Los Angeles Times

Many of California's cities have not implemented seismic retrofits, in part because local governments make decisions about earthquake risks in the absence of state rules. But with concerns that tenants, homeowners and businesses will have to pay for expensive retrofits that lack immediate benefits, some government officials hesitate to implement new measures.

As climate change threatens California's water supply, Governor Gavin Newsom must diverge from previous projects and implement measures that reduce flood risk, recharge depleted groundwater, and restore degraded wildlife habitat. He must also step up the timeline of the groundwater laws that require subsurface water to be measured, managed, and equitably shared.

In Nevada City, a tiny Californian town replete with tinder, the vice mayor has launched a Go Fund Me campaign to garner $30,000 to work with local ranchers. The ranchers will provide goats for a grazing project on municipally-owned land, including 450 acres of greenbelt. Using goats for fire management is both affordable and implemented elsewhere in the state.

Los Angeles has unveiled its long-anticipated earthquake early warning app, ShakeAlertLA, which is designed to give users seconds — perhaps even tens of seconds — before shaking from a distant earthquake arrives at their location. The system is not likely to be perfect, especially in its first few years of service, but the benefits far outweigh any disappointments.

While the earthquake that shook Anchorage did little damage, a similar-size earthquake around downtown L.A. would be much more destructive because the buildings are older and the area is much more densely populated. California has not yet experienced a major quake in the modern era, and should thus take Anchorage's earthquake as a warning to prepare.

Social infrastructure - the physical places where people gather - is a new concept, but it is just as concrete and vital to DRR as conventional infrastructure. When social infrastructure is robust, people develop better community ties and these connections can be the difference between life and death when disasters strike.

California lawmakers have ratified plans to bolster prevention efforts and residents' readiness, along with a plan in which utility companies could pass some wildfire costs onto customers. Efforts include a year-round prescribed fire, improvements to alert systems, and permission for utility workers to access private land to trim vegetation away from power lines.

A new report finds that it wasn’t the earthquake alone that killed 228 people nearly a year ago in Mexico City. Dozens of buildings that collapsed in the quake had been shoddily constructed and wrongly deemed safe by building inspectors to increase profits.