Los Angeles Times - 02.11.2019

$2.75DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2019 WST SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019 latimes.com

As flames rapidly spread

along a hillside in Santa

Paula, firefighters were

faced with a perilous di-

lemma: ground night-flying

helicopters working to con-

tain the growing fire or risk

an aerial collision with a

thrill-seeking drone.

A Ventura County Fire

Department helicopter pilot

radioed in at 3:19 a.m. that a

drone had been spotted fly-

ing above the flames, appar-

ently trying to take a photo-

graph or video of the scene

below. Air operations were

immediately stopped for at

least 45 minutes until the

sky was clear.

But at 4:05 a.m., another

drone sighting occurred.

The aerial fight against

the wildfire was upended for

another hour while at least

two helicopters with night-

flying capabilities that had

been deployed to help con-

tain the Maria fire were

grounded. Meanwhile, the

blaze that broke out atop

South Mountain, just south

of Santa Paula, shortly after

6 p.m. Thursday marched

toward the small agricultur-

al towns of Somis and Sati-

coy.

The interruption of the

aerial firefighting under-

scores growing concerns

about how drones can bring

added dangers to pilots bat-

tling major fires.

According to the Na-

tional Interagency Fire Cen-

ter, aerial firefighting efforts

have been shut down at least

nine times this year because

of drone use, and at least 20

drone incursions have hin-

dered firefighting capa-

bilities nationwide from Jan-

uary through October. A re-

port shared with The Times

showed that of those 20 in-

cursions, five were in Califor-

nia.

While the unmanned aer-

ial vehicles are small, drones

DRONE

HINDERS

AERIAL

FIRE

BATTLE

Water-dropping

helicopters fighting

Ventura County blaze

are grounded twice

over risk of collision.

By Colleen Shalby,

Mark Puente

and Hannah Fry

[SeeDrones,A8]

A HELICOPTER helps battle the Maria fire Friday in Santa Paula. After firefighting choppers were

grounded by drone sightings, one official said: “It sure wouldn’t have been a bad thing to keep them flying.”

Marcus YamLos Angeles Times

LAFAYETTE, Calif. —

Bay Area residents are un-

happily adjusting to a new

routine.

When talk of power shut-

downs starts, there is a

checklist. Get cash, gas and

ice. Freeze as many water

bottles as possible to keep

refrigerators and freezers

cold. Keep battery-operated

headlamps, lanterns and

flashlights at hand. Know

generator etiquette: Shut off

the noisy machines at night

and offer to share them with

neighbors.

The second power shut-

down in a month, which

started Saturday and ended

Tuesday for most East Bay

residents, found many of

them more prepared.

During the first one,

panic ensued when shelves

quickly emptied of batteries,

flashlights and ice, and long

lines formed at gas stations.

This time, many residents

already had stacks of batter-

ies and had invested in

power backup gadgets, in-

Plugging into a new routine

Second time around, Bay Area residents get blackout drill down

By Maura Dolan

TOM HYDE,left, purchases a can of fuel for his Coleman camping stove from

Kim Scheffer at a Village True Value Hardware store in Santa Rosa, Calif.

John BurgessAssociated Press

[SeeOutages,A9]

WASHINGTON — End-
ing her months-long silence
on how to pay for moving the
entire nation into a govern-
ment-run healthcare sys-
tem, Sen. Elizabeth Warren
on Friday laid out a detailed
plan that relies on trillions of
dollars in new taxes on the
rich and corporations, big
pay-ins from employers and
aggressive cost cutting.
The proposal is a crucial
step for Warren at a time
when polls show her moving
to the front of the pack in key
states. With it, Warren will be
able to claim that she is the
first of the Democratic can-
didates to fully describe how
to pay for a “Medicare for all”
plan, which many of the par-
ty’s progressive activists ar-
dently back. Her plan also
allows her to say that she can
fund the policy without rais-
ing taxes on the middle class
— a key political goal.
Her chief rival on the par-
ty’s left, Sen. Bernie Sanders
of Vermont, who has cam-
paigned in favor of a govern-
ment-run medical plan for
years, has outlined options
for financing, but has not
committed to one. He has
said middle-class taxes
could go up under his plan.
Warren argues that
America could do away with
private insurance — entirely
eliminating premiums, de-
ductibles and co-payments
— and move everyone into a
single-payer system without
sacrificing care and without
hiking taxes on the middle
class. The elimination of
those out-of-pocket costs
would save families trillions
of dollars over a decade, ac-
cording to her estimates,
[SeeWarren,A7]

Warren

unveils

health

proposal

Her $20-trillion

‘Medicare for all’ plan

would be funded by

hefty taxes on the

rich and corporations.

By Evan Halper

LONDON — In the early

1990s, a young British night-

school tutor was living in the

shabby-romantic northern

Portuguese city of Porto,

treading cobbled alleyways,

ascending the well-worn

staircase of a magnificent

neo-Gothic bookstore and

catching flyaway glimpses of

black-caped schoolchildren.

Some of those arresting im-

ages found their way into the

fictional realm she went on

to create: the “Harry Potter”

series, the beloved world-

wide blockbuster about a

boy magician and his

friends.

Last month, as a now-

missed Brexit deadline was

bearing down, J.K. Rowling

and nine other British litera-

ry luminaries, academics

and artists published a

batch of elegiac love letters

to a continental Europe that

helped shape their personal

and creative comings-of-

age. In them, the writers

struck themes that have

echoed in breakup missives

down the ages: lacerating re-

grets, still-stunned disbelief

and the eternal lovers’

lament: Did it really have to

end like this?

“Dear Europe,” Neil

Gaiman, acclaimed author

of fantasy tales and myth-

Breakup notes from

Britain to the EU

Literary luminaries

write love letters

regretting the split.

By Laura King

[SeeBrexit,A4]

ELECTION 2020

■■■■■■

B

o Slyapich seeks what no one
else wants to find.
On a recent morning, he
waded into grass so high and
so dense his legs disappeared
from view. He crouched low and then
lay on his stomach as he scoured the
backyard of a house above Pacific
Coast Highway.
The homeowner looked on from a
safe distance. Luna, the family dog,
barked as Slyapich invaded her terri-
tory, but kept back as well.
Slyapich was trying to flush out
rattlesnakes from under a rock, inside
a dirt hole or behind a leafy plant. For
30 minutes he hunted his prey — climb-
ing and crawling, prodding and poking
with sticks and tongs — plotting a
course with the confidence and cau-
tion that come from decades of experi-
ence.
Southern California is home to at
least half a dozen snake removal serv-
ices that extricate the animals from
their hide-outs and take them away,
allowing families to safely spend time
in their yards. When Slyapich and
other experts complete their mission,
they often leave awe in their wake.
Rattlesnakes can be found up and
down the state, which means, in
theory, calls for assistance can come
from a variety of locations. But rattlers
are frequently associated with hills
and mountains, and the multimillion-
dollar mansions nestled among them.

COLUMN ONE

Got rattlers? He’ll roll to the rescue

It’s been a busy year for rattlesnake wranglers. Just ask jittery homeowners.

BO SLYAPICHwith a rattlesnake he caught at a Hidden Hills home.

Southern California has at least half a dozen snake removal services.

Mel MelconLos Angeles Times

By Soumya Karlamangla

[SeeSnakes,A10]

Waymo says no

to free robotaxis

The company wants

to deploy driverless cabs

in California but says

it can’t do that if the

state continues to pro-

hibit the charging of

fares. BUSINESS, C

Weather

Sunny.

L.A. Basin: 84/56. B

Daylight saving time

ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.

3

1

2

12

Beto O’Rourke

ends his campaign

Ex-congressman from El
Paso gradually fell out of
contention after joining
Democratic race amid
unusual hype. NATION, A