The Big Melt: Crushed houses, trapped cars and the threat of floods – inside California’s buried ski resort
High in the California mountains, a ski resort sits buried under layers of snow and ice. Residents of Mammoth Lakes fear for their lives, and livelihoods, after a winter of record snowfalls.
Wooden houses are blanketed under white powder, cars are buried beneath cement-like drifts, and roads are lined by colossal snow banks stretching up to 50ft tall. Every so often a dagger-like slab of snow or ice will slide from a rooftop and shatter on the ground
They’re used to a lot of snow in Mammoth Lakes. In fact, it’s vital for the economic survival of the town but nobody could have expected what happened this winter.
Residents of Mammoth try to rescue their homes from the huge snowfall
A series of so-called atmospheric rivers – narrow bands of moisture which carry precipitation from the Pacific Ocean over the west coast of the United States – hit California.
These storms have been unusual in their frequency and intensity following a decade of drought, transforming the Golden State into the sodden state.
In Mammoth, the snow fall was three times the historical average. When we visit, a month past the peak, the walls of snow are still as tall as two double decker buses in parts.
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Why is California having such extreme weather?
Steve Searles, known in Mammoth Lakes as the “Bear Whisperer” because of his decades as a wildlife conservationist, has now become a custodian of the community. In his pick-up truck, he is connected to the emergency service radio communications. An alert comes through about part of a house collapsing.
It’s no surprise to Steve.
“This is another one that just went boom,” he says, pointing to the remnants of a house that looks like it exploded but was actually brought down by the sheer weight of the snow.
‘Bear Whisperer’ Steve Searles speaks to Sky News’ Martha Kelner
In his own home, he has dug a path to allow him to open his back door but inside it is dark 24 hours a day because the snow is so tightly packed against the windows. “People here have been living in darkness for months,” he says, “it’s like being squeezed by an anaconda. We kept screaming, ‘help us’ but nobody cut the damn head off.”
But Steve, like everyone here, knows that this is a catastrophe in two parts and the worst is, likely, yet to come.
He points to the snow piled on top of his garage. “This is just over 20,000 gallons of water and that’s only my little roof. There’s nowhere for this water to go when it does start to melt,” he says, “As soon as it goes one or two degrees above freezing at night, then the flooding will begin.”
It is a slow motion disaster and it’s not just the people of Mammoth who are living in fear. The expectation is that once this snow starts to melt, it will send torrents of water gushing downstream.
Houses have been covered in unprecedented snowfall, but the coming melt could devastate the area too
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In California’s central valley, the snow-capped mountains, far in the distance, are a spectre of doom.
The near-record rainfall in California is already transforming the landscape here and that is before the big melt begins.
Corcoran is a town of 25,000 people and home to some of America’s most productive farmland, with an agricultural industry worth $2bn (£1.6bn). It is currently witnessing the remarkable rebirth of Tulare Lake, once the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi.
Tulare Lake was drained by farmers before completely disappearing by the mid-part of last century. But it is reappearing with a vengeance, already covering 30 square miles, an area roughly the size of Coventry, it looks like a vast inland sea. Experts predict that over the next couple of months it could grow to 200 square miles.
The flooding here happened too quickly for people to prepare and some workers have returned to the edge of the new lake with rowing boats to try and retrieve their drowned equipment.
California’s high speed rail project swamped by flooding in Tulare County
Jordan Silva is looking for a 40ft long piece of a combine harvester. “This is only from rainwater,” he says, “the snow hasn’t really melted at all. So this is actually kind of nothing right now. It’s going to get way, way worse.”
Beneath the waves are thousands of acres of pistachio trees, alfalfa and wheat fields, including 900 acres belonging to fourth generation farmer Bob Hansen.
On dry land, Bob tells me he is busy devising an evacuation plan for his 20,000 cattle.
“If the temperatures go up and they stay up, we’re done,” Bob says, “We’ve got a historic snowpack and if it were to all come down in a short period of time, the levees won’t hold. There is a very high potential at that point in time that the city of Corcoran goes underwater.”
Bob Hansen is the fourth-generation of farmer in his family – now the weather is putting his livelihood at risk
At the lake’s shoreline, helicopters fly in sandbags and the army, in tractors, are helping shore up the levee to try to protect the city of Corcoran. This area has now been declared a disaster zone.
We are there when the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, pays a visit. Over the past year he has toured wildfires, drought sites and now numerous areas in California that are underwater.
“There’s not a climate expert or a meteorologist that doesn’t say the following: “We’ve never seen this weather at this level of intensity and extreme”. That’s what is exacerbating the conditions that we’re experiencing,” he says.
Farmers have seen their fields and equipment disappear below the water
I ask what he thinks would have to happen for people to believe in climate change. “Just visit California,” he says with a shrug of the shoulders.
Even those who are more sceptical about climate change cannot deny the reality that more water is on its way to California’s central valley, even to the parts already underwater. For the people who live and work here, that is a terrifying prospect.
Driving south from Los Angeles along the coast, you can’t miss the San Pedro port complex. Dozens of red cranes pop up from behind the freeway.
The sound of industry whirs as containers are unloaded from hulking ocean liners on to waiting lorries and freight trains that seem to never end.
The port of Long Beach combines with the port of Los Angeles to make the busiest port in the western hemisphere.
The San Pedro port complex
The colourful metal containers contain anything and everything, from clothes and car parts to fridges and furniture. Around $300bn of cargo passes through here every year and 60% of it is from China.
But at the moment, it’s far less busy than usual. Traffic is down by a third, compared with this time last year.
In the closest part of the mainland United States to China, this is Donald Trump‘s new tariffs policy in action, the direct result of frozen trade between the two countries.
“For the month of May, we expect that we’ll be down about 30% from where we were in May of 2024,” Noel Hacegaba, the port of Long Beach chief operating officer, tells Sky News.
“What that translates into is fewer ships and fewer containers. It means fewer trucks will be needed to transport those containers from the port terminal to the warehouses. It means fewer jobs.”
Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer of the port of Long Beach
‘We’re barely surviving’
Helen Andrade knows all about that. She and her husband, Javier, are both lorry drivers. Helen only got her license in the last few years, so when work dries up, she is likely to be impacted first.
“I’m lying awake at night worrying about this,” she says.
“We’re barely surviving and we’re already seeing work slowing down. In my case, there are two incomes that are not going to come in. How are we going to survive?”
Helen adds: “I’m scared for the next two weeks, because over the next two weeks, I’m going to see where this is going, whether I have saved up enough money, which I know that I have not.”
Lorry driver Helen Andrade
In Long Beach, one in five jobs is connected to the port. But what happens in the port doesn’t stay here.
The shipments reach every part of the country and already, a shortage of certain items imported from China and price hikes are taking hold.
A short drive away is downtown LA’s toy district, a multicultural area consisting of a dozen streets of pastel-coloured buildings, home to importers and wholesalers of toys, much of which is imported from China.
Colourful balloons line windows in LA’s toy district
Read more about tariffs:
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US port workers regret voting Trump
One woman in a toy warehouse is reading a Chinese newspaper. She points to a headline about the 145% tariffs.
“I can’t afford this, I can’t afford this, I’m going to have to put prices up,” she says, exasperated.
Empty shelves
Around the corner is a party shop, selling gift bags and wrapping paper. There are empty shelves which would otherwise have been full.
“These empty spaces are where we stopped importing from China because the tariffs are too high,” says the owner, Jacob Mok.
Party shop owner Jacob Mok
Empty shelves in Mr Mok’s party shop
He tells Sky News: “I’ll keep watching China and America negotiations. I hope as soon as possible they reach a deal because this is very hard for us.”
Jacob is not alone. The impact is being felt throughout the supply chain.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
US trade secretary Scott Bessent will meet his Chinese counterpart in Switzerland this weekend.
Pressure is growing on Mr Trump’s team to strike a deal with China and do it quickly.
US
From Chicago’s south suburbs to Rome: Dolton’s faithful say ‘Bob’ was the boy destined to be pope
He was the boy from the small town with big dreams of becoming pope.
Robert Prevost, or “Bob” as they knew him in Dolton, south Chicago, was the youngest son of Louis, a teacher, and Mildred, a librarian.
Devoted in their faith, they were prominent figures in St Mary’s Church.
Scott Kuzminski remembers “Millie”, the chorister, with the “voice of an angel”, and her son with a calling on his life.
“Some children dream to be the top soccer player, or rich or something, and he dreamed he was going to be the Pope,” he said.
The railroad runs through this sleepy suburb, now destined to become a place of pilgrimage.
That’s an answer to prayer for Kathleen Steenson, who believed from childhood that her church would give the world a pope.
She said: “Our faith in this little parish is so strong… and in my little mind, I thought, the next pope has got to come from here because we’re such a great little community.”
‘The next pope has got to come from here,’ Kathleen Steenson said
St Mary’s Church, where the Pope served as an altar boy before entering the priesthood, is derelict now, symbolic of the challenges.
But to many, this is holy ground, illuminated by the colours cast by the sun shining through the stained glass.
And at the Cathedral of the High Name in the heart of Chicago, there’s a renewed sense of optimism.
“It’s a miracle and a great blessing,” a man leaving a celebratory mass for the new pontiff told me.
A woman, who had also been in the congregation, added: “I hope that he can help people to see beyond the divisions of the country and remember the poor.”
“It’s not just the virtues that he extols,” said another man, “I’m hoping he’ll bring inspiration to all of us to preach love and that the people in Washington will listen.”
Read more:
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Pope holds first mass, hopes to help church be a beacon
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Earlier this year, Cardinal Prevost, as he was then, questioned President Trump’s stance on immigration and vice president JD Vance’s interpretation of Christianity.
Leo XIV is the first Pope from North America, but spent years as a missionary in Peru, South America.
And it’s his pastoral heart that’s giving cause for hope in a deeply divided America.
A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.
Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of
transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.
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Why is Sean Combs on trial?
Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.
The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.
He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”
A court sketch showing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (right) as he listens to his lawyer Marc Agnifilo addressing the court. Pic: Reuters
Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.
Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.
He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.
Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.
Read more:
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
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Sean Combs: A timeline of allegations
Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.
The trial is expected to last around eight weeks.
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