How much rain did the storm drop in Southern California? Los Angeles saw a record-setting amount while some parts of the region saw nearly a foot of rain.
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Parts of Southern California see nearly a foot of rain, record-setting totals
California's fire crisis stems from outdated water systems and poor forestry management, critics argue, with progressive politics thwarting realistic solutions.
www.foxnews.com
Devastating': California had record rainfall last year, but lacked infrastructure to store it
Water and energy policy expert pushes back against Gov Gavin Newsom's wildfire rhetoric: 'It's all political'
California does not have a water shortage, yet firefighters battling the brutal fires across Los Angeles are facing scarce resources to keep up with the blaze that has threatened thousands of lives, homes, land and wildlife.
Meanwhile, critics challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to "not play politics," arguing that political mismanagement is precisely to blame.
"It's all political," Edward Ring, the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center think-tank, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "The entire cause is political, and they ironically politicize it by saying it's about climate change, which is a political wedge that they use all the time, which is really one of the least of the factors causing this."
Experts lay blame primarily on the state's handling of its forestry management and a lesser-known problem, the state's outdated water reserves system. California's existing reservoirs can only hold so much water, and many were built in the mid-20th century.
Last year, the state experienced record-breaking rainfall after an atmospheric river event, but the existing water infrastructure faced difficulties managing the sudden influx of water. A significant portion of that rainfall was dumped into the ocean.
Ring also pointed to "environmentalist extremists" in the state who have pushed for heavier regulations like the Endangered Species Act, which requires freshwater to flow through rivers and into the Pacific Ocean to protect the endangered delta smelt and salmon. The mandates restrict how much water can be diverted to storage, even during wet years.
California has record amounts of rainfall in few two years but won't collect due to mismanagement.