Key Facts Of The Day 4/19

Storms and Flooding

• More than 300,000 households were without power in the Northeast at midmorning, due to the heft of up to a foot of wet, pasty snow from a strong spring storm.

  • In New York state alone, about 200,000 customers were without electricity.

  • Over 50,000 customers were without power in Pennsylvania.

  • Most of the remaining storm-related outages were concentrated in Vermont and Maine.

  • A winter storm warning is in effect for parts of northern Pennsylvania and central and northern New York until noon on Tuesday.

  • Roads in some parts of Pennsylvania were impassable on Monday night.

  • In northwestern Massachusetts, the storm was expected to bring widespread rain and wet snow on Tuesday.

• According to research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, people of color disproportionately lost power during the 2021 Texas freeze.

  • Areas with high minority populations were about three times as likely to have experienced a blackout than majority white areas. The disparities were far more closely linked to race than income.

• In Kentucky, strong thunderstorms spawned eight tornadoes last week, knocking down trees and damaging homes, barns, and vehicles.

• In Georgia, an EF-4 tornado that hit Bryan County last week had winds of 185 MPH, making it the strongest twister in the U.S. so far this year.

  • The storm killed Belinda Thompson of Ellabell and injured 12 others.

  • The storm destroyed at least 18 homes in the county and left more than 10 others with major damage.

• At least 82 tornadoes have been confirmed from Texas to South Carolina from April 4 through April 6.

  • Of those, nearly 30 struck in middle and south Georgia, including an EF-3 storm that destroyed two electrical transmission towers and damaged numerous homes in Bonaire.

Wildfires

• As of Tuesday, there are currently 13 large active wildfires that have burned 24,174 acres across AK, AZ, NC, NM, OK, and TX. As of Tuesday, 19,444 wildfires have burned 827,196 acres across the country.

• As of Tuesday, the Cooks Fire in Arizona has burned 500 acres and is 0% contained.

  • Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for Arizona residents near Mount Union as a wildfire burns.

• As of Tuesday, the McBride Fire in New Mexico has burned 6,159 acres and is 84% contained.

Extreme Heat

• Amid the western megadrought, the Interior Department is deciding to either send more Colorado River water into Lake Powell, the reservoir created by the dam, or hold more water behind the dam.

  • The Bureau of Reclamation marked Lake Powell at just under 3,523 feet on Saturday. That is less than 35 feet above the lowest level at which the dam can still generate hydropower.

  • The Glen Canyon Dam’s power plant produces about 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours of power a year, serving users in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska.

  • Holding back water from release means lower flows, at least temporarily, for filling Lake Mead downstream.

    • Lake Mead — the largest reservoir in the West — provides water to Arizona, California and Nevada, and some to Mexico.

• The Colorado River, a major freshwater source for over 40 million people in seven southwestern states and parts of northern Mexico, has lost 20% of its water levels over the past 22 years and environmentalists forecast it’s going to get worse.

  • The Colorado River is now at the top of the country’s most endangered rivers list.

  • Farmers and other agriculture workers have been especially hit by the water loss as the fields have dried up, making it harder to cultivate crops and cattle.

  • A Colorado rancher, Paul Bruchez, his family, and other ranchers and farmers have teamed up with conservationists to adapt to the changing environment and try to repair some of the damage.

    • Working with conservationists, Bruchez installed five artificial riffles along a 12-mile stretch of the river. The riffles use cobbles at parts of the river that cascades down and promotes irrigation and invertebrate growth at low water level areas.

    • Doug Bruchez has worked with his brother to bring in specialized plants and forages that are better suited to the fields around the river.

    • Bruchez said he is looking to expand these programs throughout the Colorado River basin and improve the water and soil conditions throughout the southwest.

• A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found that nearly two-thirds of Los Angeles voters say extreme heat poses a serious threat to their health and safety.

  • Eight in 10 voters say the same about air pollution, which, like global warming, is caused largely by dirty fuels such as oil and natural gas.

  • The poll also found that Latino voters, lower-income voters and those living in the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley are more likely to describe extreme heat as a very serious threat.

  • Latino, Black and lower-income voters showed higher levels of concern about air pollution.

New Reports And Data

• An April 2022 poll found that nearly two-thirds of Los Angeles voters say extreme heat poses a serious threat to their health and safety.

• An April 2022 study found that people of color experienced a disproportionate share of the power outages during the 2021 Texas freeze.

• An April 2022 study found that increasingly large and intense wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are altering the seasonal pattern of air pollution and causing a spike in unhealthy pollutants in August.