Mudslides May Strike Already Flooded Calif.
Jan. 13 -- California residents are on alert today for mudslide threats following two days of a heavy drenching of the region from an extremely heavy winter storm.
This comes a day after a power crisis caused by the nasty weather threatened to leave some parts of the state without electricity.
Already, some Hollywood Hills residents are cleaning up from a mudslide on Friday that crashed into an apartment complex and flooded a garage.
The state's energy regulators downgraded Friday the power emergency to a Stage Two alert — meaning reserves had fallen, or were expected to fall below 5 percent — but California power sellers said this week they will need higher prices and longer contracts with the state's two biggest utilities than those offered by Gov. Gray Davis.
The secretaries of the U.S. Energy and Treasury departments wereexpected to meet today with the chief executives of California'stwo largest utilities and several state officials by video conference to discuss proposals, The New York Times reported.
Electricity shortages linked to California's botched deregulation of the power industry have produced soaring prices andsporadic threats of blackouts in California since last June.
"We can expect these alerts daily," said Jim Detmers, general manager for the California Independent System Operator, the state's grid manager.
The regulators came close to ordering scattered blackouts Thursday night as electricity reserves dropped below 1.5 percent. More than 7 inches of rain fell over Southern California Thursday, downing trees and power lines. High waves forced the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant to cut its energy output by 20 percent. Winds gusted up to 32 mph.
ISO officials credited an influx of power fromOregon and Washington state while fending off outages.
California's power production fell more than 15,000 megawatts, one-third of the state's generating capacity, California ISO spokesman Pat Dorinson said on Thursday. He said the state was "losing megawatts by the hour." Onemegawatt is enough to power 1,000 homes for an hour.
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