President Joe Biden arrived in California’s Central Coast on Thursday to meet with some of the communities hammered by weeks of torrential rainfall, some of the most intense in the state’s history.
Biden said that the catastrophe is a clear display of climate change in action and shows how severe weather can get in a hotter atmosphere.
“If anybody doubts the climate is changing, they must have been asleep for the last couple of years,” the president said Thursday from Aptos’ Seacliff State Beach, where recent storms have plummeted half of a pier into the ocean, destroyed the seawall and caused about $30 million in damage.
Damage from the storms has been recorded in 41 of the state’s 58 counties, with nine atmospheric rivers since late December collapsing hillsides, downing massive trees, breaking levees, washing away roads, knocking out power, forcing evacuations and flooding residences.
“Extreme weather caused by climate change means stronger and more frequent storms,…
