$2.75 DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER
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latimes.com
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2017
DACA allies bypass Trump aides Supporters of young immigrants hope to persuade president to reject the views of his hard-line advisors. By Brian Bennett and Lisa Mascaro
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
A DISTRAUGHT homeowner looks at the ruins of the property he has owned for four years in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove Village.
WILDFIRES LAY WASTE TO WINE COUNTRY Residents flee suburbs About 20,000 buildings in evacuation zones in the early-morning The city of Santa Rosa created two evacuation zones Monday morning. Fire destroyed darkness. Hours later, many buildings in the area. Potential fire hot little remains but brick spots detected chimneys and trees.
At least 10 people are killed and 1,500 structures are destroyed in blazes across eight counties.
By Phil Willon, Nina Agrawal, Louis Sahagun and Cindy Chang
By Paige St. John, Javier Panzar, Phil Willon and Bettina Boxall
Buildings
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — The fire spared little as it swept through the idyllic northern neighborhoods of Santa Rosa. The McDonald’s, the Applebee’s, the Kmart, the round red barn built in 1899, the neat-as-a-pin tract homes — all burned to the ground. In the early-morning darkness, residents grabbed what they could and fled. Patients at hospitals and nursing homes were evacuated on gurneys. Winery owners left their vineyards behind, not knowing whether their grapevines would be there when they returned. The Fountaingrove Inn, a Hilton hotel and a high school were leveled, as were homes in the community of Kenwood and at a mobile home park off the 101 Freeway. The Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office reported seven fire-related deaths. By Monday evening, the Tubbs fire had burned more than 35,000 acres, Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon said. In Coffey Park, a subdivision of quiet cul-de-sacs west of the 101 Freeway, many homes were reduced to smoldering rubble. Swaths of suburbia became wasteland, with brick chimneys and denuded trees the only objects left standing. As the sun began to set Monday evening, Brent Co[See Santa Rosa, A9]
Note: Evacuation zone as of 10:46 a.m Monday.
1 MILE
Evacuation zones
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Santa Rosa 12
Sources: OpenStreetMap, Mapzen, Sonoma County, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and city of Santa Rosa J on Sc h le us s a n d T h om a s Suh La ud e r Los Angeles Times
Stuart Palley For The Times
A HOUS E A B L A ZE A firefighter signals for engine operators to pressurize his hose as he works to keep embers on a burning home on Canyon Heights Drive in the Anaheim Hills from spreading to other houses on the street. CALIFORNIA, B1
L.A. Times selects a new editor in chief By Meg James Los Angeles Times Publisher Ross Levinsohn wasn’t even a week into his search for a new top editor for The Times when he called Forbes Media’s top news executive, Lewis D’Vorkin. Levinsohn was startled when the veteran journalist immediately asked whether he was calling about the editor in chief job. “You probably wouldn’t
LEWIS D’VORKIN was
the top news executive at Forbes Media.
want to leave New York,” Levinsohn casually asked. D’Vorkin told him: “Don’t be so sure about that.” The courtship sped up when D’Vorkin traveled to Los Angeles in late August to meet with Levinsohn and his deputy, Mickie Rosen. When the trio sat down for dinner, D’Vorkin was blunt: “I really want this,” he recalled telling them. On Monday, D’Vorkin, 65, was named editor in chief of The Times. He plans to officially join Los Angeles Times
Media Group on Nov. 1. Levinsohn also named Rosen, his deputy, as president of L.A. Times Media Group. “I have been training 40 years for this job,” D’Vorkin said Monday in a phone interview after the announcement. D’Vorkin had been chief product officer for Forbes since 2010, and worked at numerous media outlets, including AOL, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the New York Times. He was [See Editor in chief, A12]
NAPA, Calif. — Scott Lambert and his wife were sleeping in their home north of Napa on Sunday night when they awoke to the sound of a honking horn and shouts of “Get out!” At the door he was greeted by wind and an eerie night sky washed in orange. Lambert, 76, and his wife, Laura, grabbed a few things and fled, first to a friend’s winery and then to a Napa community church that was doubling as a Red Cross shelter. Heavy smoke choked the air and bits of white ash from the Atlas Peak fire drifted earthward Monday morning as he fretted over the fate of the house his parents bought three decades ago. “I think the outlook is bad,” said Lambert, who is retired from the oil industry and has a passion for English literature. “I had my library, thousands of carefully selected books. My grand piano. My music …” The Atlas Peak was one of 14 wildfires that cut a devastating and deadly path across Northern California on Sunday night. Driven by appropriately named Diablo winds, the firestorm killed at least 10 people and destroyed 1,500 structures across eight counties. Seven deaths were reported in Sonoma County, two in Napa County and one [See Wildfires, A8]
Dodgers sweep Diamondbacks Los Angeles advances to the National League Championship Series with a 3-1 victory in Arizona. Austin Barnes and Cody Bellinger each hit solo home runs off Zack Greinke. SPORTS, D1 Weather Plenty of sunshine. L.A. Basin: 85/60. B6
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers who favor a deal to protect some 700,000 young immigrants facing possible deportation because of the end of an Obama administration program are seeking to drive a wedge between President Trump and hardliners on his staff, launching appeals directly to a president whom they see as potentially sympathetic to people brought illegally to the U.S. as children. In his public comments, Trump has shown an unwillingness to be boxed in by his most hard-line advisors on immigration. He initially wavered on what to do with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which has protected the young immigrants known as “Dreamers,” then openly contradicted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions hours after the attorney general announced the end of the program last month. On the day of the announcement, Trump first said only Congress could step in and protect the Dreamers, who will begin losing their work permits and deportation deferrals starting in March. By day’s end, he had softened, writing on Twitter that if Congress failed to act, he would “revisit the issue.” It’s that tendency of the [See DACA, A4]
ANALYSIS
A sixth term still within reach for Feinstein By Cathleen Decker WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s decision to seek a sixth term in theory leaves her open to a fierce challenge from someone closer to the ascendant and most vocal voters in a party that has moved sharply to the left and begun a generational shift. Feinstein has long straddled two camps in California, demonstrating enough liberal tendencies to attract a majority of Democrats and enough moderate ones to be acceptable to those in the middle of the political spectrum. Early in her career, for example, she gained credit among moderate voters by drawing boos from a crowd of liberal party activists when she said she favored the death penalty in some cases. In recent years, that sort of straddle has become an increasingly difficult posture to maintain. The leftward move by Democrats has been matched by a Republican shift to the right, leaving fewer voters to occupy the moderate middle on which Feinstein has depended. This year, she has come under loud public criticism [See Analysis, A12]
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T U E S DAY, O C T O B E R 10 , 2 017
L ATI M E S . CO M
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Kent Porter Santa Rosa Press Democrat
A FIREFIGHTER from Cazadero, Calif., struggles to protect a home from being engulfed in flames in the hard-hit neighborhood of Coffey Park in Santa Rosa.
‘Every spark is going to ignite’ [Wildfires, from A1] in Mendocino County, according to authorities. As of Monday afternoon, the blazes ranked as the state’s fifth-most destructive and among the10 deadliest. “We are a resilient county,” Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane said. “We will come back from this. But right now we need to grieve.” Officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said 17 large wildfires, including the Anaheim Hills blaze in Southern California, had blackened more than 94,000 acres across the state. Three-quarters of the acreage was in the north. Leaping from ridge top to ridge top in grass and oak woodlands, flames raced across the heart of the California wine country, claiming houses, at least one winery and a dairy. In Santa Rosa, the Tubbs fire leveled an entire neighborhood, burned a Hilton hotel, turned big-box stores into smoking ruins and prompted the evacuation of two hospitals, Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital and Kaiser’s Santa Rosa Medical Center. Video on social media showed flames dancing in the background as nurses hurriedly wheeled a patient in a hospital bed across a parking lot, IV drip bags in tow. “Late last night, starting around 10 o’clock, you had 50- to 60-mph winds that surfaced — really across the whole northern half of the state,” Cal Fire director Ken Pimlott said Monday. “Every spark is going to ignite.” Though the conditions that fed the blazes — high winds from the interior, dried-up vegetation and low humidity — are more typical of Southern California’s fall fire season, the north has seen its share of horrific autumn wildfires. The state’s second-deadliest blaze is the October 1991 Tunnel fire in the Oakland and Berkeley hills, which erupted on a quiet Sunday and killed 25 people. The Tunnel also ranks as the most destructive wildfire in California history, consuming 2,900 structures. Two years ago the Valley fire roared across Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties, killing four people and destroying 1,995 buildings. The scene Sunday night when Brenda Burke, 55, fled her cottage north of Napa “was awful,” she said. The fire “would move with the wind. You knew when a house went up because there would be a whole slew of smoke and you could hear the propane tanks exploding.” Eager to find out if her
Devilish gusts So-called Diablo winds fanned the flames on ridge tops that devastated portions of Napa and Sonoma counties. CALIFORNIA, B1
Justin Sullivan Getty Images
A RESIDENT of Glen Ellen, Calif., rushes to save his home as an out-of-control wildfire approaches. Seven
deaths were reported in Sonoma County, two in Napa County and one in Mendocino County, authorities said.
Jeff Chiu Associated Press
RUDY HABIBE, visiting from Puerto Rico, uses a cellphone to photograph the
Tubbs fire, which leveled the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country hotel in Santa Rosa.
Sonoma and Napa county fires Multiple fires ravaged the area Monday. Tubbs fire 101
Santa Rosa
Calistoga Nuns fire
Atlas Peak fire
Patrick fire Napa
80
Pacific Ocean 80 101
San Francisco
680
10 MILES
Sources: Mapzen, OpenStreetMap
Los Angeles Times
home survived, she went back Monday morning, past fire-gutted houses and smoking lawns. When she got to her drive, she saw flames “from what appeared to be the front of my house.” Later in the day she threw herself into volunteer work at an animal rescue organization. Sitting outside a Napa emergency shelter with a dog and a cat pulled from a parked van, she managed a tight smile. “I have what I’m wearing right now and my dog and my phone,” she said. “And I have friends and family. I will be fine.” About 45,000 people were without power and/or cell service in Napa and Sonoma counties. Residents flocked to Na-
pa’s largely shuttered downtown to take advantage of the WiFi at a Starbucks, one of the few businesses open. The smoke was so thick that most drivers turned on their headlights. In the hard-hit Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, Diana Wilder stood outside the pile of rubble that was once her home, clutching a concrete Buddha lawn ornament. “I wanted to take something from the house with me,” said Wilder, 53, a homemaker. A safe and some flower pots were evident in the wreckage, but not much else. “I was praying all night, ‘Please, house, still be there,’ ” said Wilder, who spent Sunday night with her husband in a supermarket parking lot. Wilder returned to find every house on her cul-desac burned to the ground, the charred remains of washing machines, barbecues and chimneys standing amid the graveyard of homes. She and her husband bought their house in 2000. Their monthly payment was $1,200. These days, she doubts she can find an apartment for that amount and plans to live with her brother until she figures out what to do next. Houses usually burn when eaves or attic vents catch wind-driven embers. The embers may land on one building but not a neighboring house, often leaving a haphazard trail of destruction. In one neighborhood, houses on one side of the
street had barely a smudge on them. Across the street, there was little left but the scorched remnants of domestic life. “There was no wind, then there would be a rush of wind and it would stop,” said Ken Moholt-Siebert, who fled with his wife, Melissa, as the Tubbs blaze bore down on his Santa Rosa vineyard. “Then there would be another gust from a different direction. The flames wrapped around us,” he said. At Jack London State Historic Park in Sonoma County, state park rangers packed irreplaceable artifacts Monday and began hosing down the roofs of historic buildings as the Nuns fire approached. Rangers moved memorabilia, including London’s original typewriter and his wife Charmian’s Steinway piano, said Tjiska Van Wyk, the park’s executive director. Several homes on London Ranch Road, which leads into the park, had burned to the ground. It wasn’t just the Diablo winds — similar to Southern California’s Santa Ana winds — that turned Sunday into a nightmare of random destruction. It was also the type of vegetation that was burning. “Much of this is in grassoak woodlands, which is why it’s spreading so quickly,” Pimlott said Monday. Dried-out grass ignites easily and burns quickly, sending fires galloping across the landscape. And despite a wet winter, Pimlott said vegetation still hasn’t recovered from California’s punishing drought. At the end of the summer dry season, all it needed was a spark and winds. Conditions, he said, were “really explosive.” paige.stjohn@latimes.com Twitter: @paigestjohn javier.panzar@latimes.com Twitter: @jpanzar phil.willon@latimes.com Twitter: @philwillon bettina.boxall @latimes.com Twitter: @boxall St. John reported from Napa, Willon from Santa Rosa, Panzar and Boxall from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Makeda Easter, Joy Resmovits, Sonali Kohli, Dakota Smith, Rong-Gong Lin II and Geoffrey Mohan, in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.
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Many homes reduced to rubble [Santa Rosa, from A1] lombo sorted through the ruins of the house on Tuliptree Road that he and his wife bought three years ago. A china cup and saucer from their wedding were the only intact items he found. Colombo had just finished landscaping his home and was about to start remodeling the bathrooms. He and his wife chose the neighborhood because it was a good place to raise a family. Their 6-year-old son’s elementary school was down the street. As the flames closed in, they left with a few family photos and some jewelry. “We had about 10 minutes to get out of the house,” said Colombo, 41, who owns a video security business. “It was coming fast. We were choking” on the smoke. Here in the suburban flatlands of Northern California, surrounded by redwoods and other greenery, Colombo never thought wildfires were a threat. But high winds, dry vegetation and low humidity created conditions more typical of Southern California, said Cal Fire director Ken Pimlott. In another part of Coffey Park on Monday afternoon, Bill Mikan grabbed bucket after bucket of water to douse burning embers on the ruins of his next-door neighbor’s house. Mikan was one of the lucky ones: His home was still standing. He estimated it was one of about seven on his block that survived the Tubbs fire. The neighbors whose house burned have young twins, Mikan said. They had moved in only recently after losing their previous house in a fire, he said. Mikan, who lives with his wife and daughter, said he smelled smoke about 9 p.m. Sunday and called the fire department. The dispatcher, already overwhelmed, said she could not send a firetruck unless there were flames visible. About 2 a.m., Mikan looked out his window and saw a cloud of burning embers flying overhead. Neighbors were going door to door telling everyone to get out. “I’m blessed that they saved my house,” said Mikan, 58, who works for the county. “But I feel terrible that my neighbors weren’t so lucky.” The Mikans headed to a shelter at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building with their golden retriever, Buddy. When shelter workers began serving food, people with dogs had to leave. Back at their house on Monday, the Mikans exchanged bad news about the local institutions they had assumed would always be there — Kmart, Arby’s, the historic Round Barn. Audrey Mikan turned 20 on Monday, but there was no cause for celebration. In the Fountaingrove
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
BILL CUTTING surveys the damage to his best friend’s home Monday in Hidden Valley, where most of the homes were destroyed by fire.
‘It is unusual to have to evacuate a hospital. What can you do? You can’t very well keep the patients in a place that’s going to burn down.’ — Joan Acquistapace,
nurse who fled Rincon Valley
“It is unusual to have to evacuate a hospital,” said Joan Acquistapace, a school nurse who fled her home in Rincon Valley and was helping with the patients. “What can you do? You can’t very well keep the patients in a place that’s going to burn down.” Colombo, the Coffey Park resident, said he plans to rebuild his house. He will look for a rental close by so his son can continue to go to the same school — if it reopens soon. Associated Press
HUNDREDS OF HOMES on Monday sit destroyed by the blaze that swept through Santa Rosa. “I’m blessed
that they saved my house. But I feel terrible that my neighbors weren’t so lucky,” resident Bill Mikan said. neighborhood on the eastern edge of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Det. Troy Newton saw the “growing red snake” of fire moving toward him Sunday night. He told his wife to get ready to leave with their 4year-old son. Then, even
though he was off duty, he started banging on neighbors’ doors, hitting 40 homes in 40 minutes. “It was boom, boom, boom. Ring the door bell. Boom boom — until someone inside got the message,” said Newton, 46.
Many homes in Newton’s neighborhood survived. But dozens just down the hill were reduced to ash. By early Monday evening, the evacuation center at the Veterans Memorial Building was at its capacity of 400 people.
Among the evacuees were hospital patients and nursing home residents. Nurses and doctors monitored blood pressures and glucose levels, and tended to those whose breathing issues were aggravated by the smoke.
phil.willon@latimes.com nina.agrawal@latimes.com louis.sahagun @latimes.com cindy.chang@latimes.com Willon, Agrawal and Sahagun reported from Santa Rosa. Times staff writers Javier Panzar, Alene Tchekmedyian and Dakota Smith contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
Fires strike a blow to wine, tourism sectors By Geoffrey Mohan The deadly firestorms raging across wine country have burned hotels, small lodges, winery buildings and even some vineyards, officials in the region said. But the worst damage is likely to be to the residents who toil in the wine and tourism industry, particularly in Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, where the Fountaingrove fire devastated neighborhoods in the north end of the city. That fire burned the 250room Hilton Sonoma Wine Country hotel and the smaller Fountaingrove Inn, and reportedly destroyed several other small inns, restaurants and other businesses, according to fire officials and local media reports. “I’m pretty sure I lost my house,” said Karissa Kruse, president of the Sonoma County Winegrowers, an industry group. “It sounds like most of the houses in the Fountaingrove neighborhood have been burned down.” Despite scattered re-
Justin Sullivan Getty Images
MORE THAN 50 structures, including homes and barns, have burned in Napa
County. Above, burned-out wine bottles at the Signorello Estate winery. ports of flames engulfing and surrounding wineries in the thick oak woodlands of Sonoma and Napa counties, the vineyards are likely to weather the flames well, Kruse said. Most of the crop has been picked, she said. “Our grapes are about 90% harvested in Sonoma
County,” Kruse said. “I think Napa is probably a little behind us, just given how much cabernet fruit they have, and the ripening time for cabernet.” It would be “way too soon to know” if smoke damaged the remaining grapes, she added.
“We’re just trying to get our arms around making sure everybody is safe,” she said. In Napa County, more than 50 structures, including homes and barns, have burned in the Atlas Peak fire alone, Napa County Fire Chief Barry Biermann said
during a news conference. Residents around Santa Rosa described running from the approaching flames in the pre-dawn hours Monday. Among them were vintner Ken MoholtSiebert, whose family vineyard, Ancient Oak Cellars, lies beside California101near Santa Rosa. Before he could spring uphill to turn on a pump, embers from the Tubbs blaze ignited a spot fire, which soon tore across the property where his family has been raising sheep and growing grapes for four generations. “I was just being pelted with all this smoke and embers,” Moholt-Siebert, 51, said. “It was just really fast.” Moholt-Siebert eventually fled, watching the flames engulf the vineyard where Pinot Noir grapes were still on the vines. Those and the ancient oaks from which the winery drew its name are probably gone, he said. “I have a feeling there is not going to be much left,” Moholt-Siebert said. The Paradise Ridge winery sustained extensive
damage, as flames raced through Sonoma’s Kenwood and Glen Ellen wine districts, while in Napa, they tore through the Stags Leap district, threatening some of the best-known winery facilities in the region. The fires erupted so fast Sunday night that Duff Beville, who owns a vineyard management company, didn’t know what was going on as he supervised night picking crews in Healdsburg. Then power went out in the area and operations had to shut down, he said. “As a general rule, vines don’t burn because they’re a green plant,” Beville said. “But cover crops between the vines can burn.” The wine industry contributed $57 billion to the state’s economy in 2015 and is responsible for 325,000 jobs, according to the Wine Institute and California Assn. of Winegrape Growers. geoffrey.mohan @latimes.com Twitter: @LATgeoffmohan Times staff writer Javier Panzar contributed to this report.
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latimes.com
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2017
A new federal threat to pot industry Atty. Gen. Sessions is pressing Congress to let his Justice Dept. resume prosecution of marijuana cases. By Evan Halper WASHINGTON — The 85 words almost seemed an afterthought when Congress hurriedly crammed them into a massive budget bill late in the Obama administration, as if lawmakers wanted to acknowledge America’s outlook on marijuana had changed, but not make a big deal of it. Almost three years later, a multibillion-dollar industry and the freedom of millions to openly partake in its products without fear of federal prosecution hinge on that obscure budget clause. But now, Congress may throw it overboard amid pressure from an attorney general who views marijuana as a dangerous menace. What has become known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment constitutes a single paragraph of federal law. It prohibits the Justice Department from spending even a cent to prosecute medical marijuana users and sellers operating legally under state laws. Since its passage, it has largely shut down efforts by federal prosecutors or drug enforcement officials to interfere with otherwise legal sales of marijuana in 29 states and the District of Columbia that have passed legalization measures. The prospect that the ban on prosecutions could expire has spread anxiety across the marijuana industry. [See Marijuana, A7]
Trump fights efforts to rein in behavior By Noah Bierman, Cathleen Decker and Brian Bennett WASHINGTON — When President Trump agreed last month with Democrats to strike a deal granting legal status to so-called Dreamers brought to this country illegally as children, his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was all for it. Another Trump confidant disagreed: Fox host Sean Hannity made clear in a phone call and on his show that Trump must draw a harder line on broader immigration enforcement as his price. Trump sided with Hannity, according to a person close to the White House. The result was a list of demands unveiled Sunday night — conditions seemingly guaranteed to thwart a bipartisan deal. Kelly, the retired Marine general who is Trump’s second chief of staff, has sought to tighten the flow of information and visitors to the president, to bring order to an unruly White House and to the way that Trump makes his decisions. But he is often thwarted by one man: Trump. The president by many accounts has bristled at the restrictions and continues — usually alone mornings, [See Trump, A11]
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
CHLOE HOSKINS , 7, tags along with her father to check on a neighbor’s burned-out home in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood.
‘Like a blowtorch’ At least 17 dead as Northern California firestorm rages ‘Two people called ... and they need help evacuating’: Napa dispatch calls reveal frantic rescue pleas.
With swaths of Santa Rosa in ashes, some residents return to salvage what they can from scorched homes.
By Paige St. John, Dakota Smith, Hailey Branson-Potts and Joy Resmovits
By Louis Sahagun, Phil Willon, Nina Agrawal and Joel Rubin
NAPA, Calif. — The distress calls crackled over the Napa County sheriff ’s dispatch radio in a rapid staccato late Sunday as flames sped toward residents on Atlas Peak Road. “Parents trapped in garage,” an officer called in to the central dispatcher. Then: “The fire is moving quickly through here.” Two minutes later, the dispatcher sent someone to another house on the same road: “Two people trapped.” A minute passed, then a call to still another house: “An elderly lady trapped.” The dispatcher sent out an all-points request to send “any units in the area,” then made a chilling plea: “Two people called, advising their house is on fire, and they need help evacuating.” Over the radio, officers in the field reported propane tanks exploding throughout the neighborhood, which would soon lay in ruins. The dispatch calls, which began pouring out after 10:30 p.m., less than an hour after the fire was first reported, provide a harrowing narrative of the frantic, confusing efforts to rescue people from the Atlas Peak fire, which by Tuesday had burned 25,000 acres and destroyed more [See Napa, A9]
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — No place was more familiar to Brady Harvell than Mocha Lane. He grew up in one of the houses lining the quiet street in Santa Rosa. As a kid, he spent countless hours cruising it on his bike, often ending up at nearby Coffey Park, where he first kissed a girl under the swing set. He left to join the Army, and when he returned, his parents hung his dog tags from a photo of him in uniform on top of the television set in the living room. But Tuesday, a day after wildfires laid waste to parts of Santa Rosa, Napa and other communities in wine country, everything Harvell knew — the house, Mocha Lane, the whole neighborhood — was gone, replaced by a black and gray landscape of charred houses, cars and trees. Harvell, 31, sifted through the rubble of his parents’ home with a small garden spade, looking for the dog tags and trying to make sense of what had happened. “How do you put an entire neighborhood back together?” he wondered aloud, straightening up from his [See Santa Rosa, A8]
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
A U.S. FLAG adorns a burned-out truck in Santa Rosa, where fierce, dry winds
whipped the Tubbs fire — one of 17 in the state — through residential areas.
Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times
‘ FA NTA S T I C’ P RO G RE S S ON O . C. FI R E A shift in the winds helped firefighters make headway against the Canyon 2 fire, which destroyed several homes in Orange County. CALIFORNIA, B1
Puerto Rican tide after storm
Exodus from island to mainland could profoundly change both By Jenny Jarvie
ORLANDO, Fla. — When Sinthia Colon’s sister-in-law called from Orlando offering plane tickets to flee Puerto Rico, she did not hesitate. Hurricane Maria had destroyed her small farm, wrecked the local power grid and spurred her town of San Lorenzo to impose a curfew to combat looting. In a few hours, she was bound for Florida. “It was, like, all of a sudden … I’m going,” Colon, 42, said shortly after arriving at a disaster relief center at Orlando International Airport with her daughter, son and
Joe Cavaretta Sun Sentinel
RELATIVES MEET in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last
week after Caribbean evacuees arrived on a ship. A Puerto Rican influx could help the state’s Democrats.
mother-in-law. “I didn’t have time to make plans.” Two weeks after the storm devastated Puerto Rico, tens of thousands of hurricane evacuees are packing scheduled flights and charter jets in what officials there and in states across the U.S. fear is the beginning of a mass exodus of historic proportions. The mainland had already been absorbing record numbers of Puerto Ricans fleeing economic decline and a mounting debt crisis, with more than 700,000 migrating between 2006 and 2015. Some people also moved back over that time, [See Puerto Ricans, A4]
L.A. agency throws lifeline to delta tunnels The Metropolitan Water District approves $4.3 billion to help finance the proposed Northern California project, which still seeks significant funds. CALIFORNIA, B1
U.S. soccer loses World Cup bid With a 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago, the men’s national team fails to qualify for the first time since 1986. SPORTS, D1 Weather Cooler, partly sunny. L.A. Basin: 78/58. B6
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W E D N E SDAY , O C T O BE R 11, 2 017
L ATI M E S . CO M
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
A WILDFIRE lights up the night sky Tuesday near a Northern California vineyard. President Trump approved a “major disaster declaration” for the state.
‘It took all our memories’ [Santa Rosa, from A1] search to look around at the devastation. “It is so much more than just mortgages and appliances.” Santa Rosa was left reeling from the Tubbs fire, which began in the hills above the city and rode fierce “Diablo” winds down into its streets. On Tuesday evening, the death toll from Northern California fires stood at 17, including 11 in Sonoma County. Hundreds of homes, along with schools and big-box stores, had been destroyed. Thousands of residents were in shelters and hotels after being forced to flee their homes and two hospitals. Officials said the Tubbs fire — one of17 burning in the state — had consumed 27,000 acres. Hundreds of firefighters continued battling the blaze as Tuesday brought a respite when winds eased. But Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, cautioned that the wildfire was still very much a threat. “We are far from out of the woods,” Pimlott said. “We’ve got several days of fire weather conditions to come.” Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said his department had been deluged by nearly 250 missingperson reports from people unable to locate friends and family in the frantic hours after the fire swept into the city. He said he expected that most, if not all, of those people were safe, attributing the confusion to communications difficulties, including disrupted cellphone service caused by downed signal towers. Many of the people forced to evacuate were in assisted living centers and were hard to reach, he said. By midafternoon, a team of deputies had found 57 of the people who had been reported missing. As the extent of the devastation became clear Tuesday, federal and state officials made emergency declarations needed to clear the way for additional assistance to be sent to the region — a well-worn routine in a state with a long history of wildfires. Vice President Mike Pence said in a visit to California’s emergency management headquarters that President Trump has approved a “major disaster declaration” for California. More than 200 additional law enforcement personnel
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
EDWARD WRIGHT removes melted jewelry from a safe in the ruins of his Santa Rosa home of 10 years.
Fires in Napa and Sonoma Blazes ravaging the area as of noon Tuesday.
101
Tubbs fire 27,000 acres
Lake Berryessa
Calistoga St. Helena
Atlas Peak fire 25,000 acres
129
Nuns fire 5,000 acres Santa Rosa
29
Napa Petaluma 101
Partrick fire 1,000 acres
80
Vallejo Novato
San Pablo Bay
10 MILES
Sources: Mapzen, OpenStreetMap
from outlying cities and counties, as well as the California National Guard, were called into the Santa Rosa region to assist with searches and to guard against looting, Giordano said. The sheriff urged patience, saying many of the
Los Angeles Times
burned areas remained unsafe, with spot fires still burning and many downed power lines yet to be repaired. “Getting people back in their homes soon is important to us as well, but the most important thing is keeping them safe,” he said.
The remains of one of the dead were still in a home that was too hot to enter, he added. Residents described a frantic race for survival late Sunday night and early Monday as winds blowing as high as 80 mph hurled embers into housing developments, igniting spot fires that quickly exploded into full blazes. “It just came through there like a blowtorch,” said Eric Anderson, a local contractor, who described his narrow escape Sunday night from his home in the hills north of U.S. 101. “I saw firetrucks racing up ... then, five minutes later, I saw them racing down. I said, ‘Time to get out of here.’ ” The fickleness of the fire left a lucky few wondering how they had been spared in neighborhoods that were largely destroyed. In the once-upscale neighborhood of Hidden Valley, Lance Thompson, 75, a retired real estate appraiser and longtime Santa Rosa resident, took in a scene of broken, blackened utility poles and large tangles of smoldering power lines. Some streets were blocked by yellow tape warning: “Police crime scene. Do not cross.”
Most of the homes were reduced to ashes, twisted metal and broken water pipes splashing onto heaps of charred crossbeams. In many places, the only things left standing were the skeletal trunks and limbs of charred pine trees and dozens of lonesome chimneys. Thompson’s house was untouched. “I just can’t believe this,” he muttered, shaking his head. A few miles away, at the Journey’s End mobile home park for seniors, several sons and daughters returned to their parents’ homes to see what could be salvaged. Almost all of the park’s 160 homes had been destroyed, though some on Sahara Street were still intact. The street, which abuts a hospital, seemed to be where firefighters had made a stand. Carrie Reindahl said her mom and stepfather got out in time, awakened by the sound of their American flag whipping in the wind outside. By then, two trailers and a tree nearby were already on fire, Reindahl said. “They tried to wake up some neighbors, and they barely got out with the clothes on their back,” she said.
Reindahl managed to pull out her grandmother’s collection of porcelain Kewpie dolls from the rubble, though some of them had been broken. “It’s just so devastating,” she said, looking at the wreckage of her mother’s home of 25 years. “She’s 85 and he’s 87. How do you start all over?” Reindahl said her mom and stepdad had been able to drive out in their own car, but she echoed the worries of authorities who warned that the fires’ death toll could climb. “A lot of them were really, really old,” she said of the park’s residents. “And trailers go up like a match.” Back on Mocha Lane, Harvell continued his seemingly futile search for his dog tags in the ashes of his parents’ house. A few blocks away, an older couple who had not had time to take anything when they escaped the coming fire searched for the only thing the man said they cared about — the urn holding their son’s ashes. And Pam Hopkins sifted through the wreckage of her home with her stepson. Some of the few things she found were old baseball cards her late husband collected. She said she was dumbfounded that a wildfire could level a suburban neighborhood far away from the woods. Her insurance company, she said, had rated her home as in one of the most fire-safe neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. “We had a very tightknit community. On our cul-desac, we had barbecues and parties; if you needed anything, you just knocked on your neighbor’s door,” she said. After two hours searching, Harvell reached into a pile of ash. “Got it! Oh my God! Got it!” Marveling over the dirtied and bent dog tags in the palm of his hand, he said of the fire, “It took all our memories, except this one.” He then pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed a familiar number. “Love you, Brady,” his father said from the other side of the line. “Love you, Dad,” Harvell replied. louis.sahagun @latimes.com phil.willon@latimes.com nina.agrawal@latimes.com joel.rubin@latimes.com Sahagun, Willon and Agrawal reported from Santa Rosa, and Rubin from Los Angeles.
L AT I ME S . CO M
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WSCE
W E D NE S DAY, O C T OB E R 11, 2 017
A9
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES
Alert system snags add to chaos [Napa, from A1] than 100 structures. On Tuesday, Napa County officials confirmed the identity of an elderly couple who died in their home in the neighborhood: World War II veteran Charles Rippey, 100, and his wife, Sara, 98. They had just celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary. In what has been called one of the worst firestorms in state history, at least 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in 16 fires in Northern California in recent days. At least 17 people, including the Rippeys, have died in the fires. In Napa County — where at least three major wildfires, the Atlas Peak, Tubbs and 1,000-acre Partrick fire burned — the chaos was accentuated by a problematic alert system. Residents reported difficulties receiving fire alerts, an issue possibly caused by fire damage to cellphone towers, officials said Tuesday. “We are well aware that there are challenges,” said Kristi Jourdan, a county spokeswoman. “It’s been a challenge to get information to folks at times using Nixle. I know some folks have had problems receiving text messages.” Nixle is a text and email alert system used by public safety agencies, schools and other entities. In a news conference Tuesday, Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, acknowledged that many evacuees were struggling to access alerts or get in touch with each other. He said that across Northern California, 77 cell sites were destroyed or damaged, and that the state is creating mobile communications units to help. In addition to using Nixle, Jourdan said the county partners with local radio stations KVON-AM and KVYN-FM, and posts messages on its Facebook and Twitter pages. Napa resident Brenda Burke, 55, said a Nixle alert Sunday about the Atlas Peak fire came in about 30 minutes after it was postmarked at 11 p.m. She said she was first alerted to the fire earlier in the night by a friend who sent a text message. A volunteer at the Red Cross shelter in Napa said Tuesday that one evacuee told her he didn’t get a cellphone alert until an hour after he had left his home. Others said they received no warnings, despite signing up for automated text messages from the Napa County
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
THE ATLAS PEAK fire in Napa, Calif., one of 16 Northern California blazes, has burned 25,000 acres and destroyed 100 structures so far.
Michael Rippey
FIREFIGHTERS WALK past the remains of the Signorello Estate winery in
Sheriff ’s Department. Georgia Hansford, who has lived in the Napa Hills area since 1959, said that the moment she and her sister saw flames crest the ridge line on Atlas Peak above their home on Silverado Trail, they knew they had to get out fast.
property as flames on nearby Atlas Peak ridge burned toward them. Julie Maurer, vice president of marketing for the resort, said staffers told guests: “You have to go. You have to go now.” Silverado was more than 80% full because the resort
wife, Sara, 98, who were trapped in their Napa home.
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“The most frustrating part is no news,” Hansford, a retired school bookkeeper, said Tuesday. “All they keep doing is telling us to stay out.” At the Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, employees didn’t wait to act, going door to door on the sprawling
Napa County, where the Atlas Peak, Tubbs and Partrick wildfires are raging. hosted a PGA tournament over the weekend. At least 300 people were evacuated from the property, which was damaged by the flames. Professional golfer Patton Kizzire, who played in the tournament, tweeted shortly after 11 p.m. Sunday: “I’ve never run from a wild
fire before.” paige.stjohn @latimes.com dakota.smith @latimes.com hailey.branson @latimes.com joy.resmovits @latimes.com
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017
GOP may scale back tax proposal Lawmakers and lobbyists are pushing for changes to key aspects of President Trump’s plan. By Lisa Mascaro and Jim Puzzanghera
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
D EVA S TAT I O N G ROWS Ash is nearly all that remains of obliterated homes in Santa Rosa. Thousands more Northern California residents have been ordered to evacuate as the death toll and acreage burned increase. CALIFORNIA, B1
As flames raced, some were left in the dark Not all residents got cellphone alerts about the fires in Napa and Sonoma — but the technology exists By Phil Willon, Chris Megerian, Paige St. John and Rong-Gong Lin II SANTA ROSA, Calif. — As fastmoving fires invaded neighborhoods across Northern California this week, residents of Napa and Sonoma counties said they were alerted to the approaching disaster by frantic shouts from neighbors, honking horns, blaring smoke alarms and even the noise of an American flag whipping in the intense winds. But it’s becoming increasingly clear
that at least some residents did not receive warnings on their cellphones similar to an Amber Alert. The so-called Wireless Emergency Alert sends loud, screeching alarms or vibrations to all cellphones in a geographic area unless a user specifically opts out. On Wednesday, officials faced questions about why authorities could not reach more people as the fires barreled toward homes late Sunday night and early Monday morning. Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said Wednesday that the county sent out warnings through its SoCoAlert service and Nixle, both systems that require residents to register
in advance in order to receive messages. The county also sent out reverse 911 calls to landlines in unincorporated areas. Santa Rosa, where block after block of suburban homes were destroyed, sent out alerts through SoCoAlert, Nixle and on social media. Sonoma County is among dozens of California jurisdictions that applied for and received authority from the federal government to issue Wireless Emergency Alerts. It’s unclear whether the county tried to use the system this week and, if so, why it didn’t reach some people. Napa County issued alerts through [See Alerts, A8]
WASHINGTON — President Trump promised the largest tax cut in history, but as he hit the road Wednesday to promote the plan, Republicans in Congress were quietly discussing scaling back key provisions in an effort to deliver the top White House priority. There’s already talk that the cornerstone of the GOP proposal — a dramatically reduced 20% corporate tax rate that Trump has called a “red line” — may slip to 22% or 23%, those familiar with negotiations said. Trump had originally promised a 15% rate for corporations. But Republicans are running into resistance from lawmakers and lobbyists who want to preserve deductions and loopholes that were targeted for elimination under the White House plan to offset the massive corporate cut from the current 35% rate. Some Republicans are also pushing back against other parts of the president’s plan, such as scrapping the estate tax for the rich and eliminating deductions for state and local taxes, which would hurt residents in high-tax states like California and New York. At an evening rally in Harrisburg, Pa., Trump said the corporate rate would be “no more than 20%.” But earlier this week, he acknowledged that changes may lie ahead. “We'll be adjusting a little bit over the next few weeks to make it even stronger,” he said. Negotiators say changes will be needed if Republi[See Taxes, A6]
The stunning, rapid downfall of Harvey Weinstein The mogul’s descent brings questions and lots of finger-pointing regarding the sexist culture in Hollywood. By Josh Rottenberg and Amy Kaufman One might say it’s among the most stunning falls from grace Hollywood has ever seen, but the word “grace” has rarely been used where Harvey Weinstein is concerned. In less than a week, the mounting scandal over allegations of sexual harassment and assault has rapidly consumed the oncepowerful film mogul — and the entertainment industry
Associated Press
HARVEY WEINSTEIN
at the Oscars in Los Angeles in 2016. Today, he is enveloped in a sexual misconduct controversy.
as a whole. With fresh accusations against Weinstein continuing to emerge after stories involving stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie broke in the New York Times and the New Yorker, organizations and individuals across Hollywood and in politics are scrambling to distance themselves from him, while large and uncomfortable questions are arising about what the scandal reveals about the culture of Hollywood. Since the first New York Times story appeared last Thursday, Weinstein — a man who for decades was renowned for his ability to mint award-winning hits like “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “The King’s Speech” and whose films have racked up more than 300 Oscar nominations — has become a pariah. The Weinstein Co., which he ran alongside his brother Bob, has fired him. His wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, with whom he has two children, has announced that she is divorcing him. And the film academy, whose validation Weinstein so clearly cherished as a brash outsider from Queens — and whose 54member board of governors currently has 21women serving on it — has publicly disavowed him. On Wednesday, the academy released a statement calling Weinstein’s alleged [See Weinstein, A14]
Unresolved issues STATE AND LOCAL DEDUCTIONS
Republicans wanted to eliminate these, but opposition means they will probably remain in some form. TAX BRACKETS
Income levels for three proposed individual tax rates still must be set, with the possibility of a fourth bracket for higher incomes. DEDUCTIONS AND LOOPHOLES
Republicans say they will end most of these, but lobbyists will fight once details are made public.
Casinos are not always watching after all Mass shooting reveals gaps in Las Vegas’ vaunted security. By Matt Pearce, Jaweed Kaleem, Melissa Etehad and Richard Winton LAS VEGAS — The casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, with all their glitzy delights, aren’t just palaces of distraction. They’re miniature surveillance states. A typical facility might be armed with thousands of cameras, which watch gamblers as they enter, while they play and when they leave. The footage is stored as potential evidence and monitored by internal security forces who are prepared to dispatch a response within moments in case of problems. “In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else,” Robert De Niro said in the 1995 drama “Casino.” Dealers watch the players, pit bosses watch the people watching the dealers, and the “eye in the sky” — the camera — watches over all. The thought of beating that eye in the sky has inspired a generation of glam heist movies, starting with “Ocean’s 11.” [See Vegas, A10]
Natacha Pisarenko Associated Press
FLORENCIA CORTES, 37, right, sleeps next to her son Jonatan at a school-
turned-shelter in the Tlalpan neighborhood of Mexico City late last month.
In Mexico’s earthquake zone, the anguish swells Thousands remain without homes weeks later By Patrick J. McDonnell MEXICO CITY — Displaced residents gathered outside the vacant apartment complex, awaiting a chance to enter their homes and salvage documents, valuables, photographs and other mementos from cordoned-off flats. All had been homeless since last month’s earthquake forced them to evacuate after one building in the complex crumbled and
killed nine people. The collapse raised fears about the safety of sister structures. The arrival of fumigators in white coveralls and surgical masks and toting pestcontrol equipment only added to the growing sense of gloom and despondency. “We’re not sure what’s going to happen,” said Sergio Rojas, 58, a retired bank employee living with in-laws since he was forced to flee with his wife and two children. “No one tells us anything. We don’t know when we can go back to our homes.
It could be months.” Scenes like this at the housing development in the capital’s Tlalpan neighborhood have been recurring with numbing regularity here since the Sept. 19 earthquake, which killed more than 360 people — but also left uncounted thousands homeless. A significant number of evacuees returned to their homes after officials declared the damage minor — broken windows, superficial cracks and the like. [See Mexico, A4]
USC official leaves amid investigation David Carrera, a university vice president responsible for fundraising, is the subject of an internal investigation about his treatment of women. CALIFORNIA, B1
Now girls can be Boy Scouts too The move marks a historic shift for the young men’s organization, which was founded over a century ago. NATION, A9 Weather Low clouds, then sun. L.A. Basin: 76/58. B6
A8
T H UR S DAY, O C T O B E R 12, 2 017
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L AT I ME S . CO M
Warning systems taxed by wildfire
[Alerts, from A1] Nixle, but officials said some residents had trouble receiving the warnings. The death toll from the fires rose Wednesday to at least 23, with some victims simply unable to outrun the flames. An estimated 3,500 homes, businesses and other structures were burned. In the devastated Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, some residents of now-burned homes said they were surprised they didn’t get an alert on their phones. Michael Desmond, 59, a retired homeland security investigator, said he was lying in bed Sunday night skimming news stories on his iPad when he heard a commotion outside. Finally, he heard what a firefighter was saying: “Firestorm. Get out of here now! Take nothing! Just go!” “So I got my dog. I got my wallet. Got my keys. And left,” he said Wednesday, as he walked down the street of his neighborhood carrying a charred mailbox, one of the few things he was able to salvage from his home destroyed by wildfire. “I think they were totally unprepared for this.” A few blocks away, high school teacher Anna Solano, 50, said she also received no phone warning. Solano, who on Wednesday sifted through the ashes of her home looking for keys to equipment lockers and classrooms, had smelled smoke earlier Sunday evening but thought there was just a house fire in the area. About 2:30 a.m. Monday, a man knocked on her door and kept banging, waking up Solano’s dog, who eventually woke her up. “That gentleman saved our lives. A stranger,” she said. “We saw the fire coming. We left here in five minutes.” The fire — one of the most destructive in California history — moved through northern Santa Rosa swiftly, with winds clocking 50 mph carrying embers that ignited numerous spot fires, burning down entire neighbor-
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
JOURNEY’S END mobile home park in Santa Rosa is left leveled by wildfire. An estimated 3,500 structures have burned in the firestorm.
hoods. “The fire came through the night. It was rapidly moving,” said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “Some people were awakened while the fire was actually on their doorstep.” Sonoma County officials said it will take time to determine the reach of the alerts they tried to issue. “I don’t know how effective that was,” said Giordano, the Sonoma County sheriff. “It’s going to take a long time until we understand that.” The Wireless Emergency Alert system was rolled out in 2012, and California used it to send an Amber Alert for the first time in 2013. The alerts are transmitted on an exclusive frequency that can reach many people at the same time, and Amber Alerts — which notify the
public of the case of an abducted child — have proven effective. Alerts like these have been used to warn New Yorkers about the approach of Hurricane Sandy and tell the people of Moore, Okla., about the arrival of a massive tornado. But some local jurisdictions don’t use them — or don’t know how. This year, San Jose officials were roundly chastised for failing to warn the public about destructive floodwaters before they overflowed through densely populated neighborhoods along Coyote Creek amid the winter’s heavy rains. In July, a withering report concluded that in San Jose, “there was a general lack of institutional knowledge” on how to broadcast alerts on the Wireless Emergency Alert system. San Jose itself at the time was not
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set up to issue such alerts on its own. Santa Clara County did have the ability to do so, but no one from the city asked the county to release an alert on its behalf. For local authorities to use the federal system, municipalities need to apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to become an alerting authority. The city of Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco and Sacramento County are among the jurisdictions that have registered to use the wireless alert system. Napa County is not listed. Heather Ruiz, a spokeswoman for the Napa County Office of Emergency Services, said her county has not been using the Wireless Emergency Alert system and was not sure if it had the ability to do so. Instead, officials issue alerts through Nixle. Mark Eggan, Napa
County Sheriff ’s Office information technology chief, said 1,500 people responded to a Nixle alert Sunday night by clicking on a link to the department’s web server, causing it to crash. During the server’s crash, people could read the brief message on their phones, but the link to get further information did not work. Eggan said the system had never been taxed like that before. This week, Napa County officials said it’s possible alerts were hampered by fire damage to cellphone towers. The fragility of the cellphone tower network — highlighted by natural disasters in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico — caused the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, to put the spotlight on technology in cellphones that can be used to receive alerts through a chip that can receive FM radio sig-
nals, which can work even when cellphone towers are powerless or destroyed. Though other cellphone manufacturers equip their phones with FM chips, recent iPhone models do not have them. In a statement, Apple said the company “cares deeply about the safety of our users” and noted that users can dial emergency services and receive Amber Alerts and emergency weather notifications. The company did not respond to questions about whether it would install FM chips in future models of the phone. phil.willon@latimes.com chris.megerian @latimes.com paige.stjohn@latimes.com ron.lin@latimes.com Willon reported from Santa Rosa, Megerian from Mather, Calif., St. John from Napa, and Lin from L.A.
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