Disastrous Wave of Climate Events Slams California
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
C M Y K Nxxx,2020-09-11,A,001,Bs-4C,E1 Late Edition Today, cloudy morning, then sun- shine, low humidity, high 77. To- night, clear, cool, low 62. Tomorrow, sunshine, then clouds, high 73. Weather map appears on Page A24. VOL. CLXIX . ...No. 58,813 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 $3.00 DISASTROUS WAVE OF CLIMATE EVENTS SLAMS CALIFORNIA As Northwest Burns, Scientists Fear Fires Pleading for Help Are Just the Start This article is by Jack Healy, Mike By THOMAS FULLER Baker and Tim Arango. and CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE MOLALLA, Ore. — As wildfires SAN FRANCISCO — Multiple began consuming communities mega fires burning more than across Oregon this week, leaders three million acres. Millions of at the state emergency manage- residents smothered in toxic air. ment office fired off an email to Rolling blackouts and triple-digit counterparts around the country, heat waves. Climate change, in pleading for 10 firefighting strike the words of one scientist, is teams that could bring 50 extra smacking California in the face. engines to the region. The crisis facing the nation’s The state got one commitment: most populous state is more than Utah would send a team with five just an accumulation of individual engines. catastrophes. It is also an example Facing a historic year of wild- of something climate experts fire destruction across the West have long worried about, but Coast, including more than three which few expected to see so million acres consumed in Califor- soon: a cascade effect, in which a nia, the national emergency sys- series of disasters overlap, trig- tems that rely on state-to-state as- gering or amplifying each other. sistance have been buckling un- “You’re toppling dominoes in der the strain. That has left emer- ways that Americans haven’t gency responders struggling to imagined,” said Roy Wright, who keep pace with fires that have de- directed resilience programs for stroyed entire towns and led to at the Federal Emergency Manage- least 15 deaths, with seven more ment Agency until 2018 and grew people found dead on Thursday up in Vacaville, Calif., near one of MAX WHITTAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES from a fire north of Sacramento. this year’s largest fires. “It’s apoc- A firefighter near Oroville, Calif., on Thursday. Six of the 20 largest wildfires in modern California history have occurred this year. “I don’t know that we have any alyptic.” fires where we can say we have got enough resources to do what we need to do,” Andrew Phelps, the director of the Oregon Office of Stark Warning When Trump Talks Race, Photo Ops Come First Emergency Management, said. Fires continued to rage in many Blacks didn’t go out — to southern Oregon, where hun- About Hacking By GLENN THRUSH vote for Hillary because they liked dreds of homes have been razed, Shunning Substance in as well as east of Salem, where On Martin Luther King’s Birth- me. That was almost as good as two bodies have been found, and Of Both Parties day in January 2017, Donald J. Encounters With getting their vote,” Mr. Trump said, lowering his voice to say the along the state’s coast. More than Trump, then the president-elect, 900,000 acres have burned, nearly welcomed a group of civil rights Black Leaders word “Blacks,” on a recording pro- By DAVID E. SANGER double a typical season. Hundreds leaders, led by Dr. King’s eldest vided by a meeting participant KRISTINA BARKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES and NICOLE PERLROTH of thousands of people have been son, into his office in Trump Tower. and confirmed as authentic by The Russian military intelli- ordered to evacuate, including Sean Mann, 15, whose family After a tour of Mr. Trump’s ce- three others. (A White House gence unit that attacked the Dem- oned the lie that President Barack parts of the Portland suburbs, was evacuated, in Canby, Ore. lebrity curio collection (Shaquille spokesman did not dispute the ve- ocratic National Committee four Obama was not born in America where fires were still on the move. O’Neal’s sneakers, size 22, were a racity of the recording.) years ago is back with a series of and, in their view, played to racial In California, firefighters con- highlight), the visitors presented Mr. Trump promised he would The same could be said for the new, more stealthy hacks aimed at fears during the 2016 campaign. tinued to battle the blazes of a re- entire West Coast this week, to him with a proposal intended to seriously consider their proposal. campaign staff members, consult- He quickly dashed even those markable wildfire season, includ- Washington and Oregon, where prevent state voter identification It went nowhere. ants and think tanks associated modest hopes. Low turnout ing the August Complex burning towns were decimated by infernos laws from disenfranchising peo- “I will be better to the African- with both Democrats and Republi- among Black voters, Mr. Trump in the Mendocino National Forest as firefighters were stretched to ple of color. American people than anybody cans. declared, had helped him defeat that is now the largest fire in the their limits. The delegation had low expec- Hillary Clinton. else in this room,” he declared just That warning was issued on state’s recorded history. California’s simultaneous crises tations. Mr. Trump had champi- “Many people didn’t go out — Continued on Page A15 Thursday by the Microsoft Corpo- In Washington, hundreds of illustrate how the ripple effect ration, in an assessment that is far homes and other structures were works. A scorching summer led to more detailed than any yet made at risk of wildfires that continued dry conditions never before expe- public by American intelligence to burn, even as a deadly stretch rienced. That aridity helped make agencies. of dry winds from the east began the season’s wildfires the biggest The findings come one day after to ease. Hilary Franz, the state’s ever recorded. Six of the 20 largest a government whistle-blower commissioner of public lands, said wildfires in modern California his- claimed that officials at the White the state was searching for help tory have occurred this year. House and the Department of from elsewhere in the country. If climate change was a some- Homeland Security suppressed “California, Oregon, Washing- what abstract notion a decade intelligence concerning Russia’s ton, we are all in the same soup of ago, today it is all too real for Cali- continuing interference because it cataclysmic fire,” said Washing- fornians. The intensely hot wild- “made the president look bad,” ton’s governor, Jay Inslee. fires are not only chasing thou- and instructed government ana- Continued on Page A19 Continued on Page A18 lysts to instead focus on interfer- ence by China and Iran. Microsoft did find that Chinese and Iranian hackers have been ac- tive — but often not in the way President Trump and his aides Citigroup Names Female Chief, have suggested. Federal officials insisted that Breaching a Wall Street Barrier the Microsoft report was consis- tent with their own warnings, which named Russia, China and By EMILY FLITTER Iran as three nations seeking to and ANUPREETA DAS gather information from the cam- Booms and busts and scams paigns, and perhaps try to influ- and panics have changed Wall ence the outcome. But the most re- Street in many ways over the dec- cent assessment by the director of ades, but one thing has stubbornly national intelligence, last month, PETROS GIANNAKOURIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS remained the same: The top jobs also said China preferred that for- Calamity in Greece have always gone to men. Now, mer Vice President Joseph R. Bi- that last citadel is about to fall. Continued on Page A16 A series of fires at the Moria camp, Europe’s largest, displaced nearly 12,000 migrants. Page A11. Come February, Jane Fraser will become the first woman to KYLE GRILLOT/BLOOMBERG lead a major financial institution Jane Fraser is expected to take in the United States when she over at Citigroup in February. takes the reins at Citigroup, the G.O.P. Aid Plan Fails, Dimming Hopes of Relief Before Election country’s third-largest bank. Ms. Fraser, who has been at Citi for 16 her grow,” Ms. Miller said, adding vancing, calling it inadequate to tional funds that President Trump years and runs its biggest global that she was “ecstatic.” By EMILY COCHRANE meet the mounting needs for fed- Narrow Bill Blocked by steered to the unemployed by ex- division, the consumer bank ca- Ms. Fraser’s ascension is and JIM TANKERSLEY eral aid, in the latest indication of a ecutive order last month. It would tering to individual customers, groundbreaking on Wall Street, WASHINGTON — Prospects lack of political will to reach an Senate Democrats also strand a wide swath of small will succeed Michael Corbat as which has never quite shaken off for any additional stimulus to ad- agreement, even as critical fed- business owners who have en- chief executive. its longstanding reputation as a dress the coronavirus pandemic’s eral aid for individuals and busi- dured steep drops in revenue as “It’s about time,” said Heidi boys’ club, with men dominating devastating toll before the elec- nesses has run dry. are demanding more than twice the pandemic chilled economic ac- Miller, a former top executive at the upper ranks of banks and tion darkened considerably on It was a nearly party-line vote as much. tivity, with little prospect of a re- JPMorgan Chase who was once other financial firms, despite ef- Thursday, when a whittled-down whose outcome was never in A failure to compromise would turn to normal levels for months seen as a potential successor to forts to recruit and promote more Republican plan failed in the Sen- doubt.