Residents of a housing development on Elizabeth Lake Road were being asked to stay put as firefighters formed a containment perimeter around them, authorities said. A top priority for firefighters was to protect power lines throughout the area that bring electricity to much of Southern California, Bryant said. He noted that some communication infrastructure, such as antennas and electronic repeater dishes, had been damaged, but this had not hampered the communication capabilities for battling the blaze, he said. The L.A. Department of Water and Power requested that residents reduce their energy usage wherever possible. "We’re asking people to help care for our infrastructure while this fire is burning, as we wait for the potential threat to diminish," said … Read ahead
Source: catastrophemonitor.com
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Natural Resources Defense Council predicts that a third of all counties in the Lower 48 will face a higher risk of water shortages in 2050 due to climate change. More than ten percent of counties will face an "extremely high" risk of shortages. "The only way to truly manage the risks exposed in this report is for Congress to pass meaningful legislation that cuts global warming pollution," NRDC climate director Dan Lashof said in a press release. … 
Gasland" won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and gave new life to a national controversy after airing on HBO. The film exposes the environmental and health dangers associated with largely unregulated hydraulic fracturing practices – or "fracking" – and includes interviews with residents across the county who say their air and drinking water has been contaminated by nearby gas wells. … 
Witnesses told reporters that the sea first retreated and a "very big wave" followed rapidly, crashing ashore and sweeping boats and debris into the ocean. Amongst the widespread devastation and damage throughout Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, vital infrastructure necessary to respond to the disaster was severely damaged or destroyed. This included all … 
According to BP, the new cap "creates the potential to increase oil and gas containment capacity to greater than 50,000 barrels per day and should improve containment efficiency during hurricane season by allowing shorter disconnect and reconnect times". … 
If you look back over history, Victorian times saw a real move towards parks and street trees; some of the big street trees that you find in our cities today go back to these times," explained Woodland Trust conservation policy expert Sian Atkinson. … 
The islanders fought through clouds of drifting filaments with brooms, brushed off the showers of excrement after they walked under trees, and tiptoed through a maze of half-inch worms on the sidewalks. The local newspapers ran pictures of building sides covered with caterpillars, looking like horror-movie outtakes. "They were gross," recalled Barbara Hoffman, 53, with a visible shudder. "You could hear them munching. I said spray ‘em." Most trees recovered in the first year; fewer survived the second. But as the bugs struck again in late 2007, an accomplice drought hit the weakened trees, leaving the island now with swaths of stark, barren and lifeless branches. "You just watched the trees and realized they weren’t coming back," said Kathy Tackabury, 58, who lost seven oaks on her property. Scientists see a fingerprint of climate change in the denuded branches, and a pattern of things to come. The effects of climate change, they say, are unlikely to be gradual or predictable. Warming … 
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