Posts Tagged: devastating

FAIR plan: CA’s insurance rates haven’t kept pace with risks, costs

Homes destroyed during the Thomas fire in Ventura, 2018. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)

by AURORA MULLETT posted 07.29.2022

OPINION: Increasingly, California residents have been left with no choice but to accept the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort, and the typically higher rates that come with it. The FAIR Plan provides basic fire insurance coverage when traditional insurance is not available, often for properties that other insurers decline to cover because they are considered high-risk.

State should do more to unclog port congestion

The tugboat Sandra Hugh pushes a cargo ship into the crowded Port of Oakland. (Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald, via Shutterstock)

by JOHN KABATECK posted 11.18.2021

OPINION: If the Grinch is attempting to steal this Christmas, he is doing so under the guise of supply chain disruptions and congested ports. The attention-grabbing headlines asking, “Who Can Save Christmas,” usually top stories about children finding the right toy under the tree Christmas morning.

Outlook bleak for California’s 2019 fire season

A resident leads horses to safety in Paradise during the 2018 Camp Fire. (Photo: Dylan Mittag, via Shutterstock)

by CHUCK MCFADDEN posted 07.01.2019

Everyone with any knowledge of the subject agrees: California is on the brink of a potentially disastrous fire season. And there is concern that the problem is not going to be solved soon. “Our best efforts may still be inadequate,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Electric vehicles in the fast lane

An electric vehicle gets a battery recharge at the L.A. Auto Show. Photo: Juan Camilo Bernal)

by LISA RENNER posted 02.26.2018

By the time today’s infants are in their early 30s, gasoline-powered cars that aren’t electric hybrids could be a rarity in California. That’s the goal of California policy makers who are doing their best to phase those cars out by 2050 and replace them with zero-emissions vehicles like electric cars, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

In NorCal fires, weed goes up in smoke

In this Oct. 17 photo, Marcos Morales, co-founder of the cannabis company Legion of Bloom, stands on the ruins of a state-of-the-art drying shed in Glen Ellen, Calif., where 1,600 pounds of ready-to-ship cannabis were destroyed in a fire. (Associated Press/Paul Elias)

by CHUCK MCFADDEN posted 11.06.2017

It’s being called the Wine Country Fire, but the fatal October fires that blackened nearly 200,000 acres across Northern California might also be called the Cannabis Country Fire. While most of the coverage has focused on damage to the losses of homes, business structures and the wine industry, marijuana growers were also hit hard.

Urgent need to keep Coordinated Care Initiative

An elderly man in his wheel chair, taking a a breath of fresh air. (Phboto: Kazoka, via Shutterstock_)

by Gary Passmore posted 07.01.2016

Many seniors and people with disabilities who need services through Medi-Cal and Medicare struggle every day to navigate complex health and long-term care decisions. Dealing with a serious illness is difficult enough without having your doctors, specialists, long term care providers, and other health care providers disconnected with no overall attention to the holistic needs of the individual.

Resolving a divorce, a custody tussle, a contract dispute, a landlord tenant fight, an unpaid debt or any number of multimillion-dollar or small claims civil issues takes longer and costs more than it used to.

And it’ll get costlier and even more time-consuming, experts say, because of the steady diet of state budget cuts