The Wall Street Journal - 31.10.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Thursday, October 31, 2019 |A

Now, we take fire selfies on

apocalypse days,” said Anthony

Gulino, 48 years old, who was

taking a picture with his 17-

year-old daughter, Gabby.

In the San Francisco Bay

Area, meanwhile, the winds

had largely calmed by the

morning, a positive sign for the

workers fighting the massive

Kincade Fire in Sonoma

County.

Fire crews, PG&E Corp.

workers and other emergency

personnel took advantage of

calm conditions to try to con-

trol the blaze, which by

Wednesday morning was 30%

contained.

Deaths from heart failure,
one of the nation’s biggest kill-
ers, are surging as the popula-
tion ages and the health of
younger generations worsens.
The death rate from the
chronic, debilitating condition
rose 20.7% between 2011 and
2017 and is likely to keep
climbing sharply, according to a
study published Wednesday in
the journal JAMA Cardiology.
The rapid aging of the popu-
lation, together with high rates
of obesity and diabetes in all
ages, are pushing both the rate
and number of deaths from
heart failure higher, the study
said. Most deaths from heart
failure occur in older Americans,
but they are rising in adults un-
der 65, too, the study showed.
The findings help explain
why a decadeslong decline in
the death rate from cardiovas-
cular disease has slowed sub-
stantially since 2011 and started
rising in middle-aged people,
helping drive down U.S. life ex-
pectancy.
The number of Americans
who are 65 and over rose
nearly 23% between 2011 and
2017 to 50.9 million, and is pro-
jected to expand an additional
44% to 73.1 million by 2030, ac-
cording to the study, citing
Census Bureau data. Some have
dubbed the aging population a
“Silver Tsunami.”
“It’s just staggering,” said
Stephen Sidney, director of re-
search clinics at the Kaiser Per-
manente Northern California
Division of Research and lead
author of the study.
If current trends don’t
change, Dr. Sidney said, “in
terms of overall burden on so-
ciety, we’re going to somehow
need to figure out how to take
care of all those people.”
Heart failure is a progressive
condition in which the heart
can’t pump enough blood for
the body’s needs. The risk in-
creases with age. It can be
caused by long-term high blood
pressure or by damage to the
heart. Medical advances help
more people today survive
heart attacks, but survivors are
sometimes left with damage
that makes it difficult for their
hearts to pump adequately.
An estimated 6.2 million
Americans suffer from heart
failure, according to federal sta-
tistics. The American Heart As-
sociation predicts that more
than 8 million will have the
condition by 2030.
Hypertension, obesity and
diabetes helped drive a 51% in-
crease in the number of heart-
failure deaths in adults under
age 65 between 2011 and 2017,
the study showed.
Those risk factors are partic-
ularly worrisome because they
are leading to more cases of a
type of heart failure that lacks
effective treatments, said Jamal
Rana, senior author of the
study and chief of cardiology at
Kaiser Permanente Medical
Center in Oakland. That condi-
tion, called heart failure with
preserved ejection fraction, oc-
curs when the heart muscle be-
comes stiff and can’t properly
fill.
“We need prevention” to ad-
dress heart failure, said Keith
Ferdinand, a preventive cardiol-
ogist and professor of medicine
at Tulane University School of
Medicine, who wasn’t involved
in the research.

BYBETSYMCKAY

Heart-

Failure

Deaths

Increase

0thousand 200 400 600

Number of deaths by leading
causes

Accidents

Lower
respiratory
disease

Stroke

Alzheimer's

Diabetes

Influenza and
pneumonia
Kidney
failure*

Suicide

Deathsfromheartfailure

2017 2011

*Includes nephritis, nephrotic syndrome
and nephrosis
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (death); American Medical
Association (heart failure)

Heart
disease

Cancer

U.S. NEWS

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—Cali-

fornians faced another day of

evacuations and blackouts

Wednesday as some of the

strongest winds of the year

fueled a new blaze north of Los

Angeles that threatened the

Ronald Reagan Presidential Li-

brary.

Officials had warned that

wind gusts, which reached 70

miles an hour and created loud

howls as they knocked over

benches and shook cars, would

create some of the most dan-

gerous conditions of the year

for deadly blazes.

As a preventive measure,

power was cut off to more

than a half-million households

and businesses across the

state.

Firefighters were able to

keep major blazes already

burning in Sonoma County,

north of San Francisco, and in

the city of Los Angeles from

growing, and there were no re-

ported deaths.

The Easy Fire in Simi Valley,

northwest of Los Angeles, was

the biggest new danger

Wednesday, growing to 1,

acres in a matter of hours and

threatening about 7,000 homes.

“It was about the worst

time it could happen,” Ventura

County Fire Chief Mark Loren-

zen said, of the strong winds

at the time the fire began. “Un-

fortunately for us, the winds

are going to continue for an-

other 24 hours.”

Flames climbed the hills

around the Reagan library

Wednesday morning, with

small fire funnels popping into

the air when the winds picked

up. The road leading to the

tourist attraction was envel-

oped in smoke and the street-

lights were out.

Firefighters continually

dropped water and foam into

the flames from helicopters

and planes.

On the ground, crews with

shovels and chain saws headed

into the hillsides to try to put

out smoldering hot spots and

stop the inferno from popping

back up.

By midday, the Easy Fire ap-

peared to have passed the Rea-

gan Library without causing

any damage. The hills around

the facility were dark black and

the lawn at the complex’s en-

tryway smoldered as firefight-

ers worked in nearby hills to

tamp down a few remaining

hot spots.

Fire officials noted that

nothing in the fire’s footprint

was considered safe yet.

Despite the evacuation or-

ders, some locals came as close

as a quarter mile to the Reagan

Library to gawk.

“When I was a kid, we would

play in the snow on snow days.

breathe and only has a land-

line telephone through bun-

dled cable service that

stopped working when the

power went out.

“We’ve been inundated with

requests” for assistance with

generators, said Mr. Welch, 48

years old.

Cable and wireline phone

companies said 173,058 sub-

scribers were without service

Wednesday and 223,973 lacked

service the day before, accord-

ing to Federal Communica-

tions Commission data.

Telephone systems that rely

on copper lines typically func-

tion during power outages be-

cause they transmit power

from the phone company’s

central office and typically

have backup power.

California utility giant

PG&E Corp. started more

power shutdowns Tuesday in

Northern California that will

affect 500,000 homes and

businesses. The utility com-

pany’s equipment has been

cited as a potential cause in

past fires, and shutdowns are

meant to mitigate danger.

Mr. Welch’s cellphone has

continued to work, though

about 22% of cell sites were

down in Sonoma County as of

Tuesday morning, according to

the FCC, with that proportion

falling to 17% on Wednesday

morning.

Service continued to im-

prove Wednesday in the two

other counties that earlier this

week had the highest percent-

age of cell-site outages.

Roughly 5% of cell sites were

down in Marin County on

Wednesday, the FCC said,

down from about 35% the day

before, and 19% were down in

Calaveras County, an improve-

ment from 33% on Tuesday.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

wrote to wireless carriers in

September about how they

were preparing for fires and

power shutdowns in California.

Verizon Communications

Inc., AT&T Inc., T-Mobile US

Inc. and Sprint Corp. all re-

plied detailing the types of

backup power available at their

sites and the equipment that

could quickly be deployed

there in the event of an outage.

All four major wireless car-

riers have said they would of-

fer customers bill credit and

unlimited service, or waive

overage fees.

Dayslong power outages in

California are revealing an in-

convenient fact about modern

phones: When the electricity

goes out, so do they.

Power shutdowns in the

state meant to prevent further

fire risk have cut power to

some cell towers, as well as to

cable providers that sell home

voice services. The shutdowns

have left hundreds of thou-

sands cut off from emergency

alerts, loved ones and in some

cases, access to 911.

While traditional copper

landline phones typically con-

tinue working during power

outages, newer internet-based

voice-calling services that are

cheaper for providers to offer

and maintain don’t. Califor-

nia’s public-utility commission

doesn’t have rules that require

service providers to have

backup power for voice-over-

internet service, wireless ser-

vice or wireline customers on

traditional telephone systems.

Elliot Welch, an electrician

in the town of Sonoma, has

been without power since Sat-

urday and balances his work

helping customers install

backup generators with trips to

his mother’s house to check on

her and refuel her generator.

His mother requires a respi-

ratory system to help her

BYSARAHKROUSE

Power Outages Knock Out

Modern Phones, Devices

State’s rules don’t

require backup

power for landline

or cellphone service.

Considerable headway was

also made on the Getty Fire in

Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Named for the area near the

Getty Museum where it began

Monday morning, the fire is

27% contained.

Despite the progress, gusty

winds will pose a consider-

able threat through Thursday

afternoon in Southern Califor-

nia, and new fires could flare

up suddenly.

In Riverside County, east of

Los Angeles, a 200-acre blaze

broke out midday Wednesday

and caused some mandatory

evacuations, including the re-

moval of elderly residents

who could be seen waiting in

wheelchairs alongside a free-

way for transportation.

A red-flag warning, issued

by weather authorities when

winds are high and humidity

is low, remains in place for

the southern portion of the

state.

Southern California Edi-

son turned off the power for

71,058 customers Wednesday

afternoon in an effort to pre-

vent more fires, with the ma-

jority of blackouts in Los An-

geles and Ventura counties.

In Northern California,

utility giant PG&E started a

series of power shut-offs

Tuesday that eventually hit

more than 500,000 homes

and businesses, in another

round of mandatory black-

outs.

BYTALALANSARI

ANDALICIAA.CALDWELL

New Fire Threatens Reagan Library

As California’s Easy Fire spread Wednesday, a rancher evacuated a horse and flames climbed the hills around the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

FROM TOP: ETIENNE LAURENT/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK; KTLA-TV/ASSOCIATED PRESS

 PG&E investors punished; other

utilities face liability risk...B1, B

davidyurman.com  888-dyurman