California Readies for Historic El Niño as NOAA, FEMA Shrink — SkimNews
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- NOAA projects a greater than 90% chance of a "very strong" El Niño and roughly a 75% chance of a historic event, with severe storms, landslides and destructive high tides possible at the same time.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on September 21 to mobilize resources and kick off coordinated preparations across all levels of government.
- State climatologist Michael Anderson said El Niño will add about a foot of sea level rise in California on top of the 8 to 12 inches the state has accumulated from climate change over the past century.
- LA County public works director Mark Pestrella acknowledged the county's flood control systems are built only for a "100-year event" (1% annual chance), and El Niño could push those odds higher.
- Wildfire burn scars from Big Sur's summer fires and the 2025 LA firestorm face heightened debris-flow risk, since officials said watersheds typically need five years to heal enough to withstand strong storms.
- Monica Medina, former principal deputy NOAA administrator under Obama, said Trump-era deep budget cuts and mass layoffs at NOAA and FEMA have left the US less able to respond as needs rise: "If this is a real test, we're going to flunk."
Why it matters: California faces a high-stakes readiness test: flood control built only for 100-year events meets a potentially historic El Niño, while Trump-era cuts have stripped NOAA and FEMA of staff. With wildfire scars still healing across hundreds of square miles, the federal agencies tasked with forecasting and coordinating disasters may be smaller than the storm they're supposed to manage.
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