Transcripts For KRON KRON 4 News At 6pm 20240712

Valleys and the hills, the Santa Cruz Mountains and the north bay valleys and mountains. Kron fours dan kerman spent the day in santa rosa were firefighters and residents are getting ready for high heat and gusty winds. I temps and high winds a bad combination when you couple it with this very dry brush 90 degree temperatures were already bearing down on santa rosa tuesday afternoon. But by wednesday, a red flag warning kicks in with even warmer temps wind gusts to 55 Miles Per Hour. And exceedingly dry grass and brush just ready to ignite. Santa rosa Fire Department will be staffing to additional wildland fire engines of those 2 fire engines will join a number of other Fire Departments from across noma county that will form a ploy for to a strike teams and task forces right now were looking at a least upwards of 12 Additional Fire engines that will be staffed across the county and likely many more to come. Residents are being told they might have to evacuate thats something beth phil has done several times before most recently a little over 2 weeks ago due to the glass fire. Were practically across the her to the nearest burned house for maybe about 30 to 50 feet while or sky hawk neighborhood is scattered with burned out homes. Her survived the smoke damage is keeping them away for at least another month. Now she worries about whats to come this week. Were worried about the weather almost all fall in this area and now firefighters say areas that recently burned have fire lines in place which could be helpful in containing a new blaze if theres another spark, not so for areas like Fountain Grove that burned during 20 seventeens tubbs fire. Not only are new houses sprouting up in the neighborhood but thick bushy brush has also regrown. We did see portions of those burn areas, especially in the tubs and other parts of napa county. The deer did burn again this year that had some recibir history and i just the conditions that were experience right now with the the critically dry the high temperatures and winds that we continue experience typically october is the month we see terrible wildfires in this area. Weve already seen a couple now well just have to wait and see have another one comes in santa rosa dan kerman kron 4 news. At the top of the show pg and es now give us an update on the safety power shutoff set expected for tomorrow, lets listen in. Fewer customers should discover shocker. Now with us on the phone with several members of the media as well following our incident summary were going to take up to 2 questions from each reporter reporters remind you please press star winds join a queue with your questions so its actors where we stand at this hour a Severe Weather events with hot dry conditions and high wind gusts is expected to begin on wednesday evening forecasted yesterday dissipate it to reach 55 Miles Per Hour. We expect these high winds to subside thursday or potentially friday morning now because of these conditions were preparing to turn off power to about 54,000 customers in parts of 24 counties. If these forecasts to hold power be turned off beginning around 6 oclock wednesday for 33,000 customers and that it will proceed in stages and this time we expect to have power restored to nearly all customers by late on friday night again that is dependent on the weather and throughout this events we are ready to support our customers and will be giving you some more information about that were preparing to open 40 Community Resource centers and we partnered with local food banks and communitybased organizations for further assistance, so well get details on all of the shortly before we do however, its Important Note that pg carefully review combination of factors when we determine the need for a power shut these factors include low humidity levels generally 20 and forecast and sustained winds generally about 25 Miles Per Hour and gusts 45 Miles Per Hour, a red flag warning from the National Weather service, the condition of dry vegetation or material on the grounds and also real time on the ground observations and conditions from our teaching overall turning off power to our customers is not a decision that we make lightweight psta segments or a tool of last resort used only when the weather events are so severe that People Safety their lives their homes and their businesses may be in danger. With that we want of this storm weather update and ill turn it over to set some time meteorologist second to none. Good evening, lindsey and good evening, everyone. The operational Meteorology Team here agency is closely tracking another dry diablo wind events expected to develop across Northern California. Starting wednesday evening and continuing through friday morning. First id like to cover the timing of the event to give you more detail, it does consist of 2 distinct time periods of when russ and so during the day on wednesday. We will see the development of breezy and dry north winds. Initially developed down the Sacramento Valley but starting at about 08 00pm on wednesday. We are expecting an increase in the in the strength of those winds and for those winds to spread across the northern sierra foothills into the elevated terrain of the north bay. And then well see them spread a little bit in the evening of the east bay hills and Santa Cruz Mountains overnight wednesday into thursday morning. And we do expect the winds to decrease by about midday just midday thursday through about thursday afternoon but we will see a relative humidities fall into the teens and potentially even Single Digits for most locations during that time frame the period. That period they say low between weather events will be followed by a Second Period of winter is starting approximately 06 00pm thursday evening. And it is expected to continue overnight through about 8 or 10 00am for most areas across the north into friday morning and then by 10 00am friday. We do expect to be able to issue the weather all clear and begin the restoration activities for most areas. And before that time we will be utilizing you know the latest and greatest weather model intel that we get from both a public and in our internal weather model data as well as some of the realtime intelligence that we get from the hundreds of a publicly owned and also pg owned weather stations out there which we have 850 of to support any earlier allclear determinations you know any pushback and timing or on certain areas if its safe to do so. For the past week we have collaborated with the federal meteorologist from the National Weather service and others via daily inter agency calls when this havent first appeared on the horizon in our weather models. And so the National Weather what youre seeing in the slide shows that they have issued red flag warnings for this event for pretty much the majority of Northern California. Due to the potential spread of those winds the winds causing potential rapid spread of wildfires on these warnings begin to go into effect starting as early as 05 00am wednesday and are forecast to end at 11 00am fridays is covering kind of those 2 peaks and i mentioned in this event. They are forecasting sustained winds of about 15 to 30 Miles Per Hour. With this widespread guys generally 35 to 45. With some pete gust near 55 Miles Per Hour over the elevated to reign of the north bay. Primarily separate forecast agency that we also collaborate with the Northern Operations Predictive Services is also forecasting hire a significant fire potential due to the gusty winds combined with low relative humidity values, and there events timing is very alarmed aligned with our thinking and the National Weather Service Timing with the risks lasting from wednesday through friday with this event. They are forecasting you wind gusts similar to the National Weather service that they also highlighted some of the isolated when prone spots like mount saint helene our general gap for example could see gusts in excess of 60 Miles Per Hour. And so i might might seem as a staff now to monitor this and then weve been staffed 24 7 for the last couple days as weve been tracking. Its in preparing for it and well continue to make refinements is needed based on. The latest intelligence that we get from weather models as well as from our realtime weather stations and then id like to close by. You know just acknowledging that we have had a historic fire season this year. And it has been extremely challenging for many and we are now and will continue to be in the peak of fire season. Until the rain and snow returns and all of us here hope that every sooner rather than later. So with that ill turn it back over to you lindsay. All right, thanks got some looks like a combination of low humidity and really high along with the red flag warning can can you also explain because as we look at the map and we see that large swaths of the red flag warnings this is a smaller psta bus that the ones we have had so far this but its a lot of counties can you talk a little bit about whos going to be affected in those counties. Yeah, absolutely and so when they say to establish the scope of the event we we use our internal High Resolution model data and based on the factors that you you know posted earlier. We use that to combine you know everything in our in our in our weather model essentially to determine where those highest russ areas are and so this you know, although it does appear to be a little bit weaker than some of the events we had last year some of the events earlier this year it will be focused in many areas and we will many locations spread throughout Northern California experience some of those dangerous conditions, although the event is is smaller. Overall from a Customer Impacted it is you know multiple with this event and were just in you know the season weve been months now from the first psta sudden to be executed on in early september. And the fuels are actually much drier so the you know our fire potential index in the fire danger is just my much higher this year which is another factor thats thats leading to a the scope for this event. Okay thanks scott. So we want to turn now to Mike Wendland he is or commander for this he sps event to get an Operational Update and mark is the first thing i want to clarify with you as we have not yet made the decision to call the pse has that right but thats correct lindsay that decision will come tomorrow at the earliest. So as you go ahead and give us an Operational Update look and explain to us what were looking at for this intentional pfcs and then also restoration should we get to that 0. 6. Yeah great thank you so much and i want highlight a few things that mentioned in your remarks and in with scott had mentioned in his remarks it really is about how challenging this year has dating back to march. When the covid19 pandemic really started to begin. These are challenging right now were certainly no stranger to were all working from home majority of us kids are at home. Some of us may have. Turned into teachers and our school your children from home. And its just different. And weve had a very active fire season. I just got points. So all those things together make it challenging year. And were no stranger to that. We also recognize power introduces significant hardship. It as such thats why when we talk about extreme fire risk in we talk about Public Safety power shutoff execution. We really view it as a last resort option. Put a lot of and effort and a lot of Data Analysis into it to me the Public Safety power shutoffs as small as possible to start with and then a short as we can and duration and simmer for our customers so given the fact that weather conditions can always this is what we believe the event school to be as of this time. If you know weather stick to the forecast and well know that tomorrow were roughly impacted should be 4,000 customer accounts across 24 counties you can see on the map on the right hand side of the slide. Your group did use sri general clusters of extreme fire danger we refer to those as you know our geographic areas of danger. There are actually 13 subdivided smaller geographic areas of danger that are kind of a compass 3 general clusters the reason that we split it up into so many colleague said geographically is it gives us more Operational Flexibility to be able to make realtime decisions as to when to shop power off and when to turn it back on the weather conditions have improved. So who referred to the map on the right hand side of the slide a large area of in the sierra foothill regions in the north today that of customers is anticipated to be shot off some were around 06 00pm tomorrow. The area in blue which is the southern sierra in portions of the south bay in the east today, there comes in a little bit later anticipated start of the shot off his roughly 08 00pm. Any outlier is to the far north and west thats highlighted by the number 3 Geographic Scope small Customer Impact roughly 400 customers up in the humboldt in Trinity County area. That event is the outlier because the weather conditions do not become unsafe until the following day. Thursday at around 04 00pm thats when well start to shut off there. Again all of this is based on forecasted weather and we know theyre forecasting change and we will change with those forecasts and make the appropriate decisions with respect to how long the weather will be in play and when we anticipate the weather reduce to just safety issues, were looking hes somewhere in beach. More you between the 18 morning in then as we receive those all messages from other meteorology t well begin our. The restoration process this slide shows the 5 steps that are associated with that process. The first thing that we do when we get the weather all clear from the meteorology t. We notified you youll youll be receiving notification indicate the that weather conditions have improved to the point to where we can begin patrolling her restoration process were also going to provide an estimated time of restoration. Our customers want to know when youre white youre going to be back on so that they can make appropriate arrangements worse we completely understand that we do everything we can to as forthcoming as we can with what we with regards to how long its going to take is to restore. Were anticipating the majority of our customers to be restored by the end of the day. And friday now having said that thats a 4 its process that takes place some customers are restored. Early within the first few hours other customers will be restored later. But it all starts with that all clear in the message to our customers to let them know what they can expect. Once that message goes out we will have our field crews preposition ready to go and as soon as we receive that all clear from the Meteorology Department we then go ahead and begin our patrols you control via air and ground in we have a sizable helicopter that we reform air patrols with you soon with that will be also performing controls are patrols on the ground and in some cases on foot and hard to access areas if we find damage or hazards that i have made contact with or facilities while and they were. Weve been listening in on a press conference with pg and e theyve been talking about the power shutoffs that are expected to happen. Starting tomorrow, they said that about 54,000 customers are expected to be impacted across 24 counties and with regard to the bay area. Counties in the north bay shut offs should start there at about 06 00pm and counties over in the south and east bays should start at about 08 00pm tomorrow evening, theyll they were a little bit vague but they said power shutoffs should. Late in the day on friday and they will be notifying everybody but of course it all depends on the weather weve got this triple threat. A threat going on right now with the red flag warnings the high temps in the high winds we go now to Lawrence Karnow with more on thes see at this time of year. You get a cold front thats passing to our north behind that youve got High Pressure just kind of sitting out here waiting for that front to go by once that front moves on through all of a sudden that ridge builds in and we start to see that northerly component developing in the atmosphere that offshore wind that is a very dry wind now this time were going to see tight iso bars that means the lines of pressure going to be very close together that means those winds are really going to get whipping especially over the mountain tops youll see that in the forecast here as we take the that onshore breeze continuing right now but watch what happens the wind as we head in toward tomorrow afternoon office and High Pressure builds into you start to see the colors first in the Sacramento Valley, spilling back into the bay area start to see a lot of red lot of orange out there winds begin to gust over 30 Miles Per Hour over the highest peaks but even in the urban areas you see some of those winds over 20 miles an hour. And that probably intensifies i think the strongest winds of this event probably early on thursday morning. Thats were going to see some most 40 maybe some 50 mile an hour gusts over the mountain top but not just the north bay event this is going to also be the east bay and also parts of the 7 tail county, including santa cruz expecting some strong gusty winds there as well guys. That arent make sure to download the kron 4 app for the latest power shut off developments. And to download the kron on app to watch the latest news briefings you can find both apps in your phones app store now the county attorney card kids if and when pg need begins to shut power off and how calistoga residents who woman 1 get your votebymail ballot . Woman 2 you can stay healthy and fill it out from the safety of home. Surfer or you can fill it out anywhere. Man 1 its easy to mail it back. You dont even need a stamp. Man 2 or you can use an official drop box. Woman 3 you can even drop it off at the polls. Man 3 then, track it to confirm your county got it. See . They got it woman 4 mail ballots are the simple, safe, and secure way to ensure that your vote is counted. Close to 12,000 firefighters continue to work towards containment on 34 new wildfires across the state. The bay area the glass fire, its 96 contained. Full containment is expected by october 20th. The largest wildfire in the state is the august complex fire which is burning in Mendocino County right now that fire is that 76 containment the creek fire in fresno county. Thats just 55 contained and the zogg fire in Shasta County that is 99 contained. Pg says its equipment may have caused this blaze which has killed 4 people. And the clock is ticking on when pg is going to cut off power to thousands of bay area residents are prefers morning. Kelly went to napa where people there are bracing for this new obstacle is theyre just starting to recover from the glass fire more than 9,000 customers here in napa county could find themselves in the dark wednesday. If and when pg e decisive flip the switch on this Public Safety power shutoff many of those customers live in the town of calistoga were getting good at this it is not been easy lately for calistoga residents who were forced to evacuate for 6 days during the glass fire from the burn scars in the surrounding mountains, you can see how it burned right up to the edge of town. And now because of hot dry and windy conditions in the forecast pg says. They may have to cut power to part of this town as part of the Public Safety power shutoffs to help reduce the risk of more wildfires. This is not the first time this has happened here calistogas mayor says theyve endured multiple Public Safety power shutoff since 2018. Which is why pg e has just finished constructing a microgrid here. Which is expected to keep the lights on for about 60 of the towns residents that includes the downtown section which means the towns Grocery Store Hardware Store pharmacy in many restaurants will remain open sore people who rely medical equipment that this becomes a significant hardship. So well you know well have power in the center of town so we can bring those folks in for cooling stations and if they need device Battery Charging et cetera, well be able to accommodate that we were fortunate because we have the microgrid there are a lot of other towns are going to be in fact affected by this that dont have that fallback the winds are expected to subside thursday morning. Pg e says theyre crews aim to restore power. To those affected within 12 hours after those winds die down Maureen Kelly kron 4 news. And some Alameda County students have returned for in person classes, how schools good news for 2 more bay area counties alameda and santa clara counties have moved into a lesser restrictive tear those 2 counties are now in the orange or moderate here on the states reopening tier system. The orange here allows more businesses to reopen indoor operations with safety precautions are modifications these 2 counties now joins San Francisco and that moderate here. Sam tale contra costa. Solano napa and marine county theyre still in the substantial tier and Sonoma County has stayed in the most restrictive purple here. And based on state guidelines Alameda County has managed to slow the spread of covid19 well enough to allow Elementary Schools to reopen in person classes yet today was the first day back for the students in livermore as kron fours phillipe djegal reports it is up to each School District to develop a safety plan before they can reopen classrooms. Our Savior Lutheran School in livermore is one of 21 private Elementary Schools that has submitted a reopening plan to the Alameda County office of education and been approved by the Public Health department to resume in Person Instruction class resuming tuesday, the first day allowed by the county, its huge its so important for kids to be with their teachers over computer screen is not normal for them, its very frustrating. For them to try and learn that way and stay focused 7 private Elementary Schools were slated to open tuesday the remaining schools approved to welcome students back to campus are scheduled to reopen through next month, a new that youre going to do very best a nation that i can say for example, julie knight says her school has been preparing for this since the end of the last school year right now the county is in the red tier on the states blueprint for reopening a safe economy. The county says schools that are open can stay open even if the county falls back into the purple tier but schools could be forced to close if at any 0. 5 of students and teachers test positive for covid19 of theyre challenging time an