suddenly, I’d be in the dark with broken glass and debris all over the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The aftermath of an earthquake is no time to wander around the house barefoot. That’s why experts recommend putting a pair of shoes or boots, plus a flashlight, in a plastic bag tied to the foot of your bed or nightstand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That ensures that you have quick access to getting something on your feet and allows you to safely get up, survey what’s happened to your home and check on your loved ones,” said Cynthia Shaw from \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/local/california/northern-california-coastal.html\">Red Cross Northern California\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this, I used kitchen twine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For my 4-year-old daughter, I made up a special bag to add to my to-go backpack. Emergencies can be scary, and they can also involve waiting around for long stretches of time without much to do. So USGS recommends including “comfort items, such as games, crayons, writing materials, and teddy bears” for the little ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With my daughter’s help, we picked out a soft blanket with purple butterflies on it, coloring pad, storybook and one of her favorite stuffed foxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Not just supplies — documents, too\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After I took inventory and shopped for supplies, I had tracked down most of the 15 essential survival items recommended by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">American Red Cross\u003c/a>, along with some additions, to populate my kit. I even found the Bay Area and California maps I was looking for in the glove box of my car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I’m done, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When putting together survival supplies, it’s easy to obsess over gear and rations. But in emergencies, information matters too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember these checklist items from Day Two?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 30px\">\u003ci>Item 10: Copies of personal documents: medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 30px\">\u003ci>Item 12: Family and emergency contact information \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, my wife and I had written out a list of our contacts and made sure we had them in our phones. But we didn’t make a paper copy with the actual numbers, which is important in case cell service isn’t available or you can’t charge your phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FEMA has a pre-made \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/kids/make-a-plan\">emergency contact form\u003c/a> you can fill out on your computer and print for your wallet, survival kits and car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the documents, we got as far as sorting through the file cabinet where we keep these types of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today I decided to fire up the old all-in-one printer-scanner-copier and take care of business. But if you’re like me, nine times out of 10 your ink cartridge is empty. Today was no exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I’ve got to get that ink, find a local copy shop or ask the kind people at KQED if it’s okay to print out a few documents for a good cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s was my hour for today. Tomorrow, I’ll be getting out the tool box to make a few home improvements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[audio src=\"https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/2019/10/ArcuniPreparingBigOne4c.mp3\" title=\"Day Four: Securing the Home\" program=\"KQED Science\" image=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_008.jpg\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Four: Securing the home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One thing I learned while researching this challenge was that most people who got hurt during earthquakes like Loma Prieta in the Bay Area and Northridge in the Los Angeles area didn’t have buildings or structures collapse on them. Many of the injuries were caused by falling objects or furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for my final hour of this week’s earthquake prep, I surveyed my apartment to see what home improvements I could tackle to make it safer in the event of a big quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earthquake Country Alliance has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step1/\">thorough guide\u003c/a> to securing your space. Here’s what to look out for:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Heavy objects hung on the wall, like mirrors or art in glass picture frames\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loose objects stored on open shelves or bookcases which can fly through the air during a quake\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Top-heavy furniture, like dressers, bookcases or TVs that could tip over\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In particular, experts say to look out for these potential hazards near places where you spend a lot of time: beds, couches, desks, the kids’ favorite play spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a quick perusal for hazards, I detected a big problem: the large print hanging over our couch in a glass-paned metal frame. My brother got it for us in Nashville, and it really ties the room together. But, it was either gonna have to go or be moved to a safer spot away from the sofa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another danger zone: the dresser next to my bed, with a digital camera, ceramic mason jar and mementos, including a hefty amethyst stone, lying on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I took a quick trip to San Francisco’s Glen Park Hardware, where a few helpful employees showed me some stuff I could use to lock things down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One big find was a product called Museum Wax, which is putty you stick underneath an object so it’ll stay attached to a surface. This was just the ticket for objects like my amethyst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The store also sold furniture safety straps, which let you attach freestanding shelves and armoires to the wall. These use hook-and-eye fixtures and industrial-strength Velcro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I left with the museum wax and a heavy-duty frame hanger that had three nail anchor points for remounting the print.\u003cbr>\n[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation='Brian Ferguson, Cal OES']‘Any amount of preparation will make you safer than no preparation.’[/pullquote]At home, I lifted the frame off the wall. Its weight confirmed that I’d rather not have it crash on my head under any circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I picked a spot on the opposite wall, across from the sofa, and hammered away. Once the frame was up, I took a breather on the sofa … with a renewed sense of calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Final thoughts\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That’s it for my hour-a-day earthquake readiness prep. These four days have taught me that spending just an hour here and there can make a world of difference when it comes to getting ready for the next emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes it wore me out. But the 4.5 magnitude quake that rumbled my sofa as I wrote Monday night, and another on Tuesday, offered the jolts of motivation I needed to persevere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s more to do, for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In four hours, though, I mapped out an emergency plan, prepped survival kits and made my home a safer, or at least less hazardous, place. I’ll repeat here what Brian Ferguson with Cal OES told me on the first day of this challenge:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any amount of preparation will make you safer than no preparation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I have your ear, let’s cram in a few final bits of advice I picked up from experts along the way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Your emergency readiness will depend on your own circumstances. So prepare accordingly. For example, living on landfill in the Bay Area means you may want to take extra steps to secure your home; whereas living in wildfire prone areas may require different preparations. Perhaps you have a large family or pets to consider. We have just one pet, a betta fish named Emily. What would we do with her if the Big One hits? I’ll have to think on that one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter your priorities, readiness experts recommend signing up for emergency alerts. California has an early warning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1949333/download-californias-new-earthquake-early-warning-app\">ShakeAlert app\u003c/a>. Any amount of extra time you have could save your life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally, make a conscious effort to put gas in your car \u003ci>before\u003c/i> the low fuel light comes on. It’ll help if you ever have to evacuate. From now on, I’m gonna try. If nothing else, it’ll make my mom happy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>Are you feeling less than secure about how ready you are for a major earthquake emergency? That’s how many of us at KQED were feeling in the wake of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154818692/turkey-earthquake-syria-rescue-disaster\">the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday\u003c/a>. The quake — which has so far killed more than 3,400 people — was followed by at least 55 aftershocks of magnitude 4.3 or greater, \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-30.14513,-76.28906&extent=73.92247,151.34766&sort=smallest&listOnlyShown=true&baseLayer=terrain\">according to the U.S. Geological Survey\u003c/a>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Back in 2019, we asked science reporter Peter Arcuni to lead us through a four-day prep, spending one hour a day. Here’s how to get ready for the next big Bay Area temblor — the one scientists say is inevitable.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Day One was all about making an emergency plan; Days Two and Three he devoted to assembling earthquake kits. For the final day, Peter took steps to make his home more earthquake safe.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published on Oct. 16, 2019. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Let’s get started\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, I awoke to a sound like thunder. Was it a low-flying jet? A truck zooming past? In one, raucous jolt, the mattress, with me atop it, bobbled on its frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time I realized what was going on, the shake, rattle and roll were over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Did you feel that?” I shouted to my wife and daughter in the other room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No answer. Of course, they were fine, just too caught up in playing fairies, or trolls, or maybe fairy trolls, to notice a mere 3.6 magnitude quake. But the shock was enough for me to read the writing clear across the bedroom wall: \u003cem>It was time to make an earthquake plan\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yeah, right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve lived in the Bay Area for 16 years, and just about annually I get a brief moment of religion when it comes to quake preparedness. But even though seismic experts offer ample evidence to remind us a big earthquake is not a matter of if, but when, I \u003cem>still\u003c/em> haven’t followed through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "Resources\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/library/Margin_Step_3_Infographics_Flyer.pdf\">Earthquake Country Alliance pamphlet (PDF)\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/plan\">FEMA Ready.gov site\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">American Red Cross survival kit supply list\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/atg/PDF_s/Preparedness___Disaster_Recovery/Disaster_Preparedness/Earthquake/Earthquake.pdf\">earthquake safety checklist\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>True, I’ve got plenty of excuses. In the early days, common sense collided with a misguided feeling of invincibility. Later, it was work, marriage, grad school, fatherhood. Frankly, now in my spare time, I’d simply rather be playing Candyland with my four-year-old daughter than shopping for emergency supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, it’s the same old story: Life is full and busy, and preparing for disaster feels overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But guess what? Now I’ve actually been \u003cem>assigned\u003c/em> earthquake preparation by my editors, in the hope we can show that it’s possible to get ready for a disaster in a reasonable amount of time, even amidst the usual perpetual commitments of work, family and daily living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here are the ground rules for this challenge. For each of four days, I’m allowed to commit just one hour to earthquake preparation, using only the free time I would normally have outside work and family life.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Join me in finding out how ready we can be in just one hour a day, over four days. I’ll chronicle my success — or not — right here. We may not get to everything, but as I learned from the experts, doing any amount of preparation matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing I realized while embarking on this project: The difference between preparedness and perpetual optimism could be the difference between life and death. In 2018, KQED’s Craig Miller \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1933064/map-are-you-in-the-severe-damage-zone-for-the-bay-areas-next-big-earthquake\">wrote a story about the Hayward Fault\u003c/a>, which runs 40 miles through the East Bay’s most densely populated areas and could produce the proverbial Big One at any time:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The U.S. Geological Survey projects that in the aftermath of a magnitude 7.0 quake on the Hayward, 2,500 people would need immediate rescue. Serious questions remain about whether emergency responders could get to everyone’s aid, given that roads are likely to be blocked and water for fighting fires cut off in many areas — possibly for weeks or months.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>“In terms of exposure of hospitals, schools, lifelines, it’s really unequaled,” said UC Berkeley seismologist Roland Burgmann.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So … this is a not just an assignment for a journalist, it’s an assignment for \u003cem>everybody\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day One: Make a plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Generally speaking, earthquake preparedness is broken into three categories:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Having survival supplies ready to go\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Safety-proofing your home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Making an emergency plan for the earthquake and its aftermath\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>I decided to begin my four days of preparation by making an emergency plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Ferguson, with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), says it’s one of the most important steps you can take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s a great dinner table conversation that all families should have, if there’s an emergency, here’s what we would do,” he said. “‘We would meet you at this place, we would go this way.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He told me there’s no one-size-fits-all blueprint, so you’ll need to tailor your plan to your own circumstances. But some guidelines apply to everybody, such as …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doorways are out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949266\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949266\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-800x593.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"593\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-800x593.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-768x569.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-1020x755.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004-1200x889.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_004.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Arcuni, his wife, Maureen, and their daughter, Izzy, read a book after collecting all the materials for their earthquake preparedness kit. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/ KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My first conversation today was with my preschooler, Izzy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Izzy, do you know what an earthquake is?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s when the ground shakes and you have to go hide under a table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hide under the table. That’s a great idea — you know more than I do!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a widespread \u003ca href=\"https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/10-pieces-of-disaster-safety-advice-you-should-ignore4.htm\">myth\u003c/a> that standing in the doorway is the most protective place to be during a major quake. But most experts say, forget it. Here’s what the U.S. Geological Survey recommends:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON. If you are indoors, when you feel strong earthquake shaking, drop to the floor, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on to it firmly until the shaking stops. If you are not near a desk or table, drop to the floor against an interior wall and protect your head and neck with your arms.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Got it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After we tucked the little one in, my wife Maureen and I went to the couch to write out our emergency plan. For this we decided to focus on a handful of essential items from the USGS handbook:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Locate a safe place outside of your home for your family to meet after the shaking stops.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Establish an out-of-area contact person everyone in the household can call to relay information.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Provide all family members with a list of important contact phone numbers.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Determine where you can live if you can’t stay in your home after an earthquake or other disaster. In other words: Ask friends or relatives in advance if they might be willing to put you up when the Big One hits.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Sounds like a lot. But it took us just under an hour — 56 minutes — to hash most of this out. We even called my cousin in Menlo Park, who agreed to shelter us in case we need to evacuate San Francisco. Because we appeared to have woken her from a deep slumber, I’ll need to confirm she actually \u003cem>remembers\u003c/em> what she’s gotten herself into next time I see her. \u003cem>Sorry to wake you up Carin. And, thanks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Final thoughts: Day One\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I admit I was feeling a bit daunted by the thought of starting this challenge. But I agreed with my wife when she said, “It was not \u003cem>so\u003c/em> bad.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yesterday, we had only a vague notion of what to do if a big earthquake hit. Today we have a solid plan we feel pretty good about. We have more to do, for sure, but this is a good start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Brian Ferguson from Cal OES put it: “People feel intimidated by it, but any amount of preparation will make you safer than no preparation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tomorrow for our earthquake prep challenge, I’ll go shopping — fun! — for survival supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Two: Earthquake kits, or shopping for survival\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Yesterday, while my wife, Maureen, and I were mapping out our emergency plan, we took a quick inventory of our emergency supplies. That is, we rifled through the briar patch that is our hallway closet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our key takeaways: The first aid kit was pretty depleted. Why? Because we’ve been dipping into it for everyday scrapes and burns, rendering the “emergency” in “emergency supplies” meaningless. But there were a few good items, including a hand crank AM/FM radio that triples as both a flashlight and phone charger. We also located the student survival kit purchased from my daughter’s day care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All in all, while we had the \u003cem>beginnings\u003c/em> of an earthquake kit, we did not have an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> earthquake kit. There were some glaring omissions, like food and water, for instance, and our organization was lacking. Considering that the USGS \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/science-application-risk-reduction/science/haywired-scenario?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects\">forecasts\u003c/a> the displacement of 77,000 to 152,000 households from a 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault, this was not good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I decided to break my kit preparation into two sessions. First day, shopping; second day, assembling. I used the American Red Cross \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">list of 15 essential items\u003c/a> as a blueprint for the minimum inventory of what we needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>Water: one gallon per person, per day; three-day supply for evacuation, two-week supply for home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Food: nonperishable, easy-to-prepare items; three-day supply for evacuation, two-week supply for home\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Flashlight\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Battery-powered or hand-crank radio, a NOAA Weather Radio, if possible\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Extra batteries\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Deluxe family first aid kit\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Medications, seven-day supply, and other necessary medical items\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Multipurpose tool\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sanitation and personal hygiene items\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Copies of personal documents: medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Cellphone with chargers\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Family and emergency contact information\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Extra cash\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Emergency blanket\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Map(s) of the area\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind the American Red Cross \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">recommends additional items\u003c/a> you should consider, like sleeping bags, work gloves and N95 masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949519\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949519\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-800x598.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"598\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-800x598.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-768x574.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-1020x763.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1-1200x898.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/EarthquakePrep_001-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reporter Peter Arcuni shops for survival supplies to put into his earthquake kit. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We already had some of the essentials, so we just needed to track down the remaining items, plus a few more we thought were important. Our shopping list included water, food, cash, first aid kit, flashlights, batteries, cell phone charging pack, local maps, hygienic items and the ever-popular all-purpose emergency standby, duct tape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this challenge, I headed to nearby 24th Street in Noe Valley to hit the Whole Foods, Walgreens and bank, all within a two-block radius. As on the first day, I limited myself to one hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Timer set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Go.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Canned goods and venison sea salt pepper bars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The American Red Cross recommends you keep on hand at least one gallon of water per person per day, for three days. For me, my wife and daughter, that’s nine gallons. At $0.89 a gallon, I was able to cross that off the list for under 10 bucks. Felt like a pretty good deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For nonperishable food, I started with the canned goods aisle. I homed in on soups, refried beans and tuna fish, choosing in particular the brands that had pull-off tops so I wouldn’t need a can opener. True, I had a multi-use tool, which included a can opener (of sorts), but do I want to be attempting to poke holes through cans of refried beans during an earthquake emergency? No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next up: granola bars. Lots of options, of course, so I went for variety, making sure to accommodate my wife’s request for those that are peanut-butter flavored. The venison sea salt pepper bars looked classy, if somewhat pricey, so I decided to indulge.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Small bills, please\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Next up was the bank for some cold, hard cash. With power and network outages likely in the event of a big earthquake or other emergency, the places where they still keep the actual money may prove to be inaccessible, and ATMs could very well go down, too. Not to mention credit card machines. So if you end up needing to pay for something, from a bottle of water to a hotel room, you are going to have to use existing cash on hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much? That depends on the number of people in your family and where you live, according to Brian Ferguson, from the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. Emergency experts recommend small denominations, so you won’t have to worry about getting change from stores that may not be able to give it. So I went for a mix of 20s, 10s, fives and ones. And one two-dollar bill for good luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Drugstore\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I found most of my other items at the pharmacy. Medications aren’t a major issue for my family, but I picked up some extra pain reliever, antihistamine and children’s Tylenol, just in case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you do take medications, the American Red Cross recommends having a seven-day supply, as well as a list of what they are.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Final thoughts: Day Two\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The shopping trip, when factoring in the ride to and from my house, took just about an hour and change. I was able to get most of the items on my list. Here’s where I came up short:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Local maps\u003c/strong>: These are good to keep on hand if you need to evacuate while cell networks are down. Neither Whole Foods nor Walgreens carried them, but you can find maps at \u003ca href=\"https://www.aaa.com/mapgallery/\">AAA\u003c/a> or order online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cellphone battery charging pack\u003c/strong>: Walgreens had one, but I wasn’t sure it was right for me. So I’m planning to do some research before buying. There are \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/s?k=emergency+phone+charger&crid=2CXQDD1XT85YG&sprefix=emergency+phone+c%2Caps%2C205&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_17\">several options\u003c/a> available online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Forgetting to check expiration on food\u003c/strong>: One could assume — and by one, I mean me — that if food is wrapped in plastic, it is nonperishable. This is not true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While evaluating my haul my wife asked if I checked the “best by” dates on the food. I had not. We found that while the canned goods would remain edible for a number of years, about half the granola bars I picked out listed dates about six months from now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Me: But what does date that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maureen: Could we get sick?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Me: Maybe. I don’t think so. But …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end we removed these from the kit. Further research showed we probably would’ve been fine, even if our bars lost their flavor over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a breakdown from \u003ca href=\"https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/how-to-tell-whether-expired-food-is-safe-to-eat/\">Consumer Reports\u003c/a> on good rules of thumb for nonperishables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But you should always check the expiration dates on your food items, and you’ll also want check your kit periodically to refresh any expired items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In sum, it appears you can grab many of the basic necessities for a survival kit over the course of an hour or a little longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, if convenience is a priority, both the \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/store/preparedness\">American Red Cross\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/s?k=earthquake+survival+kit&crid=3GMZ4T10S4KQ3&sprefix=earthquak%2Caps%2C247&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_9\">Amazon\u003c/a> have a variety of survival kits available for a range of prices. Consider your time and needs — this may be a good way to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up next, I’ll organize my supplies into a proper earthquake kit!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Three: Putting together my earthquake kit\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A quick note about fatigue: After the first few days of this challenge, I was riding high. Emergency plan, check. Trunkload of survival supplies, yup. Then … the inevitable crash. After a full day of work, making dinner, cleaning the kitchen, bathing my kid, and putting her to bed, I was spent. So I psyched myself up, mustered all the energy I could, and … watched “The Great British Bake Off” on Netflix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was delightful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re only human. Carving out an hour on a given day may not be possible, emotionally or otherwise. So I decided to give myself credit for what I’d already accomplished and go back at it the next morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which I did. I started by laying out my earthquake supplies on the living room floor. Satisfying as it was to look at, I still needed to put them somewhere I could find them in a true emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“Organize disaster supplies in convenient locations…Keep them where you spend most of your time, so they can be reached even if your building is badly damaged.” — Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2005/15/gip-15.pdf\">U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step3/\">EarthquakeCountry.org\u003c/a> provide an assortment of tips on preparing and storing your kits. Here are a few:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Use backpacks for personal survival kits because they’re easy to grab if you need to evacuate. You want one for each person in your household.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>You can keep a larger disaster kit in a plastic bin or other waterproof container. This should contain additional food and water, first aid items and other supplies, like an emergency radio, for instance, that you would need if you have to stay put for a while. This kit should also be easy to move around the house or load into a car if necessary.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Sifting through the bedroom closet, I found what I needed: a green plastic tub with a lid and handles for my household kit, and a black backpack with compartments for my to-go bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After packing my supplies into them, I scouted for storage locations. The bin slid nicely under the bench beside our bed, and I cleared out the bottom shelf of the hallway closet for the backpack, since it’s centrally located in the house. I then stashed some extra gallon jugs of water alongside the bag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1949522\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1949522\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-800x545.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"545\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-800x545.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-160x109.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-768x523.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-1020x694.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001-1200x817.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/Earthquakekit_001.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Organizing survival supplies is an important step in readiness planning, according to emergency experts. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emergency experts recommend that you also have survival kits for your car and workplace. For today, I focused mainly on the home, though I did throw water, towels and a blanket in the car. I’m considering ordering online additional prepacked kits for the car and work.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bags for shoes and stuffed animals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Here’s something I hadn’t thought about: Say a big earthquake hits at two in the morning. Suddenly, I’d be in the dark with broken glass and debris all over the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The aftermath of an earthquake is no time to wander around the house barefoot. That’s why experts recommend putting a pair of shoes or boots, plus a flashlight, in a plastic bag tied to the foot of your bed or nightstand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That ensures that you have quick access to getting something on your feet and allows you to safely get up, survey what’s happened to your home and check on your loved ones,” said Cynthia Shaw from \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/local/california/northern-california-coastal.html\">Red Cross Northern California\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this, I used kitchen twine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For my 4-year-old daughter, I made up a special bag to add to my to-go backpack. Emergencies can be scary, and they can also involve waiting around for long stretches of time without much to do. So USGS recommends including “comfort items, such as games, crayons, writing materials, and teddy bears” for the little ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With my daughter’s help, we picked out a soft blanket with purple butterflies on it, coloring pad, storybook and one of her favorite stuffed foxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Not just supplies — documents, too\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After I took inventory and shopped for supplies, I had tracked down most of the 15 essential survival items recommended by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/survival-kit-supplies.html\">American Red Cross\u003c/a>, along with some additions, to populate my kit. I even found the Bay Area and California maps I was looking for in the glove box of my car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I’m done, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When putting together survival supplies, it’s easy to obsess over gear and rations. But in emergencies, information matters too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember these checklist items from Day Two?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 30px\">\u003ci>Item 10: Copies of personal documents: medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"padding-left: 30px\">\u003ci>Item 12: Family and emergency contact information \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, my wife and I had written out a list of our contacts and made sure we had them in our phones. But we didn’t make a paper copy with the actual numbers, which is important in case cell service isn’t available or you can’t charge your phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FEMA has a pre-made \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/kids/make-a-plan\">emergency contact form\u003c/a> you can fill out on your computer and print for your wallet, survival kits and car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the documents, we got as far as sorting through the file cabinet where we keep these types of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today I decided to fire up the old all-in-one printer-scanner-copier and take care of business. But if you’re like me, nine times out of 10 your ink cartridge is empty. Today was no exception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I’ve got to get that ink, find a local copy shop or ask the kind people at KQED if it’s okay to print out a few documents for a good cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s was my hour for today. Tomorrow, I’ll be getting out the tool box to make a few home improvements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Day Four: Securing the home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One thing I learned while researching this challenge was that most people who got hurt during earthquakes like Loma Prieta in the Bay Area and Northridge in the Los Angeles area didn’t have buildings or structures collapse on them. Many of the injuries were caused by falling objects or furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for my final hour of this week’s earthquake prep, I surveyed my apartment to see what home improvements I could tackle to make it safer in the event of a big quake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earthquake Country Alliance has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step1/\">thorough guide\u003c/a> to securing your space. Here’s what to look out for:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Heavy objects hung on the wall, like mirrors or art in glass picture frames\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loose objects stored on open shelves or bookcases which can fly through the air during a quake\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Top-heavy furniture, like dressers, bookcases or TVs that could tip over\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In particular, experts say to look out for these potential hazards near places where you spend a lot of time: beds, couches, desks, the kids’ favorite play spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a quick perusal for hazards, I detected a big problem: the large print hanging over our couch in a glass-paned metal frame. My brother got it for us in Nashville, and it really ties the room together. But, it was either gonna have to go or be moved to a safer spot away from the sofa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another danger zone: the dresser next to my bed, with a digital camera, ceramic mason jar and mementos, including a hefty amethyst stone, lying on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I took a quick trip to San Francisco’s Glen Park Hardware, where a few helpful employees showed me some stuff I could use to lock things down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One big find was a product called Museum Wax, which is putty you stick underneath an object so it’ll stay attached to a surface. This was just the ticket for objects like my amethyst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The store also sold furniture safety straps, which let you attach freestanding shelves and armoires to the wall. These use hook-and-eye fixtures and industrial-strength Velcro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I left with the museum wax and a heavy-duty frame hanger that had three nail anchor points for remounting the print.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At home, I lifted the frame off the wall. Its weight confirmed that I’d rather not have it crash on my head under any circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I picked a spot on the opposite wall, across from the sofa, and hammered away. Once the frame was up, I took a breather on the sofa … with a renewed sense of calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Final thoughts\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That’s it for my hour-a-day earthquake readiness prep. These four days have taught me that spending just an hour here and there can make a world of difference when it comes to getting ready for the next emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes it wore me out. But the 4.5 magnitude quake that rumbled my sofa as I wrote Monday night, and another on Tuesday, offered the jolts of motivation I needed to persevere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s more to do, for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In four hours, though, I mapped out an emergency plan, prepped survival kits and made my home a safer, or at least less hazardous, place. I’ll repeat here what Brian Ferguson with Cal OES told me on the first day of this challenge:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any amount of preparation will make you safer than no preparation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I have your ear, let’s cram in a few final bits of advice I picked up from experts along the way:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Your emergency readiness will depend on your own circumstances. So prepare accordingly. For example, living on landfill in the Bay Area means you may want to take extra steps to secure your home; whereas living in wildfire prone areas may require different preparations. Perhaps you have a large family or pets to consider. We have just one pet, a betta fish named Emily. What would we do with her if the Big One hits? I’ll have to think on that one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter your priorities, readiness experts recommend signing up for emergency alerts. California has an early warning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1949333/download-californias-new-earthquake-early-warning-app\">ShakeAlert app\u003c/a>. Any amount of extra time you have could save your life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally, make a conscious effort to put gas in your car \u003ci>before\u003c/i> the low fuel light comes on. It’ll help if you ever have to evacuate. From now on, I’m gonna try. If nothing else, it’ll make my mom happy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "The Newt Normal: How Will These Remarkable Animals Survive in Extreme Climates?",
"headTitle": "The Newt Normal: How Will These Remarkable Animals Survive in Extreme Climates? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Anton Sorokin was hiking in the hills near his home in Berkeley when he came across a pond that was packed full of newts. For a couple of delightful hours, he watched the amphibians swim to the surface for a breath and then plunge underwater again. With a background in herpetology and wildlife photography, Sorokin took some pictures without any particular project in mind. He thought to himself, “Oh, what a great find!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was April 2020 and in the ensuing months, Sorokin occasionally drove the 30 minutes from his house to Briones Regional Park, then walked 45 minutes to the pond to see what was happening with the newts. As the season grew warmer, the pond shrank — a typical pattern during the hot, dry summers in this region of California. From his knowledge of the amphibians, Sorokin expected that the water would evaporate eventually and that the newts would strike out for wetter pastures, or else hunker down underground, where some moisture might linger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981405\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981405 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A California newt is seen emerging from the ground. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When the first sprinkle of rain arrives in the fall, newts emerge from the ground to soak in the raindrops. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By late July, however, the water in the pond turned from muddy brown to vibrant green. Sorokin noticed hundreds of newts sitting at the edge of the water, their heads poking out, seemingly deprived of oxygen by mats of algae. Normally, they absorb oxygen through their skin while swimming underwater, surfacing only occasionally for air, so this was weird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerned, Sorokin returned frequently, sometimes several times a week. In a summer of wildfires and record-setting heat waves around the area, he watched the pond turn into a field of muddy cracks. Many newts shriveled up and died. When some rain finally came and moistened the mud in November, he watched some survivors hoist themselves out of the cracks and trundle past desiccated carcasses. The next day, all the living newts were nowhere to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many animals, California’s newts are facing new challenges because of climate change, according to growing evidence. Although the animals evolved to deal with drought by delaying reproduction when conditions were extreme, the region has become drier for longer than in the past. These extended droughts and related wildfires are putting an unprecedented level of strain on the amphibians, says Lee Kats, an animal ecologist and conservation biologist who studies newts at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981404\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981404 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A California newt is seen walking on cracks on an evaporated pond. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surviving newts take refuge in the cracks left by the evaporated water in the pond. Occasionally, the newts will abandon their home in search of better conditions elsewhere, but many succumb to the heat as they traverse the dried mud. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981403\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981403 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A pond with a reflection of the clouds and blue sky. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The pond is a magnet for wildlife in the area, attracting newts, birds, mammals, insects and other invertebrates. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981402\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981402 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Dead newts on the ground.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bodies of the newts that didn’t survive litter the ground. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In recent years, researchers have begun to document deteriorating health in the animals, echoing a decline seen in amphibian populations worldwide. Projections suggest that things will get worse, emphasizing the need to rally around these often-overlooked animals and to help preserve their habitat. “For newts, a strategy that has worked for thousands and thousands of years is not going to work in this climate alteration that we’re experiencing,” Kats says. “And that’s just an incredible tragedy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After briefly considering whether he could bring buckets of water to the sickly newts, Sorokin decided the best way for him to help was to document what was happening. He kept taking pictures, hoping to draw attention to the challenges facing newts and other creatures in similar circumstances as a result of climate change. “I don’t like seeing animals in a situation where there’s no escape for them and where they’re clearly in trouble,” he says. “It’s not just in far-off exotic locations that this sort of thing is happening. It’s happening all around us. And the newts are one example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981401\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981401 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Three California newts crawl out of cracked mud.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the first raindrops of the season hit the ground and permeate the cracked mud, survivors wriggle out into the open to bask in the rejuvenating moisture. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981400\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981400 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The newts rely on rain to fill nearby ponds so they may reproduce. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To those who know and admire it, the newt is many things: a marvel of longevity; a paragon of resiliency; a deadly vessel of poison; a model organism for regenerative medicine; a golden-eyed charmer of quiet charisma. Though newts share a flat, slithery body shape with lizards, they are amphibians (a type of salamander), not reptiles. They live an entirely different kind of life. Instead of the lizard’s flighty speed, newts move slowly and deliberately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike lizards, newts can lose a limb, heart muscle or even the lens of an eye, and grow it back — a miraculous power that has drawn the attention of scientists working to find better ways of repairing damaged organs in humans. With lives that can last for decades, newts are in no rush, Kats says. They’re chill and approachable, but armed with deadly toxins; they’re also brave, often moving almost casually around much larger creatures. They’re carnivores who live without fear. Their appeal is more subtle than the burly attraction of a polar bear or mountain lion. And that’s what makes them so endearing to those who study them. “It’s the charisma that comes with knowledge,” says Kats, who knows them as well as anyone. “I may be too passionate about this animal, but I love it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981399\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981399 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A close-up portrait of a newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A close-up portrait of a newt. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981398\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981398 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A newt swims in a pond. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Once the pond contains water again, many of the returning newts are in visibly poor condition. Thankfully, a full pond hosts plenty of aquatic invertebrates for the newts to feed on. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of 100 or so newt species around the world, four live in California. Three of them live in the Bay Area. The California newt (Taricha torosa), the kind that Sorokin observed on his hikes, has a range that extends to Southern California, where in the early 1990s, Kats started tagging them in a first-of-its-kind project. He wanted to gather basic information about the animals, so he captured a few dozen, anesthetized them and implanted rice-sized transponders — like the ones veterinarians use to identify pets—into their abdomens. Over time, the number of tagged newts has grown, allowing Kats and colleagues to recapture, identify and take measurements of individuals over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results have provided key insights into the lives of newts, their extraordinary abilities, and also their vulnerabilities. Kats found that California newts reappeared around 15 meters of their last sighting, year after year, suggesting that they might not leave their habitats, even if the quality of that environment declines. The tags also revealed extremely long lives. Some of the newts with Kats’s original tags from the 1990s still appear in surveys, and they were already adults when he marked them. It’s not unusual, he says, for newts to live into their 30s and possibly even 40s — a remarkably long life expectancy compared to other amphibians. Many tree frogs live for only three to five years in the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981397\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981397\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A group of newts gather to breed in a healthy pond.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of newts gather to breed in a healthy pond. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over millennia, newts developed strategies for surviving California’s notoriously variable weather, and a long life span was part of the deal, says Samuel Sweet, a herpetologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The animals, which spend most of their time on land, rely on streams or ponds for mating and laying eggs. Historically, when water dried up during periodic droughts, they could defer the energy-demanding task of reproduction for a few years. And even when the conditions were unusually dry, they could often still find water. Kats remembers how, 30 years ago, streams in Southern California continued to flow even during particularly dry periods. While longer droughts were already a concern then, he thought those perennial streams would help the newts persevere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting around 2013, however, streams that seemed like they would flow forever started to dry up in the springtime for what Kats thinks may be the first time in recorded history. By then, he was collaborating in the tagging work with Gary Bucciarelli, a conservation biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose interests include the neurotoxins that newts harbor in their skin and how these chemicals affect other animals in the ecosystem. (Those toxins are so powerful they killed a 29-year-old man in 1979 after he swallowed an Oregon newt on a dare while under the influence of whiskey, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981407\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981407 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts huddle around strands of vegetation in the water. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newts huddle around strands of vegetation where they attach their eggs. As a female lays her eggs, she will remain motionless as the coating surrounding the eggs absorbs water and solidifies to form a gelatinous sac. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981408\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981408 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The developing eggs shortly after being laid.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The developing eggs shortly after being laid. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981409\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981409 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Newt embryos inside gelatinous case.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The newt embryos begin to take shape within a gelatinous case that helps keeps them safe from parasites and predators. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981410\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981410 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Young newts inside gelatinous case that are almost ready to hatch.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These young newts are nearly ready to hatch. They will start life with external gills, which will gradually be absorbed as they mature. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The scientists had expanded the newt research from LA’s Santa Monica Mountains south to Orange County and San Diego, east to the San Gabriel Mountains, and north to the Bay Area, Mendocino County and the Sierra Foothills. As the water dried up around LA, researchers started detecting fewer tagged newts, Bucciarelli says. By the end of 2016, many of the newts that did come back to their streams were looking scrawny and unwell. “You could see their ribs, vertebra, the pelvic girdle,” Bucciarelli says. “Things that you should not see in a healthy population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To figure out what was going on, the researchers looked to their large and long-term data set, where they found that what they were seeing was more than a fluke. Between 2008 and 2016, they found a nearly 20% decline in a measure of body condition among California newts across 30 breeding sites in Southern California. That period of drastic deterioration in size was more rapid than other studies have documented in any other amphibian species, Bucciarelli says. It also coincided with record-setting high temperatures and what is thought to be the most severe drought in California in 1,200 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981411\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981411 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-800x560.jpg\" alt=\"Multiple juvenile newts that didn't survive harsh conditions seen laying. \" width=\"800\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-800x560.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-1020x715.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-768x538.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-1536x1076.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Although many adult newts are able to survive the drought and harsh conditions, the juveniles are less fortunate. These younger newts were unable to crawl the distance to the sheltering mud cracks. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Northern California, where climate records didn’t show the same extremes, newts appear to have retained their body condition during the same period. But with modeling, the team predicted that droughts and related declines would soon catch up to newts and other amphibians in the Bay Area and other parts of Northern California. Newts once inhabited 10 streams in the mountains above San Diego, Sweet says. Now they occupy only three of those streams. In Orange County, he estimates half the newt streams that existed in the 1960s are gone because of drought and development. “What we’re seeing in LA and San Diego counties, those are going to be the conditions sometime in the not-too-distant future in San Luis Obispo County and Monterey County,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California newts in Southern California are already classified as a species of special concern by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, an acknowledgment of their vulnerability, although they are not yet listed as threatened or endangered. As environmental stress becomes relentless, experts worry it may be hard for them to hang on. “These newts down here have adapted to deal with drought. That’s part of our climate here in Southern California landscapes,” Bucciarelli says. “But what they haven’t evolved to deal with is drought simultaneously combined with record warming temperatures, and that’s a result of climate change. Now, a double threat is occurring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981412\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981412 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts breeding season begins. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the pond refills, newts return and their breeding season begins. Mated females attach egg masses to submerged vegetation while males wander around looking for mates. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981413\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981413 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A pair of submerged newts conserve energy and remain motionless as the gelatinousmatrix surrounding their eggs solidifies and attaches to the vegetation.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pair of submerged newts conserve energy and remain motionless as the gelatinous matrix surrounding their eggs solidifies and attaches to the vegetation. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time Sorokin was visiting his newt pond in Berkeley in 2020, COVID-19 had upended life for humans, and California’s newts appeared to be experiencing a pandemic of their own. In addition to newts with protruding hip bones and lack of fat stored on their bodies that Kats and Bucciarelli noted, researchers started finding newts with tail lesions so severe that muscle and skin had worn away to expose the tips of their tail bones. Some animals had clouded eyeballs that looked like cataracts. The animals also acted strangely, whirling around in circles. It was the first major disease in Southern California newts in 30 years, Kats says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey euthanized an emaciated newt to investigate what had sickened it. The researchers found numerous issues, they wrote in a September 2021 report, including lungworms, inflammation in the inner ears, and parasites in its intestinal tract. Yet no single cause could explain all the symptoms. Kats suspects that extended dry spells and high temperatures may have weakened the amphibians’ immune systems, making them more vulnerable to several ordinary infections. “I’m absolutely convinced,” he says, “that the conditions they were experiencing contributed to this major disease outbreak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981414\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981414 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A garter snake eats a California newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the newts are stranded, they become more susceptible to various threats. Although the newts are poisonous, some predators like this garter snake are still able to eat them. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Strange illnesses and dry streambeds aren’t the only challenges facing newts. Invasive crayfish, somehow unfazed by the newts’ toxins, have been spreading in California lakes and decimating newt populations by feeding on egg masses and larvae. Blooms of cyanobacteria may be another problem: These photosynthetic microorganisms, which produce a variety of toxins of their own, have been proliferating in lakes around the world, a trend linked to warming temperatures, among other factors. In the first assessment of two Southern California lakes, published in 2021, a group of researchers from several universities and government agencies found the highest concentrations ever recorded in the region of three cyanotoxins, which have been linked to health issues in people and wildlife, including amphibians. Sorokin suspects that a cyanobacteria bloom explains the greening of that pond near his Berkeley home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traffic is another concern. Generally unconcerned with predators because of their poisonous skin, newts move slowly, as if they don’t have a care in the world, Kats says. After spending much of their lives in the woods and waiting on average five years, sometimes longer, to become sexually mature, they often must cross busy roads to get to streams for mating. Drivers don’t usually see them — or else they don’t stop. One of Sweet’s graduate students visited a study site in San Luis Obispo one day after it rained and counted more than 100 road-killed newts. “The average newt there might be 25 or 30 years old,” Sweet says. “They get all ready to breed: ‘I’m going to walk down to the creek and lay my eggs for the first time tonight.’ Squish. They get run over 10 minutes before they do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981415\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981415 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Blue-green algae. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the pond shrinks and temperatures remain high, the water turns to a slurry of toxic blue-green algae and cyanobacteria. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981416\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981416 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts line the edges of the pond with their heads raised above the algae andcyanobacteria.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newts line the edges of the pond with their heads raised above the algae and cyanobacteria to breathe. Although conditions in the pond are noxious, the newts choose to remain — likely because the heat away from the moisture is simply too dangerous. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Habitat fragmentation makes it harder now than in the past for newts to cope with harsh conditions, Sweet adds. When newts experienced changes to the climate in the past, they were able to rebound and expand their range again when conditions improved. But they can’t come back if there isn’t a connected population to replenish them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altogether, the cards can seem stacked against a species that has endured its share of environmental stress for thousands of years. “The stuff that amphibians like newts are facing is kind of death of a thousand cuts,” Sweet says. “It’s not any one thing. It’s not drought, it’s drought and getting run over when you’re 25 years old and half an hour away from laying eggs for the first time. It’s having your eggs die because a septic tank has overflowed and the stream is full of salt. It’s getting eaten by a raccoon that’s wandering up and down the creek because somebody has garbage out and there are too many raccoons, and the road department wanted to widen the road and fill in the stream with boulders. It’s all this stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981417\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981417 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A newt pokes its head above the algae and cyanobacteria. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite all they’re up against, it’s not too late for newts, Kats says. Some environmental groups have mobilized to help newts around the world, including in California. In the hills north of San Francisco, volunteers with the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade spend winter nights picking up the amphibians as they make their way to or from their breeding sites, carrying them across roads to protect them from cars. Along the East Coast and in parts of Berkeley, roads frequented by newts are closed annually for the same reason.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the most promising strategies for protecting newts focus on improving and protecting their habitats and ecosystems and, with them, biodiversity more generally, Bucciarelli says. One major effort in the works is California’s 30×30 initiative, an executive order signed by the governor that has a goal of conserving 30% of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030. Because amphibian habitats span much of the state’s land and watersheds, they stand to benefit substantially from the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Habitat protection includes human intervention to mitigate disaster and destruction. Multiple studies in Europe have shown that enlarging and deepening ponds can lead to rapid and major increases in populations of newts, frogs and toads — a technique that could be useful for removing silt after wildfires, as well. Researchers have also found value in “newt hotels,” human-made piles of stones covered with soil and fabric that mimic the kinds of environments the animals use to overwinter in harsh conditions. And in California, government agencies are actively working to create freshwater ponds that are free of invasive species, such as crayfish, to replace what amphibians have lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981418\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981418 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead newt in cupped hands. This one succumbed to the heat. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981419\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981419 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A live newt in cupped hands. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Conservation Genomics Project is another statewide effort to protect amphibians and other creatures, not by protecting habitat but by protecting genetic diversity. The government-funded project aims to sequence the genomes of more than 230 animal and plant species, including some amphibians and reptiles — as a way to identify areas of high and low genetic diversity that should be the focus of conservation work. The newt is not on the sequencing list in part because its genome is gigantic and intractable, Bucciarelli says. But the initiative, which has a goal of producing “the most comprehensive, multispecies, genomic data set ever assembled to help manage regional biodiversity,” focuses on creatures that share newt habitat. Those animals — and newts — would ultimately benefit from any resulting changes and protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disease surveillance should help, too, by detecting emerging illnesses before they can spread. In the United States, the USGS has set up a nationwide program to check newts and other amphibians around the country for signs of a fungal infection that has devastated European salamander populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts like these may give newts a fighting chance to do what they do best: persevere. Because newts are so long-lived, seemingly small measures could help them wait out poor conditions until favorable years return, and with those years the right conditions for mating, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981420\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981420 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a male newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A male newt migrates toward a pond during the breeding season. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sorokin has seen this potential for redemption in his Berkeley-area pond over the past two years. When Northern California finally got a real rainy season in late 2021, the pond refilled again. Since then, he has observed plenty of healthy newts and lots of breeding activity. When they come up for air, they sometimes let out a little squeak. Seeing them return has filled him with relief — and also trepidation. He worries about the next dry season and the next generations of newts. He takes photos, he says, to spread his love for newts to a wider audience, and to convince people to care about this animal that doesn’t get its fair share of headlines about the impacts of a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we move deeper into the Anthropocene, more humans need to embrace our role in protecting such animals, and we need to start now, says Bucciarelli. We put them in this predicament. It’s up to us to get them out of it. Solving the puzzle of how to help newts could have benefits far beyond one amphibian, he says — creating a road map for how we deal with many other biodiversity issues on a hotter, drier planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many dedicated, talented and passionate people working collaboratively to come up with viable solutions. We can’t fix the problems of drought. We can’t make it rain. But we can figure out ways to manage populations so that they have the highest probability of persisting through this really stressful time,” Bucciarelli says. “I have a lot of hope.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981421\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981421 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A male newt holds on tight to a female during a mating event. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story originally appeared in \u003ca href=\"https://www.biographic.com/the-newt-normal/\">bioGraphic\u003c/a>, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Droughts, wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather events are putting an unprecedented strain on California newts. With help, scientists think these remarkable animals will be able to persevere.",
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"description": "Droughts, wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather events are putting an unprecedented strain on California newts. With help, scientists think these remarkable animals will be able to persevere.",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://www.biographic.com/contributor/Emily-Sohn/\">Emily Sohn\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.biographic.com/contributor/Anton-Sorokin/\">Anton Sorokin\u003c/a>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Anton Sorokin was hiking in the hills near his home in Berkeley when he came across a pond that was packed full of newts. For a couple of delightful hours, he watched the amphibians swim to the surface for a breath and then plunge underwater again. With a background in herpetology and wildlife photography, Sorokin took some pictures without any particular project in mind. He thought to himself, “Oh, what a great find!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was April 2020 and in the ensuing months, Sorokin occasionally drove the 30 minutes from his house to Briones Regional Park, then walked 45 minutes to the pond to see what was happening with the newts. As the season grew warmer, the pond shrank — a typical pattern during the hot, dry summers in this region of California. From his knowledge of the amphibians, Sorokin expected that the water would evaporate eventually and that the newts would strike out for wetter pastures, or else hunker down underground, where some moisture might linger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981405\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981405 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A California newt is seen emerging from the ground. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62247_G_1stRainExodus-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When the first sprinkle of rain arrives in the fall, newts emerge from the ground to soak in the raindrops. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By late July, however, the water in the pond turned from muddy brown to vibrant green. Sorokin noticed hundreds of newts sitting at the edge of the water, their heads poking out, seemingly deprived of oxygen by mats of algae. Normally, they absorb oxygen through their skin while swimming underwater, surfacing only occasionally for air, so this was weird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerned, Sorokin returned frequently, sometimes several times a week. In a summer of wildfires and record-setting heat waves around the area, he watched the pond turn into a field of muddy cracks. Many newts shriveled up and died. When some rain finally came and moistened the mud in November, he watched some survivors hoist themselves out of the cracks and trundle past desiccated carcasses. The next day, all the living newts were nowhere to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many animals, California’s newts are facing new challenges because of climate change, according to growing evidence. Although the animals evolved to deal with drought by delaying reproduction when conditions were extreme, the region has become drier for longer than in the past. These extended droughts and related wildfires are putting an unprecedented level of strain on the amphibians, says Lee Kats, an animal ecologist and conservation biologist who studies newts at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981404\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981404 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A California newt is seen walking on cracks on an evaporated pond. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62248_E_Heatwave11-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surviving newts take refuge in the cracks left by the evaporated water in the pond. Occasionally, the newts will abandon their home in search of better conditions elsewhere, but many succumb to the heat as they traverse the dried mud. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981403\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981403 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A pond with a reflection of the clouds and blue sky. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62249_K_NewtPond-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The pond is a magnet for wildlife in the area, attracting newts, birds, mammals, insects and other invertebrates. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981402\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981402 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Dead newts on the ground.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62250_I_Aftermath-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bodies of the newts that didn’t survive litter the ground. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In recent years, researchers have begun to document deteriorating health in the animals, echoing a decline seen in amphibian populations worldwide. Projections suggest that things will get worse, emphasizing the need to rally around these often-overlooked animals and to help preserve their habitat. “For newts, a strategy that has worked for thousands and thousands of years is not going to work in this climate alteration that we’re experiencing,” Kats says. “And that’s just an incredible tragedy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After briefly considering whether he could bring buckets of water to the sickly newts, Sorokin decided the best way for him to help was to document what was happening. He kept taking pictures, hoping to draw attention to the challenges facing newts and other creatures in similar circumstances as a result of climate change. “I don’t like seeing animals in a situation where there’s no escape for them and where they’re clearly in trouble,” he says. “It’s not just in far-off exotic locations that this sort of thing is happening. It’s happening all around us. And the newts are one example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981401\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981401 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Three California newts crawl out of cracked mud.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62251_G_1stRainExodus4-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the first raindrops of the season hit the ground and permeate the cracked mud, survivors wriggle out into the open to bask in the rejuvenating moisture. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981400\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981400 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62252_G_1stRainExodus5-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The newts rely on rain to fill nearby ponds so they may reproduce. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To those who know and admire it, the newt is many things: a marvel of longevity; a paragon of resiliency; a deadly vessel of poison; a model organism for regenerative medicine; a golden-eyed charmer of quiet charisma. Though newts share a flat, slithery body shape with lizards, they are amphibians (a type of salamander), not reptiles. They live an entirely different kind of life. Instead of the lizard’s flighty speed, newts move slowly and deliberately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike lizards, newts can lose a limb, heart muscle or even the lens of an eye, and grow it back — a miraculous power that has drawn the attention of scientists working to find better ways of repairing damaged organs in humans. With lives that can last for decades, newts are in no rush, Kats says. They’re chill and approachable, but armed with deadly toxins; they’re also brave, often moving almost casually around much larger creatures. They’re carnivores who live without fear. Their appeal is more subtle than the burly attraction of a polar bear or mountain lion. And that’s what makes them so endearing to those who study them. “It’s the charisma that comes with knowledge,” says Kats, who knows them as well as anyone. “I may be too passionate about this animal, but I love it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981399\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981399 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A close-up portrait of a newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62253_A_IntroNewt1-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A close-up portrait of a newt. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981398\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981398 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A newt swims in a pond. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62254_K_WaterAgain-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Once the pond contains water again, many of the returning newts are in visibly poor condition. Thankfully, a full pond hosts plenty of aquatic invertebrates for the newts to feed on. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of 100 or so newt species around the world, four live in California. Three of them live in the Bay Area. The California newt (Taricha torosa), the kind that Sorokin observed on his hikes, has a range that extends to Southern California, where in the early 1990s, Kats started tagging them in a first-of-its-kind project. He wanted to gather basic information about the animals, so he captured a few dozen, anesthetized them and implanted rice-sized transponders — like the ones veterinarians use to identify pets—into their abdomens. Over time, the number of tagged newts has grown, allowing Kats and colleagues to recapture, identify and take measurements of individuals over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results have provided key insights into the lives of newts, their extraordinary abilities, and also their vulnerabilities. Kats found that California newts reappeared around 15 meters of their last sighting, year after year, suggesting that they might not leave their habitats, even if the quality of that environment declines. The tags also revealed extremely long lives. Some of the newts with Kats’s original tags from the 1990s still appear in surveys, and they were already adults when he marked them. It’s not unusual, he says, for newts to live into their 30s and possibly even 40s — a remarkably long life expectancy compared to other amphibians. Many tree frogs live for only three to five years in the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981397\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981397\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A group of newts gather to breed in a healthy pond.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62255_HealthyNewtsDifferentPond-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of newts gather to breed in a healthy pond. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over millennia, newts developed strategies for surviving California’s notoriously variable weather, and a long life span was part of the deal, says Samuel Sweet, a herpetologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The animals, which spend most of their time on land, rely on streams or ponds for mating and laying eggs. Historically, when water dried up during periodic droughts, they could defer the energy-demanding task of reproduction for a few years. And even when the conditions were unusually dry, they could often still find water. Kats remembers how, 30 years ago, streams in Southern California continued to flow even during particularly dry periods. While longer droughts were already a concern then, he thought those perennial streams would help the newts persevere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting around 2013, however, streams that seemed like they would flow forever started to dry up in the springtime for what Kats thinks may be the first time in recorded history. By then, he was collaborating in the tagging work with Gary Bucciarelli, a conservation biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose interests include the neurotoxins that newts harbor in their skin and how these chemicals affect other animals in the ecosystem. (Those toxins are so powerful they killed a 29-year-old man in 1979 after he swallowed an Oregon newt on a dare while under the influence of whiskey, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981407\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981407 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts huddle around strands of vegetation in the water. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62480_BiographicNewt7-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newts huddle around strands of vegetation where they attach their eggs. As a female lays her eggs, she will remain motionless as the coating surrounding the eggs absorbs water and solidifies to form a gelatinous sac. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981408\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981408 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The developing eggs shortly after being laid.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62481_BiographicNewt26-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The developing eggs shortly after being laid. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981409\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981409 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Newt embryos inside gelatinous case.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62482_BiographicNewt27-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The newt embryos begin to take shape within a gelatinous case that helps keeps them safe from parasites and predators. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981410\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981410 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Young newts inside gelatinous case that are almost ready to hatch.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62483_BiographicNewt18-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These young newts are nearly ready to hatch. They will start life with external gills, which will gradually be absorbed as they mature. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The scientists had expanded the newt research from LA’s Santa Monica Mountains south to Orange County and San Diego, east to the San Gabriel Mountains, and north to the Bay Area, Mendocino County and the Sierra Foothills. As the water dried up around LA, researchers started detecting fewer tagged newts, Bucciarelli says. By the end of 2016, many of the newts that did come back to their streams were looking scrawny and unwell. “You could see their ribs, vertebra, the pelvic girdle,” Bucciarelli says. “Things that you should not see in a healthy population.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To figure out what was going on, the researchers looked to their large and long-term data set, where they found that what they were seeing was more than a fluke. Between 2008 and 2016, they found a nearly 20% decline in a measure of body condition among California newts across 30 breeding sites in Southern California. That period of drastic deterioration in size was more rapid than other studies have documented in any other amphibian species, Bucciarelli says. It also coincided with record-setting high temperatures and what is thought to be the most severe drought in California in 1,200 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981411\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981411 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-800x560.jpg\" alt=\"Multiple juvenile newts that didn't survive harsh conditions seen laying. \" width=\"800\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-800x560.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-1020x715.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-768x538.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut-1536x1076.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62484_I_JuvenileMortality2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Although many adult newts are able to survive the drought and harsh conditions, the juveniles are less fortunate. These younger newts were unable to crawl the distance to the sheltering mud cracks. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Northern California, where climate records didn’t show the same extremes, newts appear to have retained their body condition during the same period. But with modeling, the team predicted that droughts and related declines would soon catch up to newts and other amphibians in the Bay Area and other parts of Northern California. Newts once inhabited 10 streams in the mountains above San Diego, Sweet says. Now they occupy only three of those streams. In Orange County, he estimates half the newt streams that existed in the 1960s are gone because of drought and development. “What we’re seeing in LA and San Diego counties, those are going to be the conditions sometime in the not-too-distant future in San Luis Obispo County and Monterey County,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California newts in Southern California are already classified as a species of special concern by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, an acknowledgment of their vulnerability, although they are not yet listed as threatened or endangered. As environmental stress becomes relentless, experts worry it may be hard for them to hang on. “These newts down here have adapted to deal with drought. That’s part of our climate here in Southern California landscapes,” Bucciarelli says. “But what they haven’t evolved to deal with is drought simultaneously combined with record warming temperatures, and that’s a result of climate change. Now, a double threat is occurring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981412\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981412 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts breeding season begins. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62485_BiographicNewt1-3-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the pond refills, newts return and their breeding season begins. Mated females attach egg masses to submerged vegetation while males wander around looking for mates. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981413\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981413 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A pair of submerged newts conserve energy and remain motionless as the gelatinousmatrix surrounding their eggs solidifies and attaches to the vegetation.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62486_BiographicNewt3-2-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pair of submerged newts conserve energy and remain motionless as the gelatinous matrix surrounding their eggs solidifies and attaches to the vegetation. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By the time Sorokin was visiting his newt pond in Berkeley in 2020, COVID-19 had upended life for humans, and California’s newts appeared to be experiencing a pandemic of their own. In addition to newts with protruding hip bones and lack of fat stored on their bodies that Kats and Bucciarelli noted, researchers started finding newts with tail lesions so severe that muscle and skin had worn away to expose the tips of their tail bones. Some animals had clouded eyeballs that looked like cataracts. The animals also acted strangely, whirling around in circles. It was the first major disease in Southern California newts in 30 years, Kats says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey euthanized an emaciated newt to investigate what had sickened it. The researchers found numerous issues, they wrote in a September 2021 report, including lungworms, inflammation in the inner ears, and parasites in its intestinal tract. Yet no single cause could explain all the symptoms. Kats suspects that extended dry spells and high temperatures may have weakened the amphibians’ immune systems, making them more vulnerable to several ordinary infections. “I’m absolutely convinced,” he says, “that the conditions they were experiencing contributed to this major disease outbreak.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981414\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981414 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A garter snake eats a California newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62487_F_PredationDifferentPond1-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the newts are stranded, they become more susceptible to various threats. Although the newts are poisonous, some predators like this garter snake are still able to eat them. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Strange illnesses and dry streambeds aren’t the only challenges facing newts. Invasive crayfish, somehow unfazed by the newts’ toxins, have been spreading in California lakes and decimating newt populations by feeding on egg masses and larvae. Blooms of cyanobacteria may be another problem: These photosynthetic microorganisms, which produce a variety of toxins of their own, have been proliferating in lakes around the world, a trend linked to warming temperatures, among other factors. In the first assessment of two Southern California lakes, published in 2021, a group of researchers from several universities and government agencies found the highest concentrations ever recorded in the region of three cyanotoxins, which have been linked to health issues in people and wildlife, including amphibians. Sorokin suspects that a cyanobacteria bloom explains the greening of that pond near his Berkeley home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traffic is another concern. Generally unconcerned with predators because of their poisonous skin, newts move slowly, as if they don’t have a care in the world, Kats says. After spending much of their lives in the woods and waiting on average five years, sometimes longer, to become sexually mature, they often must cross busy roads to get to streams for mating. Drivers don’t usually see them — or else they don’t stop. One of Sweet’s graduate students visited a study site in San Luis Obispo one day after it rained and counted more than 100 road-killed newts. “The average newt there might be 25 or 30 years old,” Sweet says. “They get all ready to breed: ‘I’m going to walk down to the creek and lay my eggs for the first time tonight.’ Squish. They get run over 10 minutes before they do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981415\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981415 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Blue-green algae. \" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62488_D_Cyanobacteria-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As the pond shrinks and temperatures remain high, the water turns to a slurry of toxic blue-green algae and cyanobacteria. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981416\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981416 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"Newts line the edges of the pond with their heads raised above the algae andcyanobacteria.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62489_D_EutrophicationLate11-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Newts line the edges of the pond with their heads raised above the algae and cyanobacteria to breathe. Although conditions in the pond are noxious, the newts choose to remain — likely because the heat away from the moisture is simply too dangerous. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Habitat fragmentation makes it harder now than in the past for newts to cope with harsh conditions, Sweet adds. When newts experienced changes to the climate in the past, they were able to rebound and expand their range again when conditions improved. But they can’t come back if there isn’t a connected population to replenish them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Altogether, the cards can seem stacked against a species that has endured its share of environmental stress for thousands of years. “The stuff that amphibians like newts are facing is kind of death of a thousand cuts,” Sweet says. “It’s not any one thing. It’s not drought, it’s drought and getting run over when you’re 25 years old and half an hour away from laying eggs for the first time. It’s having your eggs die because a septic tank has overflowed and the stream is full of salt. It’s getting eaten by a raccoon that’s wandering up and down the creek because somebody has garbage out and there are too many raccoons, and the road department wanted to widen the road and fill in the stream with boulders. It’s all this stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981417\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981417 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62490_D_EutrophicationLate5-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A newt pokes its head above the algae and cyanobacteria. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Despite all they’re up against, it’s not too late for newts, Kats says. Some environmental groups have mobilized to help newts around the world, including in California. In the hills north of San Francisco, volunteers with the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade spend winter nights picking up the amphibians as they make their way to or from their breeding sites, carrying them across roads to protect them from cars. Along the East Coast and in parts of Berkeley, roads frequented by newts are closed annually for the same reason.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the most promising strategies for protecting newts focus on improving and protecting their habitats and ecosystems and, with them, biodiversity more generally, Bucciarelli says. One major effort in the works is California’s 30×30 initiative, an executive order signed by the governor that has a goal of conserving 30% of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030. Because amphibian habitats span much of the state’s land and watersheds, they stand to benefit substantially from the plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Habitat protection includes human intervention to mitigate disaster and destruction. Multiple studies in Europe have shown that enlarging and deepening ponds can lead to rapid and major increases in populations of newts, frogs and toads — a technique that could be useful for removing silt after wildfires, as well. Researchers have also found value in “newt hotels,” human-made piles of stones covered with soil and fabric that mimic the kinds of environments the animals use to overwinter in harsh conditions. And in California, government agencies are actively working to create freshwater ponds that are free of invasive species, such as crayfish, to replace what amphibians have lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981418\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981418 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62491_NewtinHandB-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead newt in cupped hands. This one succumbed to the heat. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981419\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981419 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62492_NewtinHandA-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A live newt in cupped hands. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The California Conservation Genomics Project is another statewide effort to protect amphibians and other creatures, not by protecting habitat but by protecting genetic diversity. The government-funded project aims to sequence the genomes of more than 230 animal and plant species, including some amphibians and reptiles — as a way to identify areas of high and low genetic diversity that should be the focus of conservation work. The newt is not on the sequencing list in part because its genome is gigantic and intractable, Bucciarelli says. But the initiative, which has a goal of producing “the most comprehensive, multispecies, genomic data set ever assembled to help manage regional biodiversity,” focuses on creatures that share newt habitat. Those animals — and newts — would ultimately benefit from any resulting changes and protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Disease surveillance should help, too, by detecting emerging illnesses before they can spread. In the United States, the USGS has set up a nationwide program to check newts and other amphibians around the country for signs of a fungal infection that has devastated European salamander populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts like these may give newts a fighting chance to do what they do best: persevere. Because newts are so long-lived, seemingly small measures could help them wait out poor conditions until favorable years return, and with those years the right conditions for mating, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981420\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981420 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a male newt.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62493_A_IntroNewt3-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A male newt migrates toward a pond during the breeding season. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sorokin has seen this potential for redemption in his Berkeley-area pond over the past two years. When Northern California finally got a real rainy season in late 2021, the pond refilled again. Since then, he has observed plenty of healthy newts and lots of breeding activity. When they come up for air, they sometimes let out a little squeak. Seeing them return has filled him with relief — and also trepidation. He worries about the next dry season and the next generations of newts. He takes photos, he says, to spread his love for newts to a wider audience, and to convince people to care about this animal that doesn’t get its fair share of headlines about the impacts of a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we move deeper into the Anthropocene, more humans need to embrace our role in protecting such animals, and we need to start now, says Bucciarelli. We put them in this predicament. It’s up to us to get them out of it. Solving the puzzle of how to help newts could have benefits far beyond one amphibian, he says — creating a road map for how we deal with many other biodiversity issues on a hotter, drier planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are so many dedicated, talented and passionate people working collaboratively to come up with viable solutions. We can’t fix the problems of drought. We can’t make it rain. But we can figure out ways to manage populations so that they have the highest probability of persisting through this really stressful time,” Bucciarelli says. “I have a lot of hope.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981421\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981421 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62494_BiographicNewt12-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A male newt holds on tight to a female during a mating event. \u003ccite>(Anton Sorokin/bioGraphic)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story originally appeared in \u003ca href=\"https://www.biographic.com/the-newt-normal/\">bioGraphic\u003c/a>, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "These COVID-Sniffing Canines Are on the Job at Nursing Homes in Marin County",
"headTitle": "These COVID-Sniffing Canines Are on the Job at Nursing Homes in Marin County | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Dogs are detecting COVID in long-term care facilities in California, with an accuracy almost on par with rapid tests. Currently, two white labradors named Scarlett and Rizzo are on the job in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In less than a half hour, dogs can scan hundreds of patients at a nursing home by sniffing their shoes and ankles. If they identify COVID, they will sit down next to the suspected resident. A rapid antigen test can verify the results.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dr. Carol Glaser, medical officer, California's infectious disease labs\"]‘We use them to sniff bombs. We use them for drugs. They can search for dead bodies under thousands of tons of rubble. It’s not surprising that they would be able to do this.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The canines are sniffing for unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released in human breath or sweat when someone is positive for COVID. Dogs have hundreds of millions more specialized odor-detecting neurons than humans, which means a dog can detect the equivalent of one drop of a liquid in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Think about what we use dogs for,” said Dr. Carol Glaser, medical officer for California’s infectious disease labs. “We use them to sniff bombs. We use them for drugs. They can search for dead bodies under thousands of tons of rubble. It’s not surprising that they would be able to do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981440\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981440\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An elderly person wearing a black top and blue jeans sits in a wheelchair while a person dressed in a hospital uniform stands over a person in bed with a dog beside them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Long-term care facility residents are receiving support from Bay Area nonprofit Early Alert Canines sniffing dogs trained to detect COVID. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In COVID field trials, Scarlett and Rizzo are right about 80% of the time, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795599\">antigen tests at 81%–91%\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that they can get better,” said Glaser. “We know in the controlled lab setting, when they were using what’s called the scent wheel, they were over 95% very consistently. So, we know we can get there.”[aside postID=\"news_11938585,science_1938255\" label=\"Related Post\"]The scent wheel is like a multiple-choice test with various odors. The device is a training tool that can desensitize dogs to non-target odors they may encounter during searches. During eight weeks of initial training, Scarlett and Rizzo correctly identified the socks of COVID-positive patients nearly all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the fall of 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcfoundation.org/stories/project-uses-dogs-detect-covid-19#:~:text=Scarlett%20and%20Rizzo%2C%20COVID%2D19,tested%20COVID%2D19%20infected%20individuals.\">the dogs sniffed for COVID at schools around San Francisco\u003c/a>. They screened students before and after proms, and the canines were helpful in special needs classrooms where students often struggled to self-swab. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/06/16/1104931711/dogs-trained-to-sniff-out-covid-in-schools-are-getting-a-lot-of-love-for-their-e\">Similar efforts\u003c/a> have unfolded in Florida, Hawaii and Massachusetts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers across the world are training dogs to detect COVID. A team in \u003ca href=\"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268382\">France\u003c/a> and scientists in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.20.427105v1\">United Arab Emirates\u003c/a> worked with dogs who identified COVID in sweat samples collected from people’s armpits. In \u003ca href=\"https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/5/e008024\">Finland\u003c/a>, four dogs were trained to detect COVID at the airport using skin samples collected from various body parts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981445\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981445\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two dogs wearing collars attached to leashes in a hallway with one sitting on the right and the other standing to the left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White labs Scarlett and Rizzo have been trained by Bay Area nonprofit Early Alert Canines in a laboratory setting to detect odors specific to COVID-19. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Currently, dogs are trained to monitor patients with diabetes. If a patient’s blood sugar drops or spikes, canines alert owners with a paw or a nudge to head off a medical emergency. However, as this \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/02/12/798481601/the-hope-and-hype-of-diabetic-alert-dogs\">NPR investigation\u003c/a> highlighted, “The diabetic alert dog industry is unstandardized and largely unregulated. And the science on a dog’s ability to reliably sniff out blood sugar changes is, at best, inconclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As with COVID sniffers, more research is needed before people can fully depend on dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Glaser hopes canines can eventually sniff for influenza or norovirus at nursing homes. She says sweeping a facility with dogs is much cheaper than traditional testing, requires fewer staff and eliminates the majority of plastic waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know it may be that this has been under our noses, so to speak, and we haven’t even recognized it,” said Dr. Matt Willis, public health officer for Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981443\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981443\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing face masks, medical gear and gloves stand in front of a mobile maintenance table with medical supplies on top.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Medical workers check confirmatory COVID tests to ensure the pilot program data reflects accurate results. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He says the bias toward tech solutions prevented people from tapping canines earlier in the pandemic. Willis envisions a day when all public health departments train canine units just like the police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could imagine dogs moving from facility to facility or school to school, and just screening everyone in a matter of minutes,” said Willis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes Scarlett and Rizzo — the COVID dogs — can detect the virus a day or two earlier than a traditional test will register as positive. But overall, the canines are still not quite as sensitive as lab tests. As soon as they are, the state plans to scale canine diagnostics for COVID across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Dogs are detecting COVID in long-term care facilities in California, with an accuracy almost on par with rapid tests. Currently, two white labradors named Scarlett and Rizzo are on the job in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In less than a half hour, dogs can scan hundreds of patients at a nursing home by sniffing their shoes and ankles. If they identify COVID, they will sit down next to the suspected resident. A rapid antigen test can verify the results.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We use them to sniff bombs. We use them for drugs. They can search for dead bodies under thousands of tons of rubble. It’s not surprising that they would be able to do this.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The canines are sniffing for unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released in human breath or sweat when someone is positive for COVID. Dogs have hundreds of millions more specialized odor-detecting neurons than humans, which means a dog can detect the equivalent of one drop of a liquid in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Think about what we use dogs for,” said Dr. Carol Glaser, medical officer for California’s infectious disease labs. “We use them to sniff bombs. We use them for drugs. They can search for dead bodies under thousands of tons of rubble. It’s not surprising that they would be able to do this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981440\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981440\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An elderly person wearing a black top and blue jeans sits in a wheelchair while a person dressed in a hospital uniform stands over a person in bed with a dog beside them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2445-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Long-term care facility residents are receiving support from Bay Area nonprofit Early Alert Canines sniffing dogs trained to detect COVID. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In COVID field trials, Scarlett and Rizzo are right about 80% of the time, compared to \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795599\">antigen tests at 81%–91%\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that they can get better,” said Glaser. “We know in the controlled lab setting, when they were using what’s called the scent wheel, they were over 95% very consistently. So, we know we can get there.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The scent wheel is like a multiple-choice test with various odors. The device is a training tool that can desensitize dogs to non-target odors they may encounter during searches. During eight weeks of initial training, Scarlett and Rizzo correctly identified the socks of COVID-positive patients nearly all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the fall of 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcfoundation.org/stories/project-uses-dogs-detect-covid-19#:~:text=Scarlett%20and%20Rizzo%2C%20COVID%2D19,tested%20COVID%2D19%20infected%20individuals.\">the dogs sniffed for COVID at schools around San Francisco\u003c/a>. They screened students before and after proms, and the canines were helpful in special needs classrooms where students often struggled to self-swab. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/06/16/1104931711/dogs-trained-to-sniff-out-covid-in-schools-are-getting-a-lot-of-love-for-their-e\">Similar efforts\u003c/a> have unfolded in Florida, Hawaii and Massachusetts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers across the world are training dogs to detect COVID. A team in \u003ca href=\"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268382\">France\u003c/a> and scientists in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.20.427105v1\">United Arab Emirates\u003c/a> worked with dogs who identified COVID in sweat samples collected from people’s armpits. In \u003ca href=\"https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/5/e008024\">Finland\u003c/a>, four dogs were trained to detect COVID at the airport using skin samples collected from various body parts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981445\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981445\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two dogs wearing collars attached to leashes in a hallway with one sitting on the right and the other standing to the left.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2491-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White labs Scarlett and Rizzo have been trained by Bay Area nonprofit Early Alert Canines in a laboratory setting to detect odors specific to COVID-19. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Currently, dogs are trained to monitor patients with diabetes. If a patient’s blood sugar drops or spikes, canines alert owners with a paw or a nudge to head off a medical emergency. However, as this \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/02/12/798481601/the-hope-and-hype-of-diabetic-alert-dogs\">NPR investigation\u003c/a> highlighted, “The diabetic alert dog industry is unstandardized and largely unregulated. And the science on a dog’s ability to reliably sniff out blood sugar changes is, at best, inconclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As with COVID sniffers, more research is needed before people can fully depend on dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Glaser hopes canines can eventually sniff for influenza or norovirus at nursing homes. She says sweeping a facility with dogs is much cheaper than traditional testing, requires fewer staff and eliminates the majority of plastic waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know it may be that this has been under our noses, so to speak, and we haven’t even recognized it,” said Dr. Matt Willis, public health officer for Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981443\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981443\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing face masks, medical gear and gloves stand in front of a mobile maintenance table with medical supplies on top.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/IMG_2469-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Medical workers check confirmatory COVID tests to ensure the pilot program data reflects accurate results. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Marin County Health and Human Services)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He says the bias toward tech solutions prevented people from tapping canines earlier in the pandemic. Willis envisions a day when all public health departments train canine units just like the police.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could imagine dogs moving from facility to facility or school to school, and just screening everyone in a matter of minutes,” said Willis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes Scarlett and Rizzo — the COVID dogs — can detect the virus a day or two earlier than a traditional test will register as positive. But overall, the canines are still not quite as sensitive as lab tests. As soon as they are, the state plans to scale canine diagnostics for COVID across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "East Palo Alto Searches for Storm Recovery Money, and a Long-Term Flooding Fix",
"headTitle": "East Palo Alto Searches for Storm Recovery Money, and a Long-Term Flooding Fix | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>East Palo Alto is dealing with the aftermath of January’s big storms, and residents living with the consequences of flooding want a long-term fix so it never happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On New Year’s Eve, a storm parked over the peninsula, drenching it with nearly 4 inches of rain, flooding Highway 101, downing trees and leaving thousands without power. In East Palo Alto, water spilled over San Francisquito Creek banks into a neighborhood on the western edge of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The murky brown water enveloped Woodland Avenue and other streets beyond, swamping more than 20 cars and transforming a parking garage into a muddy lake. The front doorsteps of apartment complexes in this part of town, sandwiched between Highway 101 and the creek, became a gunky tributary originating in the hills at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871565/the-real-history-behind-the-myths-and-mystery-of-stanfords-searsville-lake\">Searsville Lake\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Antonio López, East Palo Alto’s vice mayor, got the call that the creek had overtopped its borders on New Year’s Eve, he rushed over and found a woman frantically trying to get into her car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was heartbreaking trying to salvage all of her possessions because the water came up all the way to the window,” López said as he walked the still-muddy streets following the storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crews from East Palo Alto and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a 3-foot-tall and several-hundred-yard-wide sandbag wall to keep the rising water out of the neighborhood as more atmospheric river storms threatened the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The temporary fix successfully kept the mushrooming creek from again inundating the community of mostly lower-income renters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The silver lining is it has certainly been a wake-up call,” López said. “A few pounds of sand separates us from flooded parking garages in Silicon Valley. I don’t feel so proud about that. It’s insufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early estimates from the city and community groups are that flooding caused more than $100,000 worth of damage. This includes totaled cars, tools and other personal belongings stored in trunks and in low-lying garages. Marisela Ramos, president of the East Palo Alto West Side Neighborhood Committee, is organizing residents seeking outside aid to help pay for damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981439\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981439\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a brown jacket and yellow boots poses next to mud brown water. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio López, East Palo Alto’s vice mayor, stands next to floodwaters in the city. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The cars were their means of transportation to go to work and to generate money to pay their rent for their children’s food,” she said. “They lost basically everything because, without transportation, it is very hard to make a living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said most of the residents did not have flood insurance and are struggling to get aid. Ramos questions whether the flooding amounts to negligence by the city, landlords or the authorities who manage the creek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why didn’t they act before to prevent this?” she asked. “This happened before. So, why didn’t they put protection on the banks of the creek before the storm?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto has flooded many times over the years. In 1998 a flood of record swamped 1,700 properties, causing more than $28 million in damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is applying for a grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to compensate for the damages, but it’s a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County homeowners and renters with damage or losses from the storms can apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4683\">federal disaster assistance\u003c/a>, including grants to pay for temporary housing, transportation, child care and moving expenses. The deadline to apply for aid is March 15, 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This will be of great help to individuals and business owners who suffered losses during the severe storms that dumped 13 inches of rain on the county in December and January,” said U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, who represents East Palo Alto, in a \u003ca href=\"https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-eshoo-and-mullin-announce-federal-disaster-relief-san-mateo-county-0\">release\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981450\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg\" alt='Men in yellow jackets and green helmets create piles of white sandbags behind red tape that says \"danger.\" ' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the San José Conservation Corps pile sandbags along the San Francisquito Creek in East Palo Alto on Jan. 4, 2023. The creek spilled over its banks and into a nearby community during the storm on Dec. 31. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Climate change means a wetter future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, atmospheric river storms — monster storms that form over the ocean and flow inland — will only get more intense. The wettest winter storms could become around \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/wettest-winter-storms-western-us-growing-wetter\">30% wetter by mid-century\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The precipitation will be more intense, which is important because it can cause flash floods,” said Ruby Leung, study co-author and climate scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the atmospheric river storms would do more than engorge small creeks, also challenging the capacity of larger streams and rivers, especially when infrastructure like levees, freeways or bridges surround them. Waterways that used to sprawl into large marshy areas are now contained into managed stretches with limited capacity; larger storms are expected to bring more water than they can contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The information we used before to design infrastructure may not be relevant anymore, and we need to incorporate the knowledge that we now have about how the future may be changing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A renewed call to action for East Palo Alto\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto council member Ruben Abrica lived through the 1998 storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said bolstering the flood protection system for this community of more than 90% people of color is worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change is going to affect everyone, but the most vulnerable communities are the ones that will suffer the most unless we join together,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reducing the flood risk along this meandering waterway is what Margaret Bruce also mulls over daily as the executive director of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know we can’t completely do away with the risk of flooding,” she said. “We can no longer plan our future looking in the rearview mirror. But looking forward is very difficult to foresee.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981454\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut.jpg\" alt='A white sign with black paint says \"Please take no more than 10 bags.\"' width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign posted in East Palo Alto during a three-week stretch between December 2022 and January 2023, when nine atmospheric river storms pummeled California. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her group is leading a creek restoration project from the San Francisco Bay to the mouth of Searsville Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project has multiple parts. The agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\">finished the first reach in 2019\u003c/a>, which should protect more than 1,700 properties from the bay to Highway 101 from a 100-year creek flood during a king tide event, plus 3 feet of sea level rise. Compared to today’s high tide, all the work would give the first section \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805/climate-solutions-in-east-palo-alto\">10 feet of protection from rising tides\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second reach, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\">Highway 101 to the Pope-Chaucer Bridge\u003c/a>, is the portion that recently flooded along the borders of East Palo Alto, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. The plan is to widen the channel and replace the bridge with a new one allowing more water to pass under it, protecting the community from a 100-year flood event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tentatively scheduled to be completed sometime between 2024 and 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The one big issue in completing the project is how to fund it. Bruce said it would cost at least $50 million to restore about a mile of the creek. State or federal infrastructure dollars could help with this effort; otherwise, the partners that make up the authority — East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, San Mateo County and the Santa Clara Valley Water District — are on the hook to get it finished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third reach, the rest of the watershed from the recently flooded area to Searsville Dam, is very much in its formative stage. Officials would like to create holding reservoirs along the creek’s upper stretch to store water during a storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know yet if it’s going to be completely feasible,” Bruce said. “It may be so disruptive, costly or technically difficult that we’ll want to think twice about it. But we are considering it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even further upstream, at Searsville Lake, Stanford University is designing \u003ca href=\"https://searsville.stanford.edu/overview\">a project to reestablish creeks flowing from the lake\u003c/a>. The reservoir holds only about 10% of its original capacity because it has slowly filled with earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university, which owns the dam, wants to create a tunnel gate at its base, establishing water channels to other creeks off the lake, increasing storage capacity by flushing sediment into San Francisquito Creek and then out to the bay. But this would only go into operation after the downstream reaches are finished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project could free up the reservoir to hold more water during storms to be released after the creek recedes; the state is reviewing its design and environmental impact analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of having the creek as a boundary, the creek has ended up being the thing that joins the counties and these three cities,” Bruce said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981451\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981451\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Strips of muddy tire prints behind four orange cones.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mud on the edge of Woodland Avenue along the San Francisquito Creek in East Palo Alto on Jan. 4, 2023. The creek spilled over its banks and into a nearby community during the storm on Dec. 31. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Everybody’s paying attention’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The levee reconstruction and creek restoration along the lower stretch of the waterway significantly reduced the damage that could have happened in this set of atmospheric river storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the flooding “puts the spotlight on all of us to somehow find the money one way or another, even if we have to beg the president or talk to the governor,” said East Palo Alto council member Abrica. “You can’t just say it’s your problem down there. Because then you condemn the poor communities to be flooded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palo Alto and Menlo Park are taking an active role in the creek restoration. The recent storms flooded parts of Menlo Park, said Nikki Nagaya, the city’s deputy manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw the creek levels spike throughout the lower section in Menlo Park, and we saw some overtopping in that area as well,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the recent storms are a precursor of what’s to come in a warming world, Nagaya said she isn’t sure the project can be sped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it will hopefully be a renewed call to action,” she said. “Everybody’s paying attention and wanting to see the work proceed as quickly as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí and Anna Marie Yanny contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The city of East Palo Alto and its residents are searching for money to pay for flood damages they estimate are more than $100,000.",
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"description": "The city of East Palo Alto and its residents are searching for money to pay for flood damages they estimate are more than $100,000.",
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"headline": "East Palo Alto Searches for Storm Recovery Money, and a Long-Term Flooding Fix",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>East Palo Alto is dealing with the aftermath of January’s big storms, and residents living with the consequences of flooding want a long-term fix so it never happens again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On New Year’s Eve, a storm parked over the peninsula, drenching it with nearly 4 inches of rain, flooding Highway 101, downing trees and leaving thousands without power. In East Palo Alto, water spilled over San Francisquito Creek banks into a neighborhood on the western edge of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The murky brown water enveloped Woodland Avenue and other streets beyond, swamping more than 20 cars and transforming a parking garage into a muddy lake. The front doorsteps of apartment complexes in this part of town, sandwiched between Highway 101 and the creek, became a gunky tributary originating in the hills at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871565/the-real-history-behind-the-myths-and-mystery-of-stanfords-searsville-lake\">Searsville Lake\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Antonio López, East Palo Alto’s vice mayor, got the call that the creek had overtopped its borders on New Year’s Eve, he rushed over and found a woman frantically trying to get into her car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was heartbreaking trying to salvage all of her possessions because the water came up all the way to the window,” López said as he walked the still-muddy streets following the storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crews from East Palo Alto and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a 3-foot-tall and several-hundred-yard-wide sandbag wall to keep the rising water out of the neighborhood as more atmospheric river storms threatened the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The temporary fix successfully kept the mushrooming creek from again inundating the community of mostly lower-income renters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The silver lining is it has certainly been a wake-up call,” López said. “A few pounds of sand separates us from flooded parking garages in Silicon Valley. I don’t feel so proud about that. It’s insufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early estimates from the city and community groups are that flooding caused more than $100,000 worth of damage. This includes totaled cars, tools and other personal belongings stored in trunks and in low-lying garages. Marisela Ramos, president of the East Palo Alto West Side Neighborhood Committee, is organizing residents seeking outside aid to help pay for damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981439\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981439\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a brown jacket and yellow boots poses next to mud brown water. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62503_IMG_0807-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio López, East Palo Alto’s vice mayor, stands next to floodwaters in the city. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The cars were their means of transportation to go to work and to generate money to pay their rent for their children’s food,” she said. “They lost basically everything because, without transportation, it is very hard to make a living.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said most of the residents did not have flood insurance and are struggling to get aid. Ramos questions whether the flooding amounts to negligence by the city, landlords or the authorities who manage the creek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why didn’t they act before to prevent this?” she asked. “This happened before. So, why didn’t they put protection on the banks of the creek before the storm?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto has flooded many times over the years. In 1998 a flood of record swamped 1,700 properties, causing more than $28 million in damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is applying for a grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to compensate for the damages, but it’s a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County homeowners and renters with damage or losses from the storms can apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4683\">federal disaster assistance\u003c/a>, including grants to pay for temporary housing, transportation, child care and moving expenses. The deadline to apply for aid is March 15, 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This will be of great help to individuals and business owners who suffered losses during the severe storms that dumped 13 inches of rain on the county in December and January,” said U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, who represents East Palo Alto, in a \u003ca href=\"https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-eshoo-and-mullin-announce-federal-disaster-relief-san-mateo-county-0\">release\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981450\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg\" alt='Men in yellow jackets and green helmets create piles of white sandbags behind red tape that says \"danger.\" ' width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61867_015_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the San José Conservation Corps pile sandbags along the San Francisquito Creek in East Palo Alto on Jan. 4, 2023. The creek spilled over its banks and into a nearby community during the storm on Dec. 31. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Climate change means a wetter future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, atmospheric river storms — monster storms that form over the ocean and flow inland — will only get more intense. The wettest winter storms could become around \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/wettest-winter-storms-western-us-growing-wetter\">30% wetter by mid-century\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The precipitation will be more intense, which is important because it can cause flash floods,” said Ruby Leung, study co-author and climate scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the atmospheric river storms would do more than engorge small creeks, also challenging the capacity of larger streams and rivers, especially when infrastructure like levees, freeways or bridges surround them. Waterways that used to sprawl into large marshy areas are now contained into managed stretches with limited capacity; larger storms are expected to bring more water than they can contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The information we used before to design infrastructure may not be relevant anymore, and we need to incorporate the knowledge that we now have about how the future may be changing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A renewed call to action for East Palo Alto\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto council member Ruben Abrica lived through the 1998 storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said bolstering the flood protection system for this community of more than 90% people of color is worth the investment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change is going to affect everyone, but the most vulnerable communities are the ones that will suffer the most unless we join together,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reducing the flood risk along this meandering waterway is what Margaret Bruce also mulls over daily as the executive director of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know we can’t completely do away with the risk of flooding,” she said. “We can no longer plan our future looking in the rearview mirror. But looking forward is very difficult to foresee.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981454\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut.jpg\" alt='A white sign with black paint says \"Please take no more than 10 bags.\"' width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS62506_IMG_0815-1-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign posted in East Palo Alto during a three-week stretch between December 2022 and January 2023, when nine atmospheric river storms pummeled California. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her group is leading a creek restoration project from the San Francisco Bay to the mouth of Searsville Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project has multiple parts. The agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\">finished the first reach in 2019\u003c/a>, which should protect more than 1,700 properties from the bay to Highway 101 from a 100-year creek flood during a king tide event, plus 3 feet of sea level rise. Compared to today’s high tide, all the work would give the first section \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805/climate-solutions-in-east-palo-alto\">10 feet of protection from rising tides\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second reach, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\">Highway 101 to the Pope-Chaucer Bridge\u003c/a>, is the portion that recently flooded along the borders of East Palo Alto, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. The plan is to widen the channel and replace the bridge with a new one allowing more water to pass under it, protecting the community from a 100-year flood event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s tentatively scheduled to be completed sometime between 2024 and 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The one big issue in completing the project is how to fund it. Bruce said it would cost at least $50 million to restore about a mile of the creek. State or federal infrastructure dollars could help with this effort; otherwise, the partners that make up the authority — East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, San Mateo County and the Santa Clara Valley Water District — are on the hook to get it finished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third reach, the rest of the watershed from the recently flooded area to Searsville Dam, is very much in its formative stage. Officials would like to create holding reservoirs along the creek’s upper stretch to store water during a storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know yet if it’s going to be completely feasible,” Bruce said. “It may be so disruptive, costly or technically difficult that we’ll want to think twice about it. But we are considering it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even further upstream, at Searsville Lake, Stanford University is designing \u003ca href=\"https://searsville.stanford.edu/overview\">a project to reestablish creeks flowing from the lake\u003c/a>. The reservoir holds only about 10% of its original capacity because it has slowly filled with earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university, which owns the dam, wants to create a tunnel gate at its base, establishing water channels to other creeks off the lake, increasing storage capacity by flushing sediment into San Francisquito Creek and then out to the bay. But this would only go into operation after the downstream reaches are finished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project could free up the reservoir to hold more water during storms to be released after the creek recedes; the state is reviewing its design and environmental impact analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of having the creek as a boundary, the creek has ended up being the thing that joins the counties and these three cities,” Bruce said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981451\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981451\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Strips of muddy tire prints behind four orange cones.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS61858_006_KQED_BombCyloneStorm_01042023-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mud on the edge of Woodland Avenue along the San Francisquito Creek in East Palo Alto on Jan. 4, 2023. The creek spilled over its banks and into a nearby community during the storm on Dec. 31. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Everybody’s paying attention’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The levee reconstruction and creek restoration along the lower stretch of the waterway significantly reduced the damage that could have happened in this set of atmospheric river storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the flooding “puts the spotlight on all of us to somehow find the money one way or another, even if we have to beg the president or talk to the governor,” said East Palo Alto council member Abrica. “You can’t just say it’s your problem down there. Because then you condemn the poor communities to be flooded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palo Alto and Menlo Park are taking an active role in the creek restoration. The recent storms flooded parts of Menlo Park, said Nikki Nagaya, the city’s deputy manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw the creek levels spike throughout the lower section in Menlo Park, and we saw some overtopping in that area as well,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the recent storms are a precursor of what’s to come in a warming world, Nagaya said she isn’t sure the project can be sped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it will hopefully be a renewed call to action,” she said. “Everybody’s paying attention and wanting to see the work proceed as quickly as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí and Anna Marie Yanny contributed reporting to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "AI Is Predicting the World Is Likely to Hit a Key Warming Threshold in 10–12 Years",
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"content": "\u003cp>The world will likely breach the internationally agreed-upon climate change threshold in about a decade, and keep heating to break through a next warming limit around mid-century, even with big pollution cuts, artificial intelligence predicts in a new study that’s more pessimistic than previous modeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study in Monday’s journal \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/\">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/a> reignites a debate on whether it’s still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to minimize the most damaging effects of climate change. The world has already warmed 1.1 or 1.2 degrees since pre-industrial times, or the mid-19th century, scientists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two climate scientists using machine learning calculated that Earth will surpass the 1.5 degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark between 2033 and 2035. Their results fit with other, more conventional methods of predicting when Earth will break the mark, though with a bit more precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will come a time when we call the 1.5C target for maximum warming dead, beyond the shadow of a doubt,” Brown University environment institute director Kim Cobb, who wasn’t part of the study, said in an email interview. “And this paper may be the beginning of the end of the 1.5C target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh, a study co-author, said the world is on the brink of the 1.5-degree mark in “any realistic emissions reduction scenario.” Avoiding a 2-degree rise, he said, may depend on nations meeting zero-emissions goals by the middle of this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The artificial intelligence-based study found it unlikely that temperature increase could be held below 2 degrees Celsius, even with tough emissions cuts. And that’s where the AI really differs with scientists who had been forecasting using computer models that are based on past observations, Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a high-pollution scenario, the AI calculated, the world would hit the 2-degree mark around 2050. Lower pollution could stave that off until 2054, the machine learning calculated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figured in its 2021 report that the same lower-pollution scenario would see the world pushing past 2 degrees sometime in the 2090s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the Diffenbaugh study but was part of the IPCC, said the study makes sense and fits with what scientists know, but seems a bit more pessimistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a lot of power in using AI, and in the future that may be shown to produce better projections, but more evidence is needed before concluding that, Mahowald said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, climate scientists use a bunch of computer model simulations, some running hot and some cold, and then try to figure out which ones are doing the best job. That’s often based on how they performed in the past or in simulations of the past, Diffenbaugh said. What the AI does is more keyed to the climate system now, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re using this very powerful tool that is able to take information and integrate it in a way that no human mind is able to do, for better or for worse,” Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each year, government climate negotiators at a United Nations summit proclaim that they have managed to “keep 1.5 alive.” But with the latest study, there’s a divide among scientists on how true that really is. Diffenbaugh said there’s been so much warming already that it really doesn’t matter how pollution is cut in the next several years, the world will hit 1.5, the AI figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and of Berkeley Earth, who was not part of the study, agreed, saying it’s time to “stop pretending” that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is possible. Some scenarios do see temperatures warming past the mark but then coming back down, something called “overshoot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other scientists not involved with the study, such as University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann and Climate Analytics’ Bill Hare and Carl-Friedrich Schleussner maintain 1.5 is still alive. They say one rapid decarbonization scenario that Diffenbaugh didn’t examine shows the world can mostly keep under the threshold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the world can cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030, “then warming can be limited to 1.5 degrees” with a tiny overshoot and then reductions to get under the mark, Hare said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Believing that the world can no longer keep warming below 1.5 “is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Mann said by email. “In the end it’s easy to overinterpret the significance of a precise threshold like 1.5C warming. The challenge is to limit warming as much as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The world will likely breach the internationally agreed-upon climate change threshold in about a decade, and keep heating to break through a next warming limit around mid-century, even with big pollution cuts, artificial intelligence predicts in a new study that’s more pessimistic than previous modeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study in Monday’s journal \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/\">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/a> reignites a debate on whether it’s still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to minimize the most damaging effects of climate change. The world has already warmed 1.1 or 1.2 degrees since pre-industrial times, or the mid-19th century, scientists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two climate scientists using machine learning calculated that Earth will surpass the 1.5 degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark between 2033 and 2035. Their results fit with other, more conventional methods of predicting when Earth will break the mark, though with a bit more precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will come a time when we call the 1.5C target for maximum warming dead, beyond the shadow of a doubt,” Brown University environment institute director Kim Cobb, who wasn’t part of the study, said in an email interview. “And this paper may be the beginning of the end of the 1.5C target.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh, a study co-author, said the world is on the brink of the 1.5-degree mark in “any realistic emissions reduction scenario.” Avoiding a 2-degree rise, he said, may depend on nations meeting zero-emissions goals by the middle of this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The artificial intelligence-based study found it unlikely that temperature increase could be held below 2 degrees Celsius, even with tough emissions cuts. And that’s where the AI really differs with scientists who had been forecasting using computer models that are based on past observations, Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a high-pollution scenario, the AI calculated, the world would hit the 2-degree mark around 2050. Lower pollution could stave that off until 2054, the machine learning calculated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figured in its 2021 report that the same lower-pollution scenario would see the world pushing past 2 degrees sometime in the 2090s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the Diffenbaugh study but was part of the IPCC, said the study makes sense and fits with what scientists know, but seems a bit more pessimistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a lot of power in using AI, and in the future that may be shown to produce better projections, but more evidence is needed before concluding that, Mahowald said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, climate scientists use a bunch of computer model simulations, some running hot and some cold, and then try to figure out which ones are doing the best job. That’s often based on how they performed in the past or in simulations of the past, Diffenbaugh said. What the AI does is more keyed to the climate system now, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re using this very powerful tool that is able to take information and integrate it in a way that no human mind is able to do, for better or for worse,” Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each year, government climate negotiators at a United Nations summit proclaim that they have managed to “keep 1.5 alive.” But with the latest study, there’s a divide among scientists on how true that really is. Diffenbaugh said there’s been so much warming already that it really doesn’t matter how pollution is cut in the next several years, the world will hit 1.5, the AI figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and of Berkeley Earth, who was not part of the study, agreed, saying it’s time to “stop pretending” that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is possible. Some scenarios do see temperatures warming past the mark but then coming back down, something called “overshoot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other scientists not involved with the study, such as University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann and Climate Analytics’ Bill Hare and Carl-Friedrich Schleussner maintain 1.5 is still alive. They say one rapid decarbonization scenario that Diffenbaugh didn’t examine shows the world can mostly keep under the threshold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the world can cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030, “then warming can be limited to 1.5 degrees” with a tiny overshoot and then reductions to get under the mark, Hare said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Believing that the world can no longer keep warming below 1.5 “is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Mann said by email. “In the end it’s easy to overinterpret the significance of a precise threshold like 1.5C warming. The challenge is to limit warming as much as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Oil refineries release billions of pounds of pollution annually into waterways, and that pollution disproportionately affects people of color, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Refinery-water-pollution-report-EMBARGOED-until-1.26.23.pdf\">new analysis\u003c/a> of Environmental Protection Agency regulatory data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pollution includes heavy metals, nitrogen and other compounds that can kill aquatic animals, feed harmful algae and make waterways dangerous for humans to fish in, swim in or even touch. The pollution affects communities across the country, but is especially concentrated along the Gulf Coast, in California and near Chicago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings underscore health and environmental dangers across fossil fuel operations, from the wellhead to pipelines, refineries and consumer use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report was published by the Environmental Integrity Project, an independent watchdog group that routinely analyzes public data collected by the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a highly polluting industry discharging large volumes of wastewater,” says Eric Schaeffer, executive director the Environmental Integrity Project, and former director of the EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report authors examined EPA water pollution data from 2019 to 2021 for 81 major refineries across the country – about two thirds of all refineries operating in the U.S. Refineries are required to tell the government how much pollution they release into waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most refineries included in the analysis reported releasing extra pollution, beyond what they are legally permitted to. But less than a quarter of those with violations were penalized by the EPA, the data show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a chronic problem with enforcement of the [Clean] Water Act,” Schaeffer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ExxonMobil, which operates some of the largest refineries in the country including multiple facilities that the report found are among the largest emitters of key pollutants, declined to comment specifically about its operations. Instead, the company referred NPR to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.afpm.org/issues/environment\">general environmental statement\u003c/a> by the American Fuel & Petroleum Manufacturers trade group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have preserved and protected land and water resources by implementing waste management programs and adhering to federal guidelines that govern effluent discharge, hazardous waste disposal and other priority areas,” the AFPM statement reads. “We have made great progress in environmental stewardship under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and many other environmental regulations, and continue to innovate to evolve our operations and products.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Most of the pollution is happening near communities of color\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., people with less power have consistently been exposed to more pollution, whether it’s excess air pollution from highways and factories, drinking water contamination, exposure to lead paint or polluted lakes and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That trend shows up clearly in the new report, which finds that the majority of the worst-polluting refineries are located near communities that have lower-than-average income and a higher-than-average proportion of non-White residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A further NPR analysis of the data finds even more stark inequities: some types of water pollution are concentrated overwhelmingly in communities where people of color live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, about three-quarters of the nitrogen, selenium and dissolved solid pollution from oil refineries came from facilities that are surrounded by neighborhoods that are home to people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA declined to comment on the report or on NPR’s findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new pollution data reinforce what people who live in the shadows of refineries experience every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not surprised at all,” says John Beard, a former city council member in Port Arthur, Texas and current director of the local environmental group the Port Arthur Community Action Network. The Gulf Coast city is crisscrossed by bayous and other waterways, and is home to multiple major refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard says the pollution is obvious. “You can see the [oil] sheen on the water,” he explains. Sometimes the water smells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is affecting places where some people make their living fishing,” he explains. Others fish recreationally or as a regular source of food, and Beard worries that some aquatic species may not be safe for human consumption if the water is contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many waterways near petrochemical facilities have signs warning residents not to touch or fish in the water, but it can be unclear which areas are safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard worked for 38 years at petrochemical facilities in the area, and says the supposed economic benefits for local workers – especially Black people and other people of color who live next to the refineries – are outweighed by the costs to human health and the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981365\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"An image of the city of Port Arthur in Texas and oil refineries seen in the background. \" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The city of Port Arthur, Texas is home to several refineries that release pollutants into local waterways. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They don’t build these [refineries] in Beverly Hills, or River Oaks or Madison Avenue. They don’t build them in communities of affluence.” he says. Instead communities that have faced generations of systemic racism also live with polluted air and water. “We pay a severe price.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Federal rules about water pollution from oil refineries are outdated\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s water pollution regulations for oil refineries were established in 1985 and don’t cover many pollutants, Schaeffer says. In the nearly 40 years since then, there have been major advances in wastewater treatment methods, he argues, and the Clean Water Act requires the agency to update its pollution limits accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody thinks that a rotary phone is the best available technology for making a phone call in 2023,” Schaeffer says. “That same thinking was applied in the Clean Water Act. As treatment methods improve, the standards are supposed to get tighter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, Congress approved a modest increase in the EPA’s budget for enforcement of existing environmental regulations. The EPA has not indicated any plans to update its limits on water pollution from oil refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Oil+refineries+release+lots+of+water+pollution+near+communities+of+color%2C+data+show&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Oil refineries release billions of pounds of pollution into waterways each year, according to regulatory data. NPR found that pollution is concentrated near places where people of color live.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Oil refineries release billions of pounds of pollution annually into waterways, and that pollution disproportionately affects people of color, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Refinery-water-pollution-report-EMBARGOED-until-1.26.23.pdf\">new analysis\u003c/a> of Environmental Protection Agency regulatory data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pollution includes heavy metals, nitrogen and other compounds that can kill aquatic animals, feed harmful algae and make waterways dangerous for humans to fish in, swim in or even touch. The pollution affects communities across the country, but is especially concentrated along the Gulf Coast, in California and near Chicago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings underscore health and environmental dangers across fossil fuel operations, from the wellhead to pipelines, refineries and consumer use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report was published by the Environmental Integrity Project, an independent watchdog group that routinely analyzes public data collected by the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a highly polluting industry discharging large volumes of wastewater,” says Eric Schaeffer, executive director the Environmental Integrity Project, and former director of the EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report authors examined EPA water pollution data from 2019 to 2021 for 81 major refineries across the country – about two thirds of all refineries operating in the U.S. Refineries are required to tell the government how much pollution they release into waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most refineries included in the analysis reported releasing extra pollution, beyond what they are legally permitted to. But less than a quarter of those with violations were penalized by the EPA, the data show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a chronic problem with enforcement of the [Clean] Water Act,” Schaeffer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ExxonMobil, which operates some of the largest refineries in the country including multiple facilities that the report found are among the largest emitters of key pollutants, declined to comment specifically about its operations. Instead, the company referred NPR to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.afpm.org/issues/environment\">general environmental statement\u003c/a> by the American Fuel & Petroleum Manufacturers trade group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have preserved and protected land and water resources by implementing waste management programs and adhering to federal guidelines that govern effluent discharge, hazardous waste disposal and other priority areas,” the AFPM statement reads. “We have made great progress in environmental stewardship under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and many other environmental regulations, and continue to innovate to evolve our operations and products.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Most of the pollution is happening near communities of color\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., people with less power have consistently been exposed to more pollution, whether it’s excess air pollution from highways and factories, drinking water contamination, exposure to lead paint or polluted lakes and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That trend shows up clearly in the new report, which finds that the majority of the worst-polluting refineries are located near communities that have lower-than-average income and a higher-than-average proportion of non-White residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A further NPR analysis of the data finds even more stark inequities: some types of water pollution are concentrated overwhelmingly in communities where people of color live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, about three-quarters of the nitrogen, selenium and dissolved solid pollution from oil refineries came from facilities that are surrounded by neighborhoods that are home to people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA declined to comment on the report or on NPR’s findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new pollution data reinforce what people who live in the shadows of refineries experience every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not surprised at all,” says John Beard, a former city council member in Port Arthur, Texas and current director of the local environmental group the Port Arthur Community Action Network. The Gulf Coast city is crisscrossed by bayous and other waterways, and is home to multiple major refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard says the pollution is obvious. “You can see the [oil] sheen on the water,” he explains. Sometimes the water smells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is affecting places where some people make their living fishing,” he explains. Others fish recreationally or as a regular source of food, and Beard worries that some aquatic species may not be safe for human consumption if the water is contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many waterways near petrochemical facilities have signs warning residents not to touch or fish in the water, but it can be unclear which areas are safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beard worked for 38 years at petrochemical facilities in the area, and says the supposed economic benefits for local workers – especially Black people and other people of color who live next to the refineries – are outweighed by the costs to human health and the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981365\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"An image of the city of Port Arthur in Texas and oil refineries seen in the background. \" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/fema-11_custom-badfa6654d37795d9572c52d7d2d6dfc9ab0bdeb-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The city of Port Arthur, Texas is home to several refineries that release pollutants into local waterways. \u003ccite>(Ryan Kellman/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“They don’t build these [refineries] in Beverly Hills, or River Oaks or Madison Avenue. They don’t build them in communities of affluence.” he says. Instead communities that have faced generations of systemic racism also live with polluted air and water. “We pay a severe price.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Federal rules about water pollution from oil refineries are outdated\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s water pollution regulations for oil refineries were established in 1985 and don’t cover many pollutants, Schaeffer says. In the nearly 40 years since then, there have been major advances in wastewater treatment methods, he argues, and the Clean Water Act requires the agency to update its pollution limits accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody thinks that a rotary phone is the best available technology for making a phone call in 2023,” Schaeffer says. “That same thinking was applied in the Clean Water Act. 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"order": 10
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"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"meta": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
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"order": 14
},
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