Thank you.
>> Good evening and welcome to
the newshour.
Rescue crews have spent this day
looking for survivors and
victims after tornadoes tore
through the region last night.
At least nine people died.
Seven of them in Alabama.
>> The storm knocked out power
to tens of thousands of people.
The damage begin coming into
sharper focus after daybreak.
>> In Selma Alabama evidence of
a tornadoes power on vivid
display.
The twister ripped away parts of
the Selma country club.
>> Class going everywhere.
>> Social media showed the storm
carving a ragged path of
destruction etched into
America's civil-rights history.
It hurled aside cars and erect
buildings.
Selma's mayor said the damage
could in even worse.
>> We were blessed.
Just want to remind folks that
Selma is just one of the
communities that was hit by a
storm.
>> The hardest hit of those
communities live 40 miles to the
northeast.
Authorities say around 50 homes
have been destroyed.
That number is only expected to
rise as the full scale of the
damage is assessed.
Doris hills business is among
the wreckage.
>> Their house is gone.
>> The federal emergency
management agency estimated that
tornadoes may have touched down
at least 35 times across several
southern states.
On the others are to the country
, californians continue cleaning
up from days of storms as
another system moves in from the
pacific.
Local officials are watching the
Salinas river at risk for
overflowing.
Communities are under evacuation
orders.
Some residents are often to wait
it out -- opting to wait it out.
So far more than half of
California's 58 counties have
been declared disaster areas and
property damage could top $1
billion.
>> Despite the amount of
rainfall, the drought that has
gripped the western U.S. Is far
from over.
I'm joined by Jeffrey mount at
California's water policy
center, a nonpartisan think tank
focused O innovative water
management solutions.
California has been enduring a
devastating multiyear drought.
Many people will see the
downpours over the last several
days and think shortly drought
is over.
Is that the case?
>> Drought is in the eye of the
beholder.
This is something important that
is missed in the news.
If you are in San Francisco and
you rely on reservoirs for your
water supply, the drought is
over for you.
If you rely on groundwater
anywhere in the state, it takes
years to rebuild the losses in
groundwater we have had over the
last three years, really over
the last 10 years.
If you are a fish, this is
great, but you are not going to
rebound.
It's going to take years to
recover from 10 years of dry
conditions.
>> Does any of the relentless
rain help that problem at all?
>> Let me be clear.
We are pointed in the right
direction.
We just haven't arrived yet.
It would take years.
We had a spell of five
consecutive wet years.
That really helps a lot.
One year is not get us out of
drought completely.
>> Is the rain being stored in a
way that can make a difference
towards the future?
>> Absolutely.
There's more than 1500 dams in
California.
Our largest reservoirs are a
long way from being full which
is kind of a silver lining from
the drought.
They are taking all the water in
and reducing flood risk
downstream as they fill those
reservoirs.
We are storing a lot in our
surface areas and recharging
grouwater which is important.
>> When you take a broader view
of rainstorms, do you see this
as a blip or is this the new
normal for you?
>> One of the issues that has
come up about climate change,
it's no longer an existential
future threat.
It's here.
We are seeing drier dry years
and wetter wet years.
You can't attribute what's
happening right now to climate
change but it is consistent with
what we are seeing.
These atmospheric rivers get
juiced up by the warm air out in
the pacific.
This is what the future probably
looks like and in fact I would
argue the future is here now.
>> We have seen the storms
having an enormous impact on the
ground.
You live in California.
What does all this mean for how
people in your community live?
>> First of all, as you know we
have the most variable climate
in all of North America when it
comes to precipitation.
Most people don't appreciate
that.
People run around like it's some
exotic event when it rains.
But it does rain like this once
every 10 years.
What happens is we get very
excited, we worry about it and
we forget about it by the time
the summer comes around.
This year enough flood damage
has occurred that I'm hoping we
will tackle that issue.
We have to do them side-by-side.
You have to handle the wet years
better while handling the dry
years better.
To our credit as a state, we are
working in that direction.
>> Does that mean you are seeing
the right institutional policy
changes in place to meet the
changes?
>> We make recommendations on
policy.
There a lot more we can do.
We are pointed in the right
direction on our policy changes.
We still have a lot of work
ahead of us.
>> Jeffrey mount, thank you for
joining us.