US President Joe Biden visited the areas in the state of California affected by severe storms on Tuesday.
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the essentials in brief
- Damage already estimated at over a billion dollars.
During his visit to the towns hit by the storms, Biden will “get an overview of the reconstruction efforts and examine what additional government aid is required,” the White House said late Monday evening (local time). At least 19 people have died in California in the past three weeks as a result of a total of nine severe storms.
Biden declared California a state of emergency last weekend. In doing so, the President freed up federal funds for assistance, such as temporary housing and repairs. According to estimates, the damage is already over one billion dollars (around 920 million euros).
Rescue workers continue to work across the state to clean up landslides and clear mud and fallen trees from roads. According to the website poweroutage.us, around 23,800 households in the most populous US state were still without power late Monday evening.
Record-breaking amounts of precipitation were measured in northern California: More than 450 millimeters of rain had fallen over San Francisco since December 26, the US weather service said. It was the “wettest 22 days since January 1862,” the NWS said on Twitter.
The storm lows of the past few days have now reached the Rocky Mountains in the north and the so-called Great Plains in the center of the USA. For mountainous regions of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, the NWS predicted “heavy snowfalls” for Tuesday.
However, further storm lows, which are currently over the northern west coast state of Washington, could come to California. According to the meteorologists, renewed heavy rain is expected, especially in the coastal regions. Drier weather is expected again for the weekend.
Affected by the aftermath of a decade-long drought, California has been suffering from winter storms for weeks with heavy rain and snowfalls that some areas have not seen in 150 years.
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