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Incoming potentially catastrophic storm for SF area
- armatav 4y ago[flagged]
- raincom 4y agoWhere are those multi million dollars empty homes?
- Beaver117 4y agoEverywhere in the bay area?
- metadat 4y agoUp and down the Bay Area Peninsula e.g. SF, Hillsborough, Atherton, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Lost Altos, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose, Woodside, Saratoga, and so on. As well as plenty of other areas around the bay. Surprising amounts of Chinese investor houses and just plain vacant homes. Some forever vacant due to multi-year ever expanding build and remodel projects.
- astrange 4y agoInvestors don’t make money from buying homes and not using them, they make money from renting them. Houses rot if not used. https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/vacant-nuance-in-the-vacant-housing https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/vacant-nuance-in-the-vac...
- metadat 4y agoAgreed, sometimes they eventually do get rented.
- xnx 4y agoProperties are sometimes purchased as a store of wealth outside of the reach of the "investor"'s government.
- hammock 4y agoThe goal is not always to make money
- alasdair_ 4y agoPeople laundering cash acquired from dubious deals done outside the country likely don't care about making a little more money - the principal aim is to keep the cash in a hard asset that can't be seized by the local (to the purchaser) government.
- pkaye 4y agoI doubt it happens a lot but there was an unoccupied house in my city that was burned down by an escaping suspect. Turns out it was owned by a lady living in China who invested for a future residence. Given that the Chinese real estate market is overheated it makes sense to diversify. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Owner-of-Fremont-home-burned-in-standoff-with-7959749.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Owner-of-Fremont-home-b...
- chasebank 4y agoThat's most definitely not true. Plenty of investors place money in assets that don't generate cashflow, real estate included.
- carom 4y agoThe percent of foreign home ownership is incredibly small.
- carom 4y agoFor the downvotes, less than 10% of transactions in the US in 2013 [1]. When I first saw this for Canada I looked it up and it really only accounts for something like 3% there. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_investment_in_United_States_real_estate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_investment_in_United_S...
- metadat 4y agoWhen that small percentage is concentrated in the most desirable areas it becomes amplified and adds significant strain to a housing system which wasn't designed for it. The really interesting data would be the geographic spread. 10% of all total transactions in the United States is actually a huge volume and big deal when concentrated in NYC, SF Bay Area, and Seattle etc.
- eddsh1994 4y agoNot many around where I live in Palo Alto
- mertd 4y agoThere is zero proof for this xenophibic claim.
- metadat 4y agoSecret Samsung Executive Party Houses, vacant investor houses, I've seen it all firsthand. I don't have an issue with it except in cases where it takes desirable housing out of circulation away from people who actually would like to live there. My perception is the Atherton and Hillsborough NIMBYs cause far larger waste and trouble than the Foreign Investor homes who participate in the existing systems. The NIMBYs are the real xenophobes manipulating local political climate, city ordinances, and zoning preventing new housing from being developed.
- timy2shoes 4y agoCan't be worse than Saturday's storm, right? Right???
- dragonwriter 4y agoYes, it can, especially because the effects of saturation are cumulative when the ground doesn’t have a chance to dry out.
- TylerE 4y agoSee: Hurricane Floyd. It was so bad because ANOTHER hurricane had dropped 2-3ft of rain on Eastern North Carolina a few weeks earlier. As a result basically everything east of I95 saw a 500 year flood.
- CarVac 4y agoOr Hurricane Ida, which "only" dropped 5-10 inches of rain but caused massive flooding in PA/NJ/NY, due to saturated ground.
- plorkyeran 4y agoThis storm is expected to be larger than Saturday's.
- wantsanagent 4y agoKey paragraph: """ To put it simply, this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long while. The impacts will include widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, trees down (potentially full groves), widespread power outages, immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life. This is truly a brutal system that we are looking at and needs to be taken seriously. """
- throwaway2037 4y agoI saw that. Then I read: The most recent forecast package calls for the following rainfall totals late Tuesday night through early Friday: Around the SF Bay (including East & South Bay): 1.5 to 3" I assume that is up to 3 inches of rain over a few days. What part do I misunderstand?
- pertymcpert 4y agoAre you saying that it’s not much rain?
- alar44 4y agoProbably the timeframe. If you get 3 inches of rain in 12 hours, that's 6in/day. If that's all the rain you got in 3 days, you got 1in/day.
- nostrademons 4y agoThat's about what the South Bay saw on the NYE storm. Peninsula & SF got about 5", mountains up to 12". Seems to be roughly comparable in raw precipitation. The concern over this next storm is that the ground is already saturated and the creeks are already overflowing. In a normal rainstorm like the one we just had, the first inch or so is absorbed into the ground, then the rivers start rising and mudslides start happening. This time, we're going to start seeing those effects from the very start of the rain (which is already happening - it's raining now).
- cjsplat 4y agoIt is a stretch of over 200 miles of coastline getting a whole lot of rain. Over the coastal peaks, 6 to 8 inches. And the land is pretty saturated already. But "what part do I misunderstand" kind of requires me guessing what you understand and concluded.
- froofiethedog 4y agoYou probably just saved my life. I was planning to drive the coast highway on Wednesday and Thursday, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Monterey Bay... Time to replan this trip...
- raincom 4y agoBe careful, today a tesla fell off cliff at Devil's slide which is between Santa Cruz and SF. Stay away from major freeways as well: slides are expected. Central valley freeways may get flooded.
- froofiethedog 4y agoThanks. I see now that the Central Valley (Sacramento area) is expecting flooding through Thursday. Not sure how to avoid freeways in California, though... Should I be looking at a trip to Nevada to avoid this?
- nostrademons 4y agoIt's probably time to hunker down Weds/Thurs if you're in California. Also, a lot of the small mountain roads between 1 and 280/101 washed out in the New Years Eve storm, so if you are stuck on the coast there's no guarantee you'll be able to get inland.
- amluto 4y agoA bunch of the fairly major urban (what passes for urban here, anyway) roads were in bad shape on NYE. 101 had partial and complete closures in places due to flooding. Sections of road that are local elevation minima (e.g. under the Caltrain tracks) were just standing water anywhere that drains weren’t working well enough. I would not try to travel.
- Fatnino 4y agoIt's not just drains in those underpasses. Some have active pumps that need to be working.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoCould this become a humanitarian crisis given the homeless and at risk? Is San Francisco capable of handling such a crisis.
- leet_thow 4y agoIt's not just SF, but all of Northern CA and yes likely to become a crisis.
- codespin 4y agoIsn't that already a humanitarian crisis?
- DoreenMichele 4y agoYes, it is. We've underbuilt housing for decades in the US.
- nikanj 4y agoWe solved it by dehumanizing the homeless.
- nomel 4y agoSF has thrown nearly 3 billion at the problem, over the past 6 years [1], but the incompetence is too extreme [2]. 1. https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-san-francisco-sees-its-homelessness-problems-spiral-out https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-... 2. https://nypost.com/2021/06/26/san-francisco-run-homeless-encampment-costs-60k-per-tentsan-francisco-run-homeless-encampment-costs-60k-per-tent/ https://nypost.com/2021/06/26/san-francisco-run-homeless-enc...
- nradov 4y agoIn the South Bay Area several of the creek trails and adjacent parks have been taken over as homeless camps. In particular the Guadalupe River near downtown San Jose and SJC. They're going to have a rough time.
- jimmygrapes 4y ago>Pineapple Express reap what you sow I guess
- readthenotes1 4y agoNo, I think _Chuck_ is the TV show that used pineapple as the emergency signal, not _Reaper_, though that would have easily fit in.
- teeray 4y agoSide note: the “forecaster’s discussion” for your local NWS forecast area is easily the best one you can find. It’s the one all your weather apps and local TV meteorologists crib from. Sure, there’s a bit of meteorological terminology to learn, but they often link off to a glossary (then you can put that term into Wikipedia). My favorite part of the forecasts is that they tell you unequivocally when they are confident in something and when they are not sure. They are not afraid to say a qualified “we don’t know”. This is is a stark contrast to almost every other forecast falsely projecting complete confidence trying to vie for viewership to attract advertising dollars.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- boredemployee 4y agoSomeone replied, but deleted, asking about forecasting and their values and I'm wondering the same. Is the weather forecast an expected value, like say an average given a forecasted upper and lower bounds?
- jeffbee 4y agoPrecipitation forecasts are systematically and intentionally overstated so people will be prepared.
- spoils19 4y ago[flagged]
- readthenotes1 4y agoWell, neither Texas nor Florida suffer from "atmospheric rivers". Not sure California is ready for hurricanes though. /s
- w10-1 4y agoThis title and the weather report make me wish people with factual jobs would stick to the facts. It's really not a good sign when factual government projections start getting jazzed up with personal history. All things considered, this storm is well within the design considerations for any road or building in California, so it shouldn't be considered, in advance, as catastrophic. Is there no where to avoid relentless self-absorbed posturing?
- waiseristy 4y agoThese reports very often have glib personal touches. There are websites with collections of funny forecast discussions over the years. God forbid someone breaks the monotony on reporting the fuckin weather. I’d rather watch paint dry
- braingenious 4y ago> Is there no where to avoid relentless self-absorbed posturing? “People unironically expressing their anger that other people don’t write like robotic zen monks” is one of my favorite genres of posts.
- yamtaddle 4y agoDisagree. NOAA weather reports are basically perfect. You know shit's getting real when the report isn't boring to read. They do a great job of putting little personal touches on them, without letting it get out of hand or get in the way of providing information—which is precisely what professional writing ought to look like, in many cases. This makes them far more useful to a layperson than a bland recitation of facts would be, since it provides context that might otherwise be absent or harder for a non-expert to appreciate. When it comes time for actual warnings they keep them to-the-point but also don't pull punches or dance around the seriousness of their assessments—nor do they hype them without cause, generally. I've wondered for a while how NOAA reports are allowed to be so good when you'd think the march of bureaucracy and bureaucracy-fans and liability/anti-responsibility pants-wetters taking the humanity and personality (except wholly fake and brand-conscious "personality") out of everything would have gotten to them by now. Please don't encourage that :-(
- baq 4y ago
- jeffbee 4y agoI put a bunch of USGS river gauge data into a notebook on Saturday and found that Bay Area creek flows were either above or near all-time records. Arroyo Valle, Alameda Creek, San Francisquito Creek and many others set records. And they’re predicting this next storm to be bigger and longer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hammock 4y ago[flagged]
- LASR 4y agoYeah I am not buying the source for this prediction. If this was something from the USGS, then maybe. But it can never hurt to be prepared. Maybe just to look over your checklists etc.
- sowbug 4y agoIf the USGS predicted an earthquake, the only thing that would mean is that the USGS site got hacked.
- nostrademons 4y agoThe article said that prediction is by a quack site, with no scientific background, who missed both the real Eureka earthquake and then falsely predicted a magnitude 6.5 in Eureka on Dec 25-28.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- qbasic_forever 4y agoWe've had some pineapple express systems come through the PNW and they were unbelievable rain events. One completely flooded the apartment complex bottom units where I lived. Good luck bay area folks, definitely take it seriously. If you're a home owner and have been putting off cleaning out gutters, drains, etc. absolutely get on it right now while you have some time. These unusual rain events will easily back up semi-clogged or poor flowing drainage systems.
- tjr225 4y agoMy garden level apartment was destroyed by flooding on December 23 of 2020. Homeless in Seattle with a wife, a kid, and two dogs and two cats for Christmas. To this day I have ptsd when it rains hard, particularly around Christmas. Now I live on the top of a very big hill…
- lost_tourist 4y agoI got flooded in a 1st floor apartment once. After that my apartments were alway 2nd floor and up. At least until i became a home owner and then I made sure my house was on well drained gentle sloping area. My real estate agent thought I was being overly picky, but fool me once...
- koheripbal 4y agoCharge your drones! Set your outside webcams to record!
- carabiner 4y agoThis is a classic interview question for SWE's and so the city should be well prepared.
- sn41 4y agoAs long as they don't forget to hitch a trailer once they uproot Mt. Fuji...
- cperciva 4y agoIsn't the answer to "what do you do if a storm hits the bay area" simply "go back to sleep because all our servers are hosted in us-east-1"?
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoNah. Part of the narrative was that various Availability Zones (AZ) in a single region would be on "different flood plains", and be attached to different power grids. The essence of this design is that a single event, affecting either the ground (floods) or electricity (a grid), would not be able to single-handedly kill all AZs in an AWS region. Source: I used to share this stuff a lot, in public, representing AWS.
- cperciva 4y agoYeah, and nobody ever puts everything into a single AZ, right?
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoAh, good point. (hi Colin!)
- progman32 4y agoFor us the answer was just "get you and your loved ones to high ground, forget about the dang servers, let them go down, it's just computers". Refreshing. In any case the correct investment is in automated recovery systems and a business plan/partnerships that don't demand unrealistic SLAs.
- micropresident 4y agoMy first floor flooded on NYE. I'm not looking forward to Wednesday -- will likely flood again. Going to be a lot of $$$ to repair and fix the drainage.
- FigurativeVoid 4y agoGood luck! I used to live in a place that frequently flooded. Never again.
- olliej 4y agoIt would be super great if CA had invested in water recovery and reclamation to any real extent in the last few decades - because there's been little-to-no investment in the infrastructure not only do we run the risk of infrastructure collapse (a la Orville) but it doesn't even really do much to help with the water undersupply once the storm is gone :-/
- anon84873628 4y agoWhat projects do you propose?
- olliej 4y agoMaintaining the existing infrastructure - I would have thought "duh", but Oroville demonstrated not - but there's also various river outflow and levee systems to stop water immediately washing out to the sea without being slowed to allow seeping into the ground reservoirs. Maybe they could talk to Arizona, which apparently does recognize water infrastructure is important: https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage
- jeffbee 4y ago"Seeping out to sea" is good for riparian ecosystems and we should just let it happen.
- olliej 4y agoNo, for those you want relatively slow run off. The reduction of flood plains, and the removal of natural dams (beavers!) means that what you mostly get is high speed run off that is high in sediment and low in oxygen.
- nostrademons 4y agoOroville was actually rebuilt and held up nicely in recent atmospheric rivers. Same with the South Bay dams that caused the San Jose flooding in 2017. I wouldn't use those as examples - if anything, they are examples of how California actually can build infrastructure, quickly and reliably, when there is profound media embarrassment and multi-million-dollar lawsuits at stake. The infrastructure you have to worry about is the stuff that everybody's forgotten about, eg. the levee and dam systems in the Delta.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoFor the ones (like me) who don't / didn't know what a Pineapple Express is [0]: a lot of water coming from Hawaii, via clouds. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express
- danans 4y agoThe part about how entire groves of trees could be toppled is wild to think about. I imagine (though don't know) the supersaturated soil means their footings have turned goopy and a strong gust could just push them past their holding limit.
- voakbasda 4y agoLast week here in Oregon, a storm with 50mph gusts came through and blew over two groves of trees here at my farm. Dozens of trees crashing down in the space of hours. Got very lucky in that they all managed to avoid doing any serious damage to structures or vehicles.
- m463 4y agoSaturday's storm crushed everything between the bay area and santa cruz - lots of roads like highway 9 still have closures now. and now round 2.
- dweekly 4y agoThere are going to be a lot more subsequent rounds, too. Friday will be a brief respite to clean up but then comes more.