US President Joe Biden will travel to areas of California ravaged by a series of storms on Thursday that have killed at least 19 people.
Joe Biden will visit “
communities affected by destruction from recent storms, review reconstruction efforts and assess additional federal assistance needed
,” the White House said Monday evening in a statement.
Since December 27, severe winter storms have caused flooding, landslides and mudslides in California.
retain water
On Saturday, waterspouts had still fallen on its Pacific coast, causing the overflow of many rivers and flooding urban areas, homes and agricultural land dried up by an interminable drought.
Power lines were hit, and fields and roads were submerged.
However, the succession of these storms since the end of December could soon come to an end.
The NWS is indeed forecasting for the weekend “
a period of drier weather over California and the southwestern United States
”.
Read alsoA “cyclonic bomb” hits California
California will then perhaps, finally, have time to repair the damage, restore electricity - some 20,000 homes were still without it on Sunday morning - and learn the lessons of these bad weather "
unprecedented on the scale of our lives
in the words of the Governor.
In San Francisco, the past three or so months have been the wettest since the winter of 1972-73.
At the same time, California, whose agriculture feeds North America, is facing an unprecedented long-term drought.
However, the torrential rains of recent weeks will not reverse the trend.
They "
will not be enough to refill Lake Mead
", warns the NWS, for example, about this gigantic reservoir on the Colorado River which waters California and whose level has been inexorably falling for years.
“A world no longer exists”
But the water control and retention infrastructures - dykes, artificial lakes, constrained riverbeds - "
were designed 40, 50 years ago
" for "
a world that no longer exists
", estimated Saturday M .Newsom.
By blocking the runoff of water, these developments limit the vital recharge of groundwater, explain specialists.
The Democrat, one of the most committed in the United States on climate change, intends to tackle these questions, as “
the heats become much hotter, the dry drier and (…) and the more humid humidity
”.
Global warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, say scientists.
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