Understanding how to prevent future mudslides, why a rink in Lakewood attracts top athletes, an assembly member's mission to ban tackle football before high school.
Montecito prepares for future mudslides
It was only last month that heavy rains triggered a devastating mudslide in Montecito that claimed 21 lives and destroyed at least 100 homes. But the rainy season isn't over.
And even the slightest hint of rain now has the community on high alert. In the hopes of predicting a mudslide before it happens, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed the area shortly after last month's devastation. Francis Rengers is one of the scientists who conducted the study. He joined Take Two to talk about his research mapping the Montecito debris flows.
More than a mudslide
Rengers said he prefers the term debris flow, not mudslide, because it indicates the size and impact of the event that hit Montecito.
"If you visualize a mud puddle, it's like a thick soupy thing, but what we saw was boulders larger than trucks, so I like the term debris rather than mud because it conveys the severity."
Looking out for more debris flows
If Montecito has more rain, there there could be more debris flows because when an area is burned as it was by the Thomas fire, it impacts how soil absorbs water, Rengers said.
"Rather than soaking in, the water tends to pile up like it's running off a parking lot. So any areas that are susceptible to a fire are then susceptible to debris flows."
Kevin Taylor, Montecito's deputy fire chief, said for the next three to five years officials would be watching for another debris flowto hit.
However, Montecito isn't the only place under threat. Taylor said other coastal communities and areas in Santa Barbara scarred by fires could also see debris flows.
Preparing the community for the future
Taylor explain that emergency responders have rolled out a new messaging alert program that sends pre-evacuation advisories, and recommends evacuation and mandatory evacuation orders. The pre-evacuation notices, which will be sent out 72 hours before a storm, are the most important change being made, he said.
"We get very accurate forecasts from the National Weather Service, and we feel like that gives our community time to prepare if we start communicating with them... It provides them an opportunity to be prepared to leave when we asked them to leave."
Predicting future debris flows
Rengers said that right now we can predict whether or not a debris flow will happen, but it's still difficult to say how big the debris flow will be and where it will travel. The USGS team hopes to be able to answer those questions in the future by studying data from Montecito.
Most models of debris flows consider mainly natural topography, Rengers said. Looking at Montecito gives researchers a chance to understand infrastructure like bridges and roads and the role they play in how a debris flow moves.
Where Olympic skaters train in SoCal
To compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics, some U.S. skaters went through one place in Southern California – The Rinks in Lakewood.
The facility is nestled in an industrial park near the Long Beach airport, and it hosts three rinks of ice for figure skaters and hockey players.
Olympians Adam Rippon and Nathan Chen both trained here, as well as alternates Ashley Wagner and Mariah Bell.
"We have people from all over the world who come and train here," says general manager Phil Zamora.
It first became an Olympic training ground two years ago when famed skating coach Rafael Arutunian migrated there.
"He's coached former Olympians Michelle Kwan, other national champions as well," says Zamora. "He was looking for a facility to train his athletes, and we were able to provide him with the amount of ice that he needed."
The Rinks has three separate sheets of ice, and that meant Arutunian was able to have enough room for his own training while the Rinks hosted other activities that generate more revenue, like hockey and open skating.
It also has details that make it more welcoming to athletes, like an off-ice training facility. It's a small, compact gym with free weights and several cardio machines, and it allows skaters to strength train close to the ice instead of driving elsewhere to work out.
Being in Southern California is another perk.
"Figure skating in Southern California you just don't think go hand in hand," says Zamora, "but for a lot of the athletes, when you spend the entire day in a cold building and you step outside in cold weather, it's not good for the body. So warm weather definitely plays a role in having athletes head down this way."
New York Attorney General throws last minute wrench into Weinstein Company sale
Over the weekend, the impending Weinstein Company sale was thrown for a loop when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against the studio and its founders.
The lawsuit alleges the Weinstein Company repeatedly violated state sexual harassment laws and fostered a work culture of enabling such behavior. The suit also alleges that employees who enabled this behavior sometimes even became victims themselves.
Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan broke down how this new lawsuit has affected the company's fire sale:
"The investors have not run away...yet. They could. It would be understandable if they did, but it's certainly a possibility... A bankruptcy which looked like a possibility in October is looking even more likely for the Weinstein Company.
Now, remember the company still has a film library in movies like 'Django Unchained,' 'Imitation Game,' and they have their TV shows, 'Project Runway,' so there's a lot of debt. There's a lot of legal issues that plague the company, but there are real assets that are going to end up somewhere."
Plus, the Screen Actors Guild has a new code of conduct covering sexual harassment. The code works to inform employers on how best to handle reporting harassment and how to refrain from engaging in harassing fellow members. This is reflected in the code's slogan: STOP. SUPPORT. REPORT.
For more information on SAG's code of conduct on sexual harassment, click here.
We're using our phones when we're driving — less?!
When you send or receive a text on your cell phone while driving, you take your eyes off the road for about five seconds. So if you're driving at 55 miles per hour, you're basically driving the length of an entire football field as if you were blindfolded. That's according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The good news is that California's Office of Traffic Safety reports that drivers are not picking up their cell phones quite as much. Last year, the OTS found just under four percent of drivers appeared to be using their phones while driving. That's down from about eight percent in 2016.
Rhonda Craft is director of the Office of Traffic Safety. She spoke with Take Two about how the study was conducted:
"It included people going out to 204 sites located within 17 counties within the state of California. And within each of those counties, we had 12 observation sites, observing whether or not drivers were holding the phone to the ear, whether or not they were manipulating a handheld electronic device while they were driving and talking on a handheld device."
That method has been in place since 2011, but last year was the first time the OTS observed such a significant dip. The reason may be two-fold:
- The tough cell phone law that closed a major loophole in prior cell phone laws took effect in January 2017. Cell phones must now be mounted, and your finger can only be used to swipe.
- Enforcement and education courtesy of the OTS.
These numbers almost sound too good to be true. So, we asked our listeners: Are YOU seeing a decrease in driver cell phone use?
Our Twitter poll found that 83 percent of you voted 'Nope. Not at all.'
An Office of Traffic Safety study found that more California drivers are putting their phones aside while they drive.
— Take Two (@taketwo) February 7, 2018
Is this what you’ve been seeing on the road?
Craft says the discrepancy points to a downside in the nature of how the study is conducted:
"They [observers in the study] see what they see. One of the issues related to an observational study is we don't know whether or not the person had used their phone prior to being observed or whether or not they used the phone afterward. So, those are variables that exist anytime you do an observational survey. But that's all we have."
Observation has been the study's technique for seven years, and it doesn't look like it will change anytime soon. Regardless of whether people are, in fact, using their cell phones any less while driving, one thing's certain: When you're behind the wheel, keep your eyes up and your cell phone down.