Here’s a look at what’s next for the North Coast’s top 10 stories of 2015:
The drought
The first full week of January brought wind, lightning, thunder, hail and inches of rain to the North Coast, but no, that won’t end the damaging four-year drought, according to scientists and forecasters. They say the state and Central Coast have been so dry, so long, that even a few months of deluges won’t end the woes caused by too little rainfall for so many months.
According to the Dec. 29 U.S. Drought Monitor website for California, San Luis Obispo County was still shown as being in the most severe “exceptional drought” category. About 44 percent of the state was in that category.
The state, county and Cambria Community Services District all are under drought-emergency declarations.
County supervisors’ Dec. 15 “drought conditions” report showed Cambria as having received 12 percent of its average annual rainfall of 22 inches.
The current set of storms will add to that, but forecasters have said it would take several years of normal or above-normal rainfall to counter damage done by the drought.
Supervisors will get their next drought report at their meeting Tuesday, Jan. 12.
El Niño
In a meteorological double whammy, the North Coast and much of the state have gone this week from dry, dry, dry to El Niño drenched, as had been predicted. As of early Wednesday, Jan. 6, a set of storms had doused the North Coast with several inches of rain, the most to fall within a brief period for some time, with more to follow. Other storms appeared to be setting up for the next week.
The classic El Niño weather pattern, triggered by warmer-than-usual water in the Eastern Pacific, can (but doesn’t always) bring heavy storms and lots of rain to San Luis Obispo County, as happened in 1997 and 1982-83.
Some forecasters have proclaimed the 2015-16 pattern to be a “Godzilla El Niño,” saying its intensity parallels or exceeds the most powerful such systems on record.
If, indeed, the 2016 storm track has shifted southward for the winter, this season could be a wet one, which would bode well for Cambria’s forest and gardens and would reduce the immediate fire danger. But it also could produce local flooding, road closures, wind damage, hazards and landslides along areas prone to that (Highway 1 toward Big Sur, perhaps?).
Within Cambria’s drought-ridden Monterey pine forest, rain and wind can be another double whammy that brings down hazardous trees, crushing whatever those trees land upon and often interrupting electrical service. A couple of brief outages Tuesday, Jan. 5, could be a harbinger of things to come.
Fire danger and Monterey pine forest crisis
Those twin topics were front and center at a wide variety of agencies and organizations — from state offices to local groups — throughout the spring, summer and fall of 2015. Representatives of Cambria Fire, Cal Fire, the county’s Fire Safe Council, CCSD, PG&E and more plotted and planned the best ways to keep Cambrians and the forest as safe as possible.
In May, various state, local and federal fire and emergency officials, including Cal Fire State Director Ken Pimlott, converged on Cambria for a news conference highlighting the urgent need for property owners to make their own houses and lots more fire safe.
The Cambria Fire Safe Focus Group reorganized under the chairwomanship of former county supervisor Shirley Bianchi. Since then, the representatives who participate have confronted such problems as the fire danger posed by illegal encampments in the forest, clearing brush from right-of-way areas, simplifying the permit process for removing dead trees, and securing grants to help pay to identify and remove hazardous trees that could fall on people, vehicles, roads and other public areas, homes and other buildings. The group recently expanded its scope to include El Niño-related emergencies.
And while the recent rains have diminished somewhat the immediate risk of wildfire, those storms also are apt to encourage heavier growth of brush and greenery.
Then if spring and summer weather turns hot, dry and drought-ish, local fire danger in the forest and the Santa Lucia hills could spike again.
Fire service debate
As the drought continued, El Niño threatened and firefighters were poised to handle whatever Mother Nature doled out. But the resignation of Mark Miller, chief of the Cambria Fire Department since 2008, launched a domino-effect upheaval that remains unresolved for the long term.
Even though Miller’s resignation had been expected, the Cambria services district’s general manager hasn’t selected a replacement, let alone having that person trained and waiting in the wings, as Miller had been when former chief Bob Putney retired.
Instead, GM Jerry Gruber urged board members to sign a yearlong department-management contract with Cal Fire and launch an ad hoc committee to research the district’s options for running the stand-alone department. And that’s what they did.
A groundswell of support for local control of Cambria Fire was launched, and signs of that support for the 139-year-old independent department popped up in neighborhood yards around town.
Then fire Capt. Steve Bitto retired in September after 27 years with Cambria Fire, and in December, Rob Lewin, county/Cal Fire chief, retired after 37 years in fire service.
Ad hoc member Mike Thompson said recently that the committee hopes to have its report and recommendations to the district board at its January or February meeting.
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