Today, the devastating maui wildfires have led to new conversations about the causes of wildfires, including dry lightning. A new study sheds light on the weather phenomenon behind some of californias worst wildfires. We will talk with a climate scientist about it. Thousands of may soon get a refund as a result of a newly settled lawsuit. We will find out the details from a lawyer involved. First of the owner of an iconic San Francisco business is sending a stern message to the city and to the state. The owner of gumps took out a fullpage ad in yesterdays San Francisco chronicle to decry the state of the city and demands immediate action. The open letter says, today, as we prepare for the 166th Holiday Season at 250 post street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of the citys conditions. Joining us live now to talk about his business, letter, and demands, gumps owner john thanks for your time today. For those not familiar, tell us about the storied history of this store in San Francisco. It is an extraordinary story. The Company Began in the gold. It had a number of owners over 165 years. My family is the most recent owner. Teens and hollywood almost everyone you can imagine in San Francisco has increased the doors. We have sold to customers in all 50 states. We love San Francisco. But its making it awfully hard to be here right now. Kristen can we talk about why . What your motivation was, that took you to the point of having to take out this ad . Sure. The motivation is the desire to preserve an iconic asset i of an environment where it seems clear to me that political figures are unable to come to grips with the problem that they face. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or look at a newscast and see the stories about San Francisco. Go walk the streets the way i do and see how unbelievably troubled the city is. And in the spirit of trying to save our business and serve our customers and take care of our employees, i felt like it was time to go public with a protest. This is my moment of simple diffie obedience of civil disobedience. Telling the mayor and supervisors to wake up at the wake up to the nightmare San Francisco has become. Kristen wake up to what . That you stated. Postcovid, policies encouraged people to leave cities. Then the catastrophe that nobody wants to talk about. Its a hot potato. The said he doesnt function the city doesnt function on three day a week or four a day work weeks. Government has facilitated the failure of downtowns. When you dont have active people at their desks, you dont have commerce. People dont go to events. They dont go to bars and restaurants. Little by little, the local businesses simply evaporate. That has happened in San Francisco. You just have to look at the statistics and see the number of successful retailers or businesses that abandoned the cities. That is number one. When you have a tyranny of minority. People thought it would a good idea to invite people to live openly on the streets. Bodily functions in public. Still things with no recourse. And thats no normal its not normal. It exists in San Francisco because theres been a policy failure no one wants to come to grips with. There are legal challenges, but i would go so far as to say until the people of San Francisco rise up and require their leadership and their government to make this kind of behavior unacceptable, you continue to have it and you will continue to watch businesses and the tax base leave. Kristen im just going to challenge you a bit on the this is not unique to San Francisco. It may not be every city in america but certainly a lot of other cities in america and california as well. How much do you think is something that is fixable on a state level or city level even and how much of it is broader issues that are more complex . Lets put it this way, there are homeless problems in every city in this country. But what you do about those problems, how you navigate those challenges determines whether they have a Livable Society or not. I have businesses in other parts of the country. Gumps warehouse in salt lake city. Sure, there are some homeless problems. Its nothing like it is in San Francisco, because the city doesnt tolerate it. On the issue of Public Policy and city and urban policy, theres absolutely no doubt in my mind whats happened is a decade or two decades of accommodation of these kind of policies. Its made it sort of a norm in San Francisco to allow this kind of behavior and thats destroying the fabric of life. You cant run a business when your customer doesnt want to walk into your store or is afraid to step over needles and human waste. And that is what San Francisco has become. The board of supervisors, the mayor and the governor know it and its time they actually took some steps to correct it. If they dont correct it, pretty soon there will be no businesses left in downtown San Francisco and you guys at your television station will have nothing to report on. Thats really what it is. It is that simple. Kristen we report on a variety of issues from all angles and theres always something to report on, thankfully, which keeps me employed. I do want to ask you about Something Else you touched on which is the point that many cities, a lot of companies are still hybrid. Employees are coming back if employees are coming back at all. I do know about the foot traffic issue. What would be your solution . Mayor breed talked about brickandmortar and people shopping in a different way. What is your solution . Lets put the two things together. First you have to have people in their seats. The governor of california who runs 260 billion budget has all kinds of tools at their disposal to do different to encourage people to do different things. I would encourage a tax cut targeted at businesses to require five days a week in their offices. I would wager ceos and owners of businesses would be delighted to actually have the benefit of some kind of financial renumeration to encourage them to retool, rethink, and get people back to their desks. Kristen if that doesnt allow them to attract the best engineers because they are accustomed to hybrid, what do you do . Some companies will sing, i really like that tax cut, its great for my bottom line, but i cant get the kind of people that i need to come to the office. That is fine. Those kind of businesses can continue to run as they must. But i will tell you they there will be an awful lot of businesses who would take advantage of this and require their employees in their offices and it will create a virtuous positive circle for the city. People can model this out. I actually think the tax base will grow in San Francisco. In some respects for the entire state if people would be back to their offices. That to me is what the governor should be doing. Kristen have you gotten a response yet from the governor, the mayor, the board of supervisors or other Business Owners and union union square . In union square . We have had lots of business supportive of the statement that we made. I did receive shortly ago an email from one of the board of supervisors asking to have a conversation about this. Ive heard nothing from the Mayors Office or the governors office. This issue is so severe, it would be a great thing to hold the town hall of some kind. The tv stations and local stations that cover the city can invite the mayor and governor to come and have this conversation. I havent heard from him yet but i would be delighted. Kristen we are actually working on having town halls and promoting those conversations, getting people together. I want to ask you in the letter you made it pretty clear, im not sure if its more of a threat or an actual likely possibility that this may be your last year what would it take for, gumps testing . Gumps to stay . I would love nothing more than to be in San Francisco for another 100 years. Tony gump contacted me after seeing the letter and i told her this very thing. We want to be in San Francisco. But businesses that sell highend gifts and beautiful jewelry only function if someone can walk in the front door of your story and feel safe walking down the street. I think we will be able to see whether the citys fortunes, in terms of its forwardlooking calendar for conferences, the vacancy rate at hotels, theres a whole series of metrics we can measure and look at quite openly about whether San Franciscos turning a corner or not turning a corner. One of the most telling statistics, that frightens me to death is the study done by the university of toronto, taking cell phone usage in major American Cities and comparing today to those levels in 2019. San franciscos the bottom of the list among American Cities at about 35 of the unique cell phone users that were in 2019 that is a staggering statistic. We are going to look at all of that data. We are looking for a home outside of San Francisco. We are examining other cities where gumps used to be. Nothing would break my heart then to have than to have to leave San Francisco. But the main point of the message is government needs to get in gear and the cheap talk, weve had enough of it. Kristen much. Thank you so much for your time. Kristen well be right back with a climate scientist who has found a growing link between some of californias biggest wildfires and dry lightning. Featuring fresh Artisan Bread piled high with tender roast beef, smothered with melty provolone cheese, just enough Chipotle Mayo and served with hot au jus for dipping. Try the roast beef or pastrami french dips today. Only at togos. Kristen now to the latest on the Recovery Efforts after the Deadly Wildfires in maui. The death toll currently stands at 96. That is expected to rise. Extra search crews and additional cadaver dogs are coming through devastated burn areas today recovering any remains they may find. A lawsuit related to the potential cause of the fires has been filed against hawaiian electric. The lawsuit claims the company failed to cut power as toppled energized lines ignited wildfires. While investigators have not yet determined the cause, a new study shows dry lightning has been responsible for a surprisingly large percentage of the wildfires in california. And yet we understand little about the risk. Joining us live to talk about the study and its implications is demetri c. A climate scientist at Washington State university vancouver. Thanks for joining us. What is dry lightning . Why is it dangerous, in terms of sparking wildfires . Dry lightning is essentially regular lightning but occurring with a very little with very little rainfall. Sometimes no rainfall at all. You have lightning hitting the ground, possibly hitting dry vegetation, then no rain to follow or not enough rain to follow to put out that fire. Kristen i see. Which of our recent wildfires in california were started by dry lightning . A lot of the fires in 2020. You might remember in august 2020, california had that big Lightning Storm at around this time mid month. The wildfires burned several million acres and killed dozens of people. Kristen the study mentions the widely accepted definition of dry lightning doesnt quite capture the full risk. Can you elaborate . Yes, of course. Typically, this dry lightning phenomenon is defined by saying its going to be lightning with less than 1 10 of an inch of rain. If there is less than 1 10 of an inch of rain, it means theres not enough rain to put out the fire. But my research showed that number can vary. Depending on where you are in the western u. S. , you might get as much is one third of an inch of rain and still have that be not enough to prevent a wildfire. Kristen why is that . Is that due to different geography or the land and whats on it . Yes, vegetation, actually, also. The higher rainfall amounts, which can still occur with lightningcaused fires, generally happen in forests, mountainous, forested areas. The actual forest canopy intercept a lot of the rainfall. So lightning might hit a tree, travel down the tree and start a fire kind of at the base, and the leaves and twigs in the leaves and twigs. And most of the rain gets shielded by the branches. It can blow up to be a larger wildfire. This could be several days or even weeks later. Kristen given that, what do we need to adjust . I think we need to adjust this threshold. The sort of one size fits all less than 1 10 of an inch of rain means fire risk. Fire forecasters already know there can be very and varian ts in the precipitation amount. But its not widely known. It would be helpful to have wider knowledge that even if theres 2 10 of an inch of rain or 3 10 of an inch of rain, that could still be a fire risk. And also where, if you can where this threshold of rainfall actually changes and varies in the western u. S. Kristen landscape role in how quickly the fires can spread, right . Exactly. Of course, a lot of the fire spread depends on how dry the vegetation is. It also depends on weather conditions which happen after the fires, such as, does it stay dry . Is there a strong wind that picks up . We didnt look into that aspects. We said, if theres these amounts of rainfall and you are in new mexico or utah, or california, this is the amount of rain you should watch out for. This could mean a fire risk at this amount of rain or less. Kristen one thing your study also mentions is the idea of holdover fires. The ones that smolder for days. What causes them and why are they hard to detect . You are right. They are holdover fires. Fires that essentially smolder and are not noticed for days or weeks later. They are extra dangerous sometimes because a Lightning Storm might pass and you might think that you are in the clear. There are no lightning caused fires. So there may not be firefighting resources positioned until lets say a week later, that fire flares up. Now all of a sudden, there has to be a Rapid Response to deal with that fire if its about to threaten human infrastructure. Kristen i see. I get it. Your main point is different regions may use or should use different thresholds for dry lightning. Because that might help affect the approach to both prevention and response. I think i understand that. I want to ask you for People Living in areas prone to wildfires like many parts of the bay area, especially if you go inland, what should they understand and what actions should they take . A lot could be said about that. In terms of the actual awareness of lightning and lightning caused fires, i hope theres enough awareness at this point in california of the kind of damage lightning caused fires can do. Especially during this time of year when its very hot. Of course this week, theres a risk of dry lightning in california as you are probably well aware of. Paying attention to forecasts. Basically just understanding the risk is there. Kristen thank you so much. Thank you. Kristen well be right back with one of the attorneys involved in a lawsuit that could lead to a payout for some former hospital patients in the south kristen if you are a former patient at Santa Clara Medical center, you may be owed some cash. The hospital started notifying more than 40,000 former patients of refunds due to incorrect billing, involving patients who were sent to collections for charges they should have never been asked to pay. Joining us now to discuss the settlement is the senior attorney with the western center of line poverty which filed the suit back in 2019. Thanks for your time. Thank you for having us today. Kristen explain the allegations between Santa Clara Valley medical and the billing practices. This lawsuit was originally brought by three former patients, Santa Clara Valley medical center, bills ranging from 8,000 to 35,000 before 2017. They were all uninsured at the time. Went in for Emergency Care and were not offered free or discounted care as they should have been under California Law. The hospital sued them for collections and they brought this lawsuit to make sure the hospital follows California Law to adequately inform patients of their right to apply for charity care. What is charity care and who gets it . Charity care is a concept in california and throughout the country hospitals must abide to, their obligation to provide free or discounted care to lowincome patients. In california, that means patients 400 at or below the federal Poverty Level who are uninsured or underinsured. Kristen did they simply overlook that information with regards to these patients . It was not simple overlooking. What they were providing and telling patients, it was not clear that patients could apply for free or discounted care. In addition to the retroactive programs, the county committed to revising the written notices sent to patients to more clearly explain in detail how patients could apply for charity care. Kristen now what are we looking at as part of this lawsuit . I know we mentioned 40,000 patients. What my they get what might they get . Could be anywhere from a couple of dollars to a couple thousand dollars. We really encourage patients to apply. This is a limited time Financial Assistance program. In the next coming we have a small window of time to get applications in an additional documentation. Kristen why is the settlement important in terms of enforcing charity care discounts . Is important because it is important because we are finding that statewide, a lot of hospitals are not informing patients of availability of charity care. We are hoping the lawsuit and the successful settlement will force hospitals to take charity care obligations seriously. Kristen i noticed there have been more lawsuits of this type in recent years. Why do you think theres been an increase . I think patients really feeling the burden of medical debt in their lives. Especially now with the high cost of living. Every dollar really matters. Health care costs have been increasing over the years, despite the passage of the Affordable Care act and Broader HealthCare Coverage in california. I think patients and the public have a feeling that this is really unjust. That people often end up the emergency room not because of their choice but because of a necessity. And they should not be prevented from seeking medical care because of bills. Kristen can you give us the story of maybe one of the patients, of the building she shouldnt have had to be faced with, what that did to her life . I think these clients that we are representing came forward because they had such a difficult time affording the bills. They came because they were uninsured, they went to seek medical care, it was really out of their control. It was for emergency situations. They were collected upon. When people go through collections, they face bills that are higher than the original amount. It includes interest and often times attorneys fees. Out of a really big need for help, they came forward with their stories. I think we are really happy with the result of the settlement. It is going to help thousands of people in the county. Kristen we are out of time. If folks think they may qualify, is there a website people can check . They can go to the Santa Clara CountyHealth System for information and they can go to the Health Consumer alliances website where we will be updating information about the settlement as it comes along. Kristen helen tran, thank you so much. Thank you. Kristen you can get our stories anytime on rsv can be a dangerous virus. [sneeze]. For those 60 and older. Its not just a cold. And if youre 60 or older. You may be at increased risk of hospitalization. [coughing]. From this highly. Contagious virus. Not all dangers come with warning labels. Talk to your pharmacist or doctor. About getting vaccinated against rsv today. Kristen thank you so much for joining us today for getting answers. We will be here every weekday at 3 00 p. M. Answering questions with experts from around the bay area. See you back here at 4 00