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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.

“It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Additional strike teams arrived just after dark and many of the new firefighters were immediately dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area about 10 miles from South Lake Tahoe, said fire spokesman Dominic Polito.

“We’re flooding the area with resources,” he said. “Wherever there are structures, there are firefighters on the ground.”

Ken Breslin was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic less than a mile from his home in the city of 22,000, with only a quarter-tank of gas in his Ford Escape. His son begged him to leave Sunday night, but he shrugged him off, certain that if an evacuation order came, it would be later in the week.

“Before, it was, ‘No worries … it’s not going to crest. It’s not gonna come down the hill. There’s 3,500 firefighters, all those bulldozers and all the air support,’” he said. “Until this morning, I didn’t think there was a chance it could come into this area. Now, it’s very real.”

As flames churned toward South Lake Tahoe, residents just over the state line in Douglas County, Nevada were under evacuation warnings.

Monday’s fresh evacuation orders, unheard of in the city, came a day after communities several miles south of the lake were abruptly ordered to leave as the fire raged nearby. South Lake Tahoe’s main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, proactively evacuated dozens of patients, and the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office transferred inmates to a neighboring jail.

“There is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before. The critical thing for the public to know is evacuate early,” said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “For the rest of you in California: Every acre can and will burn someday in this state.”

The threat of fire is so widespread that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.

“We do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety,” Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien said.

Overnight, the already massive Caldor Fire grew 7 miles in direction in one area northeast of Highway 50 and more than 8 miles in another, Cal Fire officials said.

More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes, including crews from Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of California’s Office of Emergency Services. About 250 active-duty soldiers were being trained in Washington state to help with the arduous work of clearing forest debris by hand.

Crews from Louisiana, however, had to return to that state because of Hurricane Ida, “another major catastrophic event taking place in the country and is a pull on resources throughout the United States,” he said.

Porter said that only twice in California history have blazes burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, both this month, with the Caldor and Dixie fires. The Dixie, the second-largest wildfire in state history at 1,205 square miles about 65 miles north of the Lake Tahoe-area blaze, prompted new evacuation orders and warnings Monday.

The Lake Tahoe area in the Sierra Nevada mountains is usually a year-round recreational paradise offering beaches, water sports, hiking, ski resorts and golfing. South Lake Tahoe, at the lake’s southern end, bustles with outdoor activities, and with casinos available in bordering Stateline, Nevada.

On weekends, the city’s population can easily triple and on holiday weekends, like the upcoming Labor Day weekend, up to 100,000 people will visit for fun and sun. But South Lake Tahoe City Mayor Tamara Wallace said they’ve been telling people for days to stay away because of poor air from wildfires.

She said she thought the Caldor Fire would stay farther away. Fires in the past did not spread so rapidly near the tourist city.

“It’s just yet another example of how wildfires have changed over the years,” she said as she gathered treasures passed from her deceased parent and her husband’s while they prepared to leave.

The last two wildfires that ripped through populated areas near Tahoe were the Angora Fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in 2007 and the Gondola Fire in 2002 that ignited near a chairlift at Heavenly Mountain Resort.

Since then, the dead trees have accumulated and the region has coped with serious droughts, Wallace said. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, scientists say.

Wallace said traffic was crawling Monday, but praised the evacuation as orderly because residents heeded officials’ orders. Authorities have also been more aggressive in recent years, issuing warnings and orders sooner so people have more time to flee.

Not everyone agreed as fierce winds kicked up dust and debris and drivers sat in gridlock. The California Highway Patrol added “quite a bit of additional personnel” to help guide a chaotic evacuation from South Lake Tahoe, as huge traffic jams slowed the evacuation of vehicles, CHP Assistant Commissioner Ryan Okashima said. Congestion had eased by Monday afternoon.

South Lake Tahoe resident John Larson said the evacuation probably went as smoothly as possible, considering how swiftly flames moved into the area.

“The fuel went so fast and it climbed the ridge so quick,” Larson said of the fire after settling into an evacuation center at a park in Carson City, Nevada. Red Cross volunteers set up the facility with 50 cots after another evacuation center in nearby Gardnerville reached capacity.

The fire destroyed multiple homes Sunday along Highway 50, one of the main routes to the lake’s south end. It also roared through the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, demolishing some buildings but leaving the main buildings at the base intact. Crews used snow-making machines to douse the ground.

Cabins burned near the unincorporated community of Echo Lake, where Tom Fashinell has operated Echo Chalet with his wife since 1984. The summer-only resort offers cabin rentals, but was ordered to close early for the season by the U.S. Forest Service due to ongoing wildfires.

Fashinell said he was glued to the local TV news. “We’re watching to see whether the building survives,” he said.

The Caldor Fire has scorched nearly 292 square miles since breaking out Aug. 14. After the weekend’s fierce burning, containment dropped from 19 percent to 15 percent. More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 20,000 more were threatened. Gov. Steve Sisolak on Monday declared a state of emergency in Nevada, citing “the anticipation” that the wildfire in the Lake Tahoe area in California would burn across the state line into the Silver State.

The National Weather Service warned of dangerous fire conditions and winds through Wednesday.

Diane Kinney, who has lived in the city since the 1970s, said this is the first time her neighborhood has been ordered to evacuate. She and her husband were packing up keepsakes, jewelry and insurance papers shortly after noon. They had to leave their 1964 Chevelle, but she hopes it stays safe.

“Everybody wants to live in Lake Tahoe. There are definitely advantages of being in the mountains, being with these beautiful pine trees,” she said. “But we definitely have to get out now.”

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/caldor-fire-sweeps-toward-lake-tahoe-after-mass-evacuation-n1278106

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More than 120 people were injured as many areas were hit by record amounts of rainfall and violent winds, according to national broadcaster NHK. Officials urged residents to be on alert with evacuation orders remaining for about 5.9 million people across 17 prefectures, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

The heavy rain destroyed river banks throughout Japan — most seriously the Chikuma River in Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo. Houses were flooded in the area, with NHK showing footage of collapsed bridges and residents being rescued by helicopter from rooftops.

Typhoon Hagibis, the biggest storm to hit Japan in decades, had moved away from the island by Sunday morning. It has been downgraded to a tropical storm, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. At its peak, Hagibis was packing winds of up to 252 kilometers per hour.

More than 420,000 buildings across the country have lost electricity due to the typhoon, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said in a statement.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said a total of eight local governments, including Tokyo and Nagano, have requested assistance from the country’s Self-Defense Forces.

Cars are stranded on a road as the city is submerged in muddy waters after an embankment of the Chikuma River broke, in Nagano, central Japan. – Supplied

The government will send Ryota Takeda, chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, to Nagano prefecture and Land Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba to Saitama prefecture, Suga said.

Across Japan, more than 800 domestic flights had been cancelled for Sunday as of early morning, according to NHK.

The area around Tokyo worked to return to normal on Sunday morning.

A vehicle falls off collapsed road in the typhoon-hit Kakuda city, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan. – AP

Heavy rain and flood warnings were lifted, and subways and most train services in the region resumed operations, NHK said. Bullet-train service heading west from the capital also was restored, according to Central Japan Railway.

Tokyo Disneyland planned to resume operations at noon after closing on Saturday.

Rugby World Cup organisers decided to go ahead with three out of four games scheduled for Sunday, including a closely watched contest between Japan and Scotland.

A collapsed railway bridge is seen over the Chikuma river swollen by Typhoon Hagibis in Ueda, Nagano prefecture, central Japan. – Supplied

The match between Canada and Namibia was called off amid safety concerns following torrential rains that caused flooding and landslides around the venue in northern Japan.

In addition to the Japan-Scotland game, matches pitting the US against Tonga and Wales versus Uruguay will proceed, organisers said.

Houses are seen in muddy waters in Sukagawa, Fukushima prefecture, as Typhoon Hagibis hits the area. -TAKUYA INABA

Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/116537317/typhoon-hagibis-japan-advises-eight-million-people-to-evacuate

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Damaged caused by typhoon Hagibis in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo. Photograph: Jiji Press/EPA

Evacuation orders were issued to more than 800,000 households in Tokyo on Saturday as super-typhoon Hagibis threatened power cuts and widespread flooding.

Storm surges and high waves have raised sea levels by more than a meter along some stretches of the coast, and waters in Tokyo Bay are up by 50cm, increasing the danger of severe flooding in the city center.

On Saturday the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a level-five warning, its highest level, and urged more than 45 million residents of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures to find a secure building or move to higher floors.

The warning came as it was reported that nine people were missing after a landslide in Gunma and flooding in Shizuoka. More than 80 have been reported injured.

Authorities have said they are planning to release water from the Shiroyama dam, 50km west of Tokyo, to reduce the risk of it bursting. They have urged residents of six nearby towns to protect themselves as discharging water into an area already experiencing torrential rain is expected to cause severe flooding. About 17,000 military personnel have been placed on standby for rescue operations.

The giant storm, which is 1,400km across and capable of producing 200km-an-hour gusts of wind, is being compared to 1958’s typhoon Ida, which wrought destruction across the Greater Tokyo area and eastern Shizuoka prefecture, killing 1,200 people.

However, the death toll is unlikely to be anywhere near as high this time thanks to Japan’s stringent building safety standards and comprehensive disaster warning systems.

Emergency alerts accompanied by loud chimes are being sent directly to tens of millions of smartphone users in the affected areas.

By Saturday morning roofs had been ripped off houses in Chiba prefecture. This area, immediately east and south of Tokyo, is still recovering from last month’s typhoon Faxai, which killed three people, injured more than 40, and left hundreds of thousands of homes without power.

On Saturday a 50-year-old man was killed in Chiba when his car was flipped over by the storm, while another person died after being washed away in a car, public broadcaster NHK said.

“When the winds suddenly hit, they blew the roof off my house,” a resident told NHK. “The noise was awful. One of my three children was injured and is now in a hospital.”

Adding to the danger of landslides, an earthquake measuring four in Chiba on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, whose highest grading is seven, hit the Pacific Ocean at 6:22 pm local time on Saturday.

Up to 60cm of rain is expected to fall in some areas by Sunday morning. Tokyo Disney Resort shut down on Saturday for the first time since the earthquake and resulting deadly tsunami in 2011 that killed nearly 20,000 people, while all bullet trains and most flights in and out of the greater Tokyo area and its surrounding prefectures were canceled.

The Tokyo metropolitan government has opened an evacuation center in Tokyo’s Ueno district for foreign tourists stranded by the shutdown. Organizers canceled Saturday’s qualifying session for the Suzuka grand prix, although the race is expected to take place on Sunday afternoon.

The England v France World Cup Rugby game, due to having been played in Yokohama on 12 October, was canceled the previous day. A decision on Sunday’s match between Japan and Scotland was due following an inspection scheduled late on Saturday night.

Scotland, who will be eliminated from the World Cup if the match is canceled, want the game to be switched to Monday.

“Right from the get-go, we said we would play any place, anywhere, behind closed doors, in full stadiums,” said Scottish Rugby’s chief executive, Mark Dodson.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/12/japan-typhoon-hagibis-tokyo-earthquake-rugby-flood-rain

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