Weather

Should Richmond shelter unhoused people in hotels during severe weather?

Gray skies emptied streams of rain onto an encampment at Castro and Hensley Streets on a cold January night. Untarred paths turned muddy and flooded fast, but the rain didn’t stay on the streets. It seeped into immobile recreational vehicles from all sides, splattering through frames where glass windows once were.  While it rained, 43-year-old O’Neill Fernandez was busy lending a hand to those with leaking RVs. Fernandez, who works with the nonprofit Safe Organized Spaces, tried to drape tarpaulins…

Sandbags available, widespread flooding expected as powerful storm rolls in

The wet weather is about to turn wild in the Bay Area, as Wednesday morning rain makes way for an afternoon of gusty wind and downpours and an evening where thunderstorms and even hail are possible. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch and high-wind warnings in effect until Thursday afternoon, with the potential for 1 to 4 inches of rain over the course of two days. And more is on the way, with another atmospheric river threatening…

Racing to patch RV roofs ahead of the rain at Richmond encampment

Advocates worked Tuesday to weatherproof recreational vehicles at an encampment in Richmond in preparation for heavy rainfall this week.   Two Bay Area advocacy organizations — NeighborAid and Safe Organized Spaces! Richmond — spent the afternoon at Castro and Hensley streets, sealing cracks to protect as many of the nearly 30 parked vehicles there as they could.  Richmond City Council has debated how to better serve the many people living in vehicles. In January 2020, 1,750 people in Richmond were without…

UPDATE: PG&E picking up pace of pole washing to address power outage problem

PG&E told Richmond City Council Tuesday that dirty insulators on poles have triggered the frequent power outages residents are experiencing and that the company will wash poles “on a more regular basis.” PG&E is washing 100 to 160 poles a day in Richmond and other parts of Contra Costa County and plans to increase that to 1,000 poles per week. With about 6,000 poles to address, PG&E expects to finish the work by Nov. 15, PG&E’s Darin Cline said.  Over…