In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency and ordered evacuations as a cyclone slammed into the San Francisco Bay Area Wednesday night with hurricane-force winds and torrential downpours. California’s second major storm this week is expected to wreak havoc across the state, including flooding, landslides and dangerous winds. A young child was killed in Sonoma County when a tree fell on the family home. Over 180,000 customers had lost power by early this morning. This is a resident of Santa Cruz County in Northern California.

Miguel: “We get home last night, and the first thing we did was pack our stuff off the floor and, you know, all the important stuff, gather it, get some luggage ready just in case, and get some sandbags, too, for the possible evacuation.”

California has been experiencing a series of extreme weather events known as “atmospheric rivers” — which have been described as “rivers in the sky” — unleashing unrelenting storms; scientists say climate change will continue to increase the intensity of these storms.