The Big Melt: Crushed houses, trapped cars and the threat of floods – inside California’s buried ski resort

Published

2 years ago

April 28, 2023

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

US

RFK Jr announces US is scrapping $500m of vaccine projects

Published

3 hours ago

August 6, 2025

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RFK Jr announces US is scrapping 0m of vaccine projects

America’s vaccine-sceptic health secretary has announced $500m (£375.8m) worth of cuts to their development in the country.

The US health department is cancelling contracts and pulling funding for jabs to fight viruses like COVID-19 and the flu, it was announced on Tuesday.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, known as RFK Jr, said 22 projects developing mRNA vaccines will be halted. It is the latest in a series of decisions to reduce US vaccine programmes.

The health secretary has fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, reduced recommendations for COVID-19 shots, and refused to endorse vaccines despite a worsening measles outbreak.

RFK Jr claims the US will now prioritise “safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate”.

Responding to the announcement of cuts, Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations, said: “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business.”

Dr Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said RFK Jr’s move was short-sighted and that mRNA vaccines “certainly saved millions of lives”, including during the pandemic.

MRNA vaccines work by delivering a snippet of genetic code into the body that triggers an immune response, rather than introducing a real version of the virus.

According to the UK Health Security Agency, the “leading advantage of mRNA vaccines is that they can be designed and produced more quickly than traditional vaccines”.

Moderna, which was studying a combo mRNA shot that can tackle COVID and flu for the US health department, previously said it believed mRNA could speed up production of flu jabs compared with traditional vaccines.

Scientists are also exploring how mRNA could be used in cancer immunotherapies and in other illnesses.

At the White House earlier this year, billionaire tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison praised mRNA for its potential to treat cancer.

RFK Jr touts ‘effective’ alternative

The health department said the abandoned mRNA projects signal a “shift in vaccine development priorities.”

“Let me be absolutely clear, HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them,” Mr Kennedy said in a statement.

Later, he said work is underway on an alternative – a “universal vaccine” that mimics “natural immunity”.

“It could be effective – we believe it’s going to be effective – against not only coronaviruses, but also flu,” he said.

US

Bill and Hillary Clinton subpoenaed in Jeffrey Epstein probe

Published

4 hours ago

August 6, 2025

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Bill and Hillary Clinton subpoenaed in Jeffrey Epstein probe

The US House Oversight Committee has issued subpoenas for depositions with former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton relating to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

The Republican-controlled committee also subpoenaed the Justice Department for files relating to the paedophile financier, as well as eight former top law enforcement officials.

Donald Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein‘s crimes, claiming he ended their relationship a long time ago.

The US president has repeatedly tried to draw a line under the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation, but politicians from both major political parties, as well as many in Mr Trump’s political base, have refused to drop their interest in the Epstein files.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and since then, conspiracy theories have swirled about what information investigators gathered on him and who else may have been involved in his crimes.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee initiated the subpoenas for the Clintons last month, as well as demanding all communications between former president Joe Biden’s Democrat administration and the Justice Department about Epstein.

The committee previously issued a subpoena for an interview with Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She was recently transferred to another facility in Texas.

Mr Clinton was among those acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. He has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.

Mr Clinton previously said, through a spokesperson, that while he travelled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.

This is a rare escalation

The subpoenaing of former president Bill Clinton is an escalation, both legally and politically.

Historically, it is rare for congressional oversight to demand deposition from former presidents of the United States.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice, had already been summonsed.

But the House Oversight Committee has now added Bill and Hillary Clinton, several former Attorneys General and former FBI directors to its list.

It signals bipartisan momentum – Democrats voting with Republicans for transparency.

The committee will now hear from several people with known ties to Epstein, his connection with Bill Clinton having been well-documented.

But the subpoenas set up a potential clash between Congress and the Department of Justice.

Donald Trump, the candidate, had vowed to release them. A government led by Mr Trump, the president, chose not to.

If Attorney General Pam Bondi still refuses to release the files, it will fuel claims of a constitutional crisis in the United States.

But another day of Epstein headlines demonstrates the enduring public interest in this case.

The subpoenas give the Justice Department until 19 August to hand over the requested records.

The committee is also asking the former officials to appear for depositions throughout August, September and October, concluding with Hillary Clinton on 9 October and Bill Clinton on 14 October.

Although several former presidents, including Mr Trump, have been issued congressional subpoenas, none has ever appeared before members under compulsion.

Last month, Mr Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release information presented to the grand jury that indicted Maxwell for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

US

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs ‘seeks pardon from Trump’

Published

6 hours ago

August 6, 2025

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs 'seeks pardon from Trump'

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been in contact with Donald Trump about a pardon, a source close to the rapper’s legal team has told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

A White House spokesperson said it “will not comment on the existence or nonexistence of any clemency request”.

On Tuesday, the rapper was denied bail ahead of his sentencing in October, when he could face up to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of prostitution-related offences.

The sentence will likely be much shorter than that, however.

In July, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation for prostitution – but cleared of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking, which carried potential life sentences.

During an interview with news channel Newsmax last Friday, Mr Trump said “they have talked to me about Sean” but did not announce any decision.

The president seemed to cast doubt that he would grant a pardon, however.

“You know, I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great. And seemed like a nice guy, I didn’t know him well,” Trump said. “But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.”

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “It makes it more – I’m being honest, it makes it more difficult to do.”

Trump was then asked, “more likely a ‘no’ for Combs?”

Trump responded: “I would say so.”

Combs, who co-founded Bad Boy Records and launched the career of the late Notorious BIG, was for decades a huge figure in pop culture, as well as a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and business entrepreneur, who presided over an empire ranging from fashion to reality TV.

Now, as well as the criminal conviction, he is also facing several civil lawsuits.