) >> abc7 presents "beyond the headlines," with cheryl jennings. [ theme music plays ] >> welcome to "beyond the headlines." i'm cheryl jennings. today we're exploring the impact of something we keep hearing about -- el niño -- on bay area communities. what is it? and why does it affect the bay area so severely -- or does it? and how can you prepare for the fallout from severe weather in your area? we're gonna learn the answers to these questions and more today, but first, though, let's take a look back at the biggest flood that guerneville has ever seen, the result of an el niño winter in 1986. >> this is the russian river on its best behavior -- so calm, serene, just what people who live in guerneville love about it. but the old timers know better. >> there's a lot of people that have moved into this town since 1986, and they don't have a clue. >> it was like -- you're almost like breathing water. it was so incredibly dense.

the water just never stopped coming from the sky, and it was so loud it was deafening. >> believe it. >> over sunday night into monday morning, it came up 10 feet in about 8 hours. >> this was guerneville in the el niño of 1986, after 2 feet of rain fell in 10 days, swelling the russian river to grotesque proportions. 48.8 feet -- that is still a record here in guerneville. how high is 48.8 feet? well, you see the old guerneville bridge over there? the water came all the way up to the walkway. locals still call this the "great valentine's flood," but there is no romance here -- not when water consumed this community and caused $40 million damage. river road lived up to its name. cars looked more like boats. the local delicatessen -- like a wade-through restaurant. and here's the center of town. water flowed so fast that, to cross, residents clung to a rope. >> nobody told us nothing. they just said it wasn't gonna

flood bad, and my house is, like, now underwater and everything i own, you know? >> there was no way out for more than a thousand people except by national guard helicopter. for those who did remain behind, the red cross shelters moved to higher ground three different times. >> it's taught me one thing -- damn it, don't be so gullable. get prepared for things next time. >> to a degree, they have. now when guerneville floods, waters rarely reach the built-up homes. lesson learned -- for the old timers, at least. did you know what an el niño was before 1986? >> no, i'm from pennsylvania. you know, that was all new to me. i thought it was some kind of taco or something. >> not exactly. from guerneville -- wayne freedman, abc7 news. >> [ laughs ] >> precisely my point -- what is an el niño, right? if you don't know what that -- we use it like it's like part of our lang-- everybody should know about it. so joining me in the studio right now is our own el niño expert, abc7 meteorologist mike nicco. and i call you "science mike"

because you're so smart on this stuff. >> i try to be, try to be well-read on it because it's my job to prepare everybody. >> yeah, and so what is el niño? or should we be calling it something else? >> i think it's great you asked that because -- let me dovetail that into the question i get asked all the time -- is, "when is it going to get here?" well, el niño's here. it's simple what it is. it's just a body of warm water in the eastern equatorial pacific area that influences global weather patterns. and that's what makes it so important to us, is that it could steer more storms and more storms with more moisture in them our way -- hopefully not that much, like we saw there. but that's why it makes it important. >> all right, so, we want to just give folks seven things that they should know about "el niño." or should it be the el niño effect? >> i like that -- the el niño effect, or the el niño influence on our weather more so 'cause -- yeah, let's take a look at number one, and we'll run through all those. and number one of the seven things you need to know about el niño is that it's not a storm and it's already happening. i mean, it's out there. it's been out there for the last six months.

all right, so, number two is the fact that it's an abnormally warm body of ocean water near the equator. it's not anything else other than that. let's take a look at number three, and what you'll see is it's not a weather phenomenon. it's not a storm, it's not a weather pattern, so that's why we always cringe when we hear, "when is el niño going to get here?" all right, number four. and we're seeing it does not create weather or ocean waves. the weather creates the ocean waves. the winds that those strong storms come in create the ocean waves. so, for number five, what i want you to know is it does not guarantee a wet winter. three of the five strong el niños -- which is what we're trending into -- three of the five were wetter than average. that's only 60%, so that's not a guarantee. of course, in baseball, that's great, but not for a drought that we're in. and at number six, it's not necessarily associated with our abnormally warm ocean water -- remember, that we had last summer and the algae and what we're dealing with right now with the crabs? completely different. had nothing to do with that. and finally, how about what it does do? kind of touched upon this earlier -- it does change global weather patterns. so far, this winter, we haven't

seen a storm influenced by el niño, 'cause all of our storms have been coming down from the gulf of alaska. so, when it does start to come up from the southwest, that's when we get, like, the pineapple pipeline, the pineapple express, and that's when we'll get the heavier storms. >> all right, mike, we have so much more to talk about. we have to take a break, though, and we're gonna talk more about the el niño effect in just a moment, when we come back with the man i call "science mike," meteorologist mike nicco -- in just a moment.

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unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. >> welcome back to "beyond the headlines." we are learning more about the el niño effect and its potential impact on the bay area this winter. pg&e provide service for 16 million people. the utility company has been training for the dangers of stormy weather, and officials say they are prepared to respond. but they are also urging people at home to do what they can do to be ready for this thing we call el niño. here's abc7's elissa harrington. >> pg&e has been preparing for

el niño for years, since pretty much the last major el niño season back in 1997 and '98. remember this? rain and wind, leading to mudslides and falling trees. yesterday, the bay area got some wet weather, but the heaviest is expected in mid to late winter. >> today's nice, but yesterday we had a dose of weather. there could be more to come for that. so i think everyone just needs to be on a high alert. >> at a roundtable, emergency officials discussed the best way to be prepared. >> take 10 minutes and look at your house. what are the medicines you need? grab some water bottles. have a container that you can put this all in and it's easily accessible. >> do not do anything until i tell you to. do you understand? >> i do. >> pg&e crews walk a woman through a demonstration as if she's a driver who encountered downed power lines. >> if we were to encounter this, we would want to have the person who's in the vehicle, who had encountered a line across their vehicle, to stay inside their

vehicle. we want them to call 911, wait for the emergency responders to arrive, wait for pg&e to respond. >> as a very last report, like if your car is on fire, jump from the car with your arms crossed and feet together. shuffle or bunny-hop away. in berkeley -- elissa harrington, abc7 news. >> wow. new information. that's great to know, huh? >> yeah. thank you, elissa. >> back in the studio with me right now -- abc7 meteorologist mike nicco. and, mike, they were talking about dangers, and the thing we always think about -- flooding, of course, and mudslides. >> right. >> so, how do we prepare? >> there's a couple things to think about. first thing is there's a saying, "turn around, don't drown," you know? so if you can't see the bottom of the water where it's crossing the roadway, don't even drive into it. just turn around. the other thing is mudslides. when we get so much rain because of el niño, sometimes we get mudslides and rockslides. and one of the best ways to know about that is to just sit here and watch us on abc7 news. but we know you have a very busy life, but you carry around a phone with our app on it, hopefully, and we'll send you those push alerts.

as soon as a flood watch or a flood warning -- a watch means it could happen. a warning means it is happening or it's imminent and you need to take action immediately. we'll send that out to you on the phone through the app. >> okay, and the app is free, it's easy to download, and we're gonna do a little demonstration to show everybody how that works. >> yeah, itunes or google play. you can get it for free. absolutely. >> and that's the best thing. all right, so, push notifications, those are the things that we're gonna show people. it's really easy. you download the app, and then it alerts you. >> absolutely. and we're going to make it specific for your area. so if something happens in san jose and you live in san rafael, you won't get that push alert, 'cause you want it to be more specific for your area. and that's the neat thing about having those push alerts is they can be geographically central to where you are at that time. >> do you think that this el niño effect is gonna affect all of california? >> yeah, i really think so -- more so southern california than in northern california. so we're kind of on the northern edge of getting, or forecasting, above-average precipitation that, during an el niño year, is

usually during january and february. and that's when you could see the pileup of the water and the floods that could happen because of that. >> okay, now, i know that you do weather, but traffic is severely affected because of all the things you just talked about. >> it's amazing when i watch traffic in the morning and, when we get rain after not having it, people forget how to drive in the rain. so, when we get into el niño every three to four years, people may forget how to react and to get to higher ground or to have those sandbags ready or to have the grates out in front of your driveway in the road clean of debris so the water that does come down from the sky has somewhere to go. >> the most important thing that you can tell people to be prepared about el niño -- what can we do to help people get through this? >> i think that people just have to -- one thing they need to do is watch the forecast because we're gonna forecast seven days out, and we're gonna tell you -- if a big storm's gonna come in and create flooding, more than likely, we're going to see it several days out, and that will give you the time to prepare

your house, your yard, get the sandbags -- even gutters. get your gutters cleaned. get those cleaned 'cause you don't want water backing up into your attic and causing -- eventually that could cause mold and stuff. but the best thing to do is, once the flood warning comes out, you've got to act immediately. know your escape plan, know how you're going to get to that higher ground. >> all right, mike, thank you so much. and we're gonna be watching you for all of those alerts and updates, and our whole weather team is gonna be involved in this to keep everybody out there safe and, you know, how to get around and just how to manage your life, right? [ chuckles ] mike, thank you so much for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we're gonna watch him online, as well, too. all right, we have to take another short break. when we come back, "7 on your side's" michael finney is going to join us to help make sure that we are fully prepared for el niño's effects. so stay with us. we'll be right back.

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saving humanity from high insurance rates. that sound. like nails on a chalkboard. but listen to this: (family talking) that's a different kind of sound. the sound of the weekend. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. it's always worth remembering... that icing the cinnamon rolls is a privilege not a right. unleash the power of dough.

give it a pop. >> welcome back to "beyond the headlines." we are learning more about el niño and how the bay area can best prepare for the wet weather it usually brings. rain may be a common sight this winter. we certainly hope so. so officials are urging you to prepare. abc7 news was in palo alto recently as officials showed off the proper way to sandbag, so the demonstration right there. tape a plastic sheet to your wall. then layer the sandbags. it's important to cover the seam of the bottom sandbag with the one on top, and, once you're done, you should wrap the plastic back on top of the bags. >> the time to get prepared is now. el niño's here. we're trying to get the word out to our residents that, if you wait till an actual rain event, that may be too late.

>> well, joining me in the studio right now is "7 on your side's" michael finney, who is here to help us prepare for the fallout. and you've been talking about this and talking about this. >> [ chuckling ] i sure have. >> how do we help people? what do we do first? >> the first thing -- you ought to know where you can get sandbags in case you need them since he was just talk-- every single county does it their own way. for instance, here in san francisco, the department of public... >> works? >> works. thank you. they're the ones who handle it here, and they tend to have the bags already filled up, and they have people there to put them in the trunk of your car. you go out to contra costa county, they have a pile of sand, there are your bags -- bring your own shovel -- and then you fix your own. so you need to know this before it starts raining -- where are you gonna go to get the bags now that you've taught people what to do with them once they have them? >> exactly. and one ofhe things that you talk about is be prepared to protect your homes, and we're talking about insurance -- flooding first, of course, but insurance. >> right. well, let's talk about flood insurance right off the bat. you don't have to have it. it depends on where you live.

generally, your mortgage company are the guys that say, "you have to have the flood insurance." and if you don't have a mortgage, you often don't have it. well, that's something you need to be thinking about in an el niño year. just because someone isn't forcing you to have it doesn't mean you don't want it. so you need to take a look at where you are. you can look at the flood maps. you can go online and check them out at fema.gov and look at the map. and remember that flood insurance is expensive, so it's not everybody. fema would have you believe everyone should rush out and buy this, but you need to take a look at your risk, what's your tolerance for risk, because the average californian pays $850 a year for flood insurance. >> that's a lot of money. >> that's a lot of money, and if you're in a flood zone, it goes up into the thousands. >> well, may i say that i am in a flood zone? >> ooh. >> and we got a deal 'cause we have a really good insurance company, but it's still expensive, and i know -- i've seen flood, and you've seen flood damage. it's horrible. >> it's very, very expensive. and you may be going through a

private company. a lot of people think you can only get flood insurance through fema. actually, there are some private companies out there. you need to ask your insurance agent, "hey, what are my options where i live?" >> now, a lot of cars have been driving into areas that are flooded, thinking they can get through, and then they ruin their cars. >> bad idea, especially in the rural areas around here in northern california. if you've been driving in a dip in the road and you'll see there's a white line here and a white line -- you know what it's for i can tell. that means don't go in if you don't see the white line. you're not gonna make it through. the bottom line is, if your car gets flooded out, it'll wreck the electrical system, and your car will be all but useless. so you need to be very, very careful. if it looks like a puddle that's too deep, don't go through it. if you drive through a puddle -- which we'll all going to be driving through it -- make sure you hit your brakes a couple of times to make sure they dry off before you continue driving. >> and what about our pets? >> you know, i'm glad you brought up pets because people put together their emergency pack [chuckling] and forget their pet. >> right. >> so you need some pet food in there, you need their medical

records, and, look, especially in this year, if you're one of those people that don't want to buy the dog tag, buy them this year. if your dog gets lost during a huge storm, there's gonna be a whole bunch of dogs lost, and you don't want your dog put to sleep because they have too many to deal with at that moment. >> great advice. all right, michael, stay right here. michael is gonna be with us for another segment. we have so much more to talk about, including how to avoid scams as we prepare our homes for el niño. stay with us. don't go away. we'll be right back. this is violet. she's been waiting for this moment for awhile. a moment other kids wouldn't think twice about. her first bowl of cheerios. because now that cheerios are gluten free, violet, and many others are enjoying their first bowl today.

that sound. like nails on a chalkboard. but listen to this: (family talking) that's a different kind of sound. the sound of the weekend. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. it's always worth remembering... that icing the cinnamon rolls is a privilege not a right. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. >> welcome back to "beyond the headlines." we're wrapping up our discussion with our abc7 experts on how to best deal with el niño's impact. el niño is already here, so a lot of homeowners are busy getting ready -- or should be -- for the heavy rain that might be coming, and the high demand for new roofs could send some prices skyward. so here's "7 on your side's" michael finney with the details. >> richard kessell and his wife have lived in this san francisco home for 45 years. this is the first time in awhile

they'd needed to have work done on their roof. >> i figured it was 22 year-plus, and i heard rain was coming, so we decided that we needed to have it serviced. >> richard isn't alone. lawson roofing of san francisco told us the company hasn't been this busy in its 100-year history. >> lawson has more work on the books than it ever has. >> the threat of el niño has roofers backed up with enough work for several months. the current wait to get even an estimate is about two months. expect to wait another three months before any work begins. it's so busy two roofers a "7 on your side" producer scheduled for an estimate on his home never showed up. the demand means many roofers can charge a premium. >> i'm sure the prices are going up now. i mean, once you start to get a backlog... >> our "7 on your side" producer received four estimates, including one from a local trade group, the associated roofing contractors of the bay area counties. richard lawson looked at the leak in the home and then sent

someone up on the roof for a closer inspection. >> you'll probably be looking at a repair of about $2,500. >> we then showed him three other estimates we got from other companies. one we received was for $13,000. the proposal covers work on a 15-square-foot area of the roof, versus the 4-square-foot area lawson recommended. >> it's a little bit more conservative approach than i would take. i don't think it's necessary, based on what i've seen. >> lawson, however, calls the price fair for the work proposed. a second estimate was much less expensive and closer to what lawson suggested -- $1,200. a third caught lawson by surprise. >> this is the entire estimate? >> despite several promises, the roofer never put his estimate in writing and did not climb up to inspect the roof. he said he had replaced the roof of a home in the same development and thought a similar job would be needed for us. the contractor recommended replacing the entire roof for $38,000. >> i would be a little suspicious of this. i'd like to see any proposal you

get done in writing, spelling out the scope of work, so you can make a decision on what is actually being done for you. >> all the roofers we contacted were licensed with the state of california and carried a contractor's bond and worker's-comp insurance. these are must-haves when hiring a roofer. also, be sure to get references. >> i went by a reputation and hearing from other people. >> there are no laws regulating how much a contractor can charge. now, i have links on how to hire a contractor and check their license -- all that on our website at abc7news.com. i'm michael finney, "7 on your side." >> and he's with me right here in the studio, "7 on your side's" michael finney, to help us prepare for the fallout from el niño. and that report was so powerful. >> $1,400 to $38,000, depending on how much they're doing. are they union? are they not union? do you trust them? do you not trust them? and i got to tell you, right now, because it's raining, prices just went up. everyone's gonna be calling them because it rained, so you're gonna have to expect some increased pricing.

so if there's a way for you to get around and be able to ask for it now and receive it later, not need this service right this minute -- i.e. plastic on top of the roof or something -- you ought to do that. that said -- and i know you already know this -- remember, water created the grand canyon. >> [ laughs ] >> this stuff is damaging. you've got to deal with it. >> and i think the importance of flood insurance we cannot stress enough. i know it's expensive. there's probably no way of getting around that if you don't have it, so you have to take precautions. >> yeah, right. and look, you just have to come up with the money if you're in a flood zone. or if you're near one on a year like this, you might want to think about. and remember, too, you have to buy your flood insurance 30 days before it goes into effect. >> ooh. >> so you can't wait till the water's rising and then you say, "quick, i'll take it!" that doesn't count. you ought to think about buying it now if you're going to buy it. >> and so, having been through a couple of floods and seeing damaged sheetrock, damaged furniture, and books and everything else, it's been my personal experience. i cannot tell you how much i appreciate the work you're doing

here to help people. so, if you have that flood on the inside and you're a renter, there are options. >> well, yeah, but not much. there aren't very many good options there because, remember, flood insurance is for water that moves up, not that comes down. and so you're talking about floodwaters. you're not talking about landslides, and you're generally not talking about the contents of your home. you're generally talking about just the home itself. now, with the private insurance -- which is out there -- sometimes it covers it. if you're a renter and you think you're gonna be in a bad situation, i would talk to my agent and say, "is there something available for me?" >> all right, the most important advice you can leave for people out there? >> take it seriously. i know it's gonna sound like a lot of hype because we're talking about it, we're very concerned about it, here you're doing this great show on it. it's not hype. it's real. >> what are you doing to prepare? >> [ laughs ] you know what i did? i did mine about a year ago. my yard had issues with

drainage. that's expensive, so i start doing it the way i think i can do it, and i end up -- i can't fix it, so i have to call somebody in. they try to fix a little piece, and, all of a sudden, they're tearing up the whole backyard. >> oh, no. >> so it's a bummer, it costs a lot of money, but i'm not going to flood because of that. >> right, and not have further damage, as well. >> and not have further damage. >> all right, michael, thank you so much for all your help, and we're gonna look forward to your reports to keep us safe as the el niño effect continues. all right. all right, and that is it for today's show. for more information about all of this information and some resources where you live, please go to our website, abc7news.com/community. we're also on facebook at abc7communityaffairs. and please follow me on twitter @cherylabc7. i'm cheryl jennings. thanks for joining us. have a great week. we'll see you next time. [ theme music plays ]

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