Nearly two weeks after King Salmon and Fields Landing were inundated with record-breaking floodwaters, many residents are still struggling to recover, with some facing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage.Among them are Linda and James Carter. The pair moved into their King Salmon home — a little light blue house just a stone’s throw away from the beach — shortly after they were married in 2010. In their 15-plus years in King Salmon, the Carters have seen their neighborhood flood countless times during storms and high tides, but they never worried much about their own home because a brick retaining wall surrounds the property.“That property has never flooded before,” Linda told the Outpost during a recent phone interview. “But on the morning of Jan. 2, we saw [the floodwaters] actually breaching our walkway and coming onto the property, but it didn’t come into the house or anything. Then on Jan. 3, the water had actually breached our wall, and within about 10 minutes, it was in the house. We only had about 10 minutes to get things up, and out of the water … [which got to be] just shy of a foot high.”The floodwaters damaged sheetrock and the flooring throughout their house, destroyed two refrigerators, a stand-up freezer, a dishwasher and totaled one of their cars. Linda also lost a photo album her mother had made for her when she was a kid.“We were so depressed about what we had already lost, we just quit looking for more stuff,” James said. “It was just beating us down. Those first three days, we were just in survival mode.”King Salmon is no stranger to flooding. At just three feet above sea level, the tiny bayside community has grown accustomed to the swollen canals, flooded streets and soggy lawns that come with winter rains, but this year was different.On Jan. 2, a combination of record-breaking King Tides, heavy rains and an intense storm surge pushed Humboldt Bay beyond its shores, inundating King Salmon with seawater. The tide gauge at the North Spit peaked at 10 feet that morning, breaking the previous record of 9.8 feet set in 2005, according to data from the National Weather Service in Eureka. On Jan. 3, a new record of 10.37 feet was set.The National Weather Service issued several weather alerts ahead of the storm-fueled King Tides and Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services (OES) shared flood safety tips and resources for people living in low-lying, flood-prone areas. On Jan. 2, Humboldt OES issued a notice urging people to avoid King Salmon due to extreme flooding, but residents were never asked to evacuate.Keep Reading
Considering that it is a fixture of life in California, it’s remarkable how much remains unknown about the fog that regularly flows over the coast from the Pacific Ocean. But a collaboration between researchers throughout the state hopes to change that.With a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the Heising-Simon Foundation, the Pacific Coastal Fog Research project is poised to lift the veil on the rather mysterious meteorological phenomenon. The scientists will record the fog’s chemical composition, examine how it helps support redwood forests and other ecosystems, and look at the possible effects of climate change and pollution from human activities.Sara Baguskas and her colleagues at San Francisco State University are one of five teams working on the project. Starting in the spring, they will head out to locations on the coast from San Diego to Humboldt County, carrying towering fog collectors and a slew of sensors measuring temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation.“It’s the first time we have been funded to carry out interdisciplinary research at a scale that really allows us to answer fundamental questions regarding coastal fog dynamics and impacts on ecosystems,” Baguskas said.The fog collectors are tree-like structures with a fine mesh net spanning between their branches. Water collected in the mesh drips down and is collected into troughs. Baguskas and her colleagues will deploy covariance towers — metallic structures that continuously measure carbon and water concentrations in the air — and use the data to compare fog events in different places at the same time.“With this, we can begin to make connections between fog events and the ecosystem response to disentangle the ephemeral and nebulous nature of fog events and make it a little more concrete,” Baguskas said.Meanwhile, a team led by environmental chemist Peter Weiss-Penzias of UC Santa Cruz will study the fog’s composition, looking for toxic chemicals.This past summer, they collected preliminary data for the project in several locations along the coast, including Pacifica and Santa Cruz. They found highly toxic methyl mercury, which is actually a natural component of the fog.Methyl mercury is formed by bacteria in the depths of the ocean. But at the coast, winds push surface water out to sea, allowing colder, deeper water to rise to the surface. Coastal fog — which forms when moist air condenses over the cool, ocean water and drifts toward shore — then picks up water evaporating from the ocean surface, allowing methyl mercury to hitch a ride onto land.To study how methyl mercury gets deposited, the researchers take samples of lichens, dissolving them in nitric acid to extract mercury and other metals. Not surprisingly, preliminary studies have found that the amount of methyl mercury in lichens is highest near the coast and rapidly drops off farther inland.Keep Reading
The emergency ratification will help local agencies mobilize state and federal fundsAt a special session on Tuesday afternoon, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors affirmed and ratified a state of emergency proclaimed by the county’s Sheriff’s Office and Office of Emergency Services following last week’s disastrous fire in Arcata.This is a horrific fire,” Sheriff William Honsal told the board. “My compliments to Arcata Fire and all the fire suppression efforts. Just talking to Chief Emmons this morning, over 2 million gallons of water … was spent on this fire to make sure that it was only contained to that one block. … Based upon wind and the fuels, this could have been a catastrophic event for the city, … so we’re thankful that it was just contained to one block.”Honsal said that while the fire had been contained, the emergency was not over. He said that the county’s environmental health department had recommended reaching out to the EPA and declaring an ongoing emergency in order to access resources outside the county required for the assessment and clean-up of environmental contamination.“Over the weekend, the city assessed the situation. They brought in environmental health, and due to a lot of the contaminants that were in these buildings, a lot of contaminants and hazardous waste was potentially pushed down into the wastewater and stormwater systems in the city of Arcata, which … flow to various creeks, sloughs and ultimately the bay,” Honsal said.Arcata City Manager Merritt Perry added, “Really, one of the big questions we have right now is the assessment. There was a lot of water put on to that fire. There was a paint store that was involved in the fire. So, there’s a lot that went into the storm drains. And right now, we just don’t have the capacity to assess that. And so we forwarded that the county, and we really want to be able to leverage those state resources to make sure we’re doing everything that we can to protect our waterways in the bay.”Perry said that the city is also interested in mobilizing any resources possible to support businesses, property owners and residents affected by the fire and said, “that’s probably going to be a much lower dollar amount” than the cost of environmental assessment and clean-up.Read More
Homes and businesses in King Salmon continue to be affected by the ongoing historic high tides and the coming storm system, which saw no break Saturday, as record-breaking tides hit.According to Troy Nicolini of the Eureka National Weather Service, “We have a really high astronomical tide today combined with pretty significant storm surge, as high as it gets, and we’ll get it somewhere in the 10.1-10.3 (foot) range at about 10:45 at its north-spit gauge across the bay from King Salmon. That’s a record-breaking high tide for today, and when we were talking to people there in King Salmon they’ve said it’s the highest they’ve ever seen, which confirms our measurements.”“Today the wild card is we’ve got strong winds coming onshore,” Nicolini continued. “That’s leading up to that high tide. For King Salmon, we’re not entirely sure what impact that we have with the southwest wind, so the north bay of Arcata where it gets really close to Highway 255, the situation we have might push some additional water up on the road, but I can’t say with great clarity what it’s going to do for King Salmon.”Saturday’s high tide was expected to exceed Friday’s. For context, Nicolini says the astronomical high tide was the sun and moon pulling on the water, and the storm surge tends to shove the ocean into the coast, with a wind that will push the water up that much higher as far as how it will impact King Salmon. The astronomical high tides and storm surge, says Nicolini, in themselves are factors contributing to a very high tide.As news broke Saturday, Nicolini said the tide came in at 10.37 feet, and wanted the community to know that “the tide has turned the corner but the water is staying up because of the wind. There are a lot of flooded low-lying areas and roads, with heavy rain and wind, so just slow down. The worst thing is for you to hit deep water that you don’t see and you’re going fast. There are some really high winds and gusty rain, we’ve issued a tornado warning for Shelter Cove, which won’t impact Humboldt County, but that just gives you an idea of how severe this weather setup is.”As the newspaper reached its print deadline Saturday, Nicolini emphasized “numbered highways, 255 entire lanes covered with water, we’re not talking about surface streets or neighborhoods,” and 101 northbound near College of the Redwoods potentially being closed.For King Salmon, “It’s probably not a huge safety issue with slow-moving, standing water,” he said, though he did caution against the risk of rust to automobiles driving through saltwater. Also, he said with any threat of electricity to be involved, “you don’t want to be anywhere near that standing water, that’s the biggest threat.” If it gets to be a flooding situation into and around people’s homes, it could pick up a power line.”Nicolini also cautioned against the risk of high winds and thunderstorms later Saturday. And he mentioned that people should be aware that the wake their car makes when driving through flooded water, especially at slow speeds that keep an engine from stalling, could make its way into someone’s house.Finally, he also said when the tide is starting to fall, it will produce very high current throughout the bay, as high as the county has seen, so kayakers or any water-sports enthusiasts would do well to avoid the five-knot currents near openings in the bay.Residents cope with floodingOn the ground in King Salmon, Mark Parton, said the flooding had affected his yard and flooded it over, saying, “It happens every year, but not this bad, this is the worst it’s ever happened. It’s only getting worse.” To prepare himself, firstly he said, “my trailer is pretty high, so it doesn’t get to it, but the streets are (flooded),” and he uses main thoroughfares like King Salmon Avenue, which as of Saturday morning was not flooded over but would shortly be closed. As to the potential for flooding worsening, he points at his neighbors’ yards, completely flooded and impassable as they never have been. Parton did say he felt secure for the most part.“They all know, they’ve been here long enough,” said Parton of the danger. “I’ve been here seven years, it’s kind of hard to get used to something like this, but it’s happening more and more and more.”Grange helps outHumboldt Grange #501 in Eureka was preparing to open its doors Saturday, according to secretary Kathy Moley, “to relieve residents impacted by local flooding and storm damage. We’re doing what we can in our community as part of what the Grange does, we’re community-based. I’ll get out of here, get the coffee on and some donuts, we’ll have those free and if people show up we’ll make lunch.”Moley said it was about getting people “in out of the cold, drying things if they need to, or parking at a dry location.” 5845 Humboldt Hill Road is the Grange’s address, at the corner of Humboldt Hill and Eich roads. She said the group would “take it as it goes, and if we need to be open (Sunday), we will.”Humboldt Hill, King Salmon, and Fields Landing is the local community that they serve, “but anybody impacted by the storms is welcome, if they just want to come and be around other people,” said Moley. “We get into the New Year, it’s cold and dark and stormy, and our doors are open, we’re doing what we can to give people hot coffee and tea and camaraderie.”Moley welcomed contacts from people seeking more information by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or calling 707-498-0801.Read More
Record tides that flooded King Salmon on Thursday continued to swell on Friday morning, inundating local businesses, yards and even homes — many of which had never been flooded before. Friday morning’s tide provisionally broke the National Weather Service’s all-time record for the region, and storms and southerly wind may result in an even higher tide on Saturday.Longtime residents, including Greg Stephens, who has operated a shop for his property management business on King Salmon Ave. for more than a decade, said that they had never seen flooding as severe as Friday morning’s.“A friend of mine had the shop for 18 years before this, and I’ve been here 11 years, and this is the first time it’s ever crested (and risen over the boundaries of the canal into the shop),” Stephens said. “Yesterday it got sort of close. It got to the stoop yesterday with maybe two inches to spare … it just came in a little bit today, … but we still have to work.”Keep Reading
