Merry Christmas, California! By the time you read this, Gov. Gavin Newsom may already have left a big pile of … coal in our stockings.
On Dec. 7, I’ll be part of a free webcast panel hosted by SCORE Santa Barbara discussing the coronavirus crisis, current medical developments, the challenges for small businesses in the near term and the surprisingly hopeful long-term outlook — for all of us — in 2021.
With the news that Newsom is about to order another lockdown, however, signs of hope have evaporated. Instead, sheer panic has engulfed small businesses, too many of which now may not even last till the new year.
SCORE chairman Greg Loosvelt, the moderator, will try to make the most of it with his panelists: Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons, an infectious disease specialist and Cottage Health’s COVID-19 point person; Cari Shore, Montecito Bank & Trust’s director of community banking; Berkshire Hathaway commercial real estate associate Mitch Stark; and myself.
We’ve added a few new topics, among them a roundtable discussion of the latest news, thoughts on how small businesses can survive tighter restrictions and ongoing uncertainties, and recovery forecasts. An audience Q&A will follow.
The free, hour-long webcast starts at 5 p.m. Dec. 7. Click here to register.
Just in time for the holidays, the invisible, easily transmitted COVID-19 is making another of its periodic — but no less alarming — runs. Questions about looming stay-at-home orders, curfews and travel restrictions are piling up. Still, to this day, the economic, health and emotional impacts from lockdowns are not given the same urgent attention as the virus.
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According to our Google Analytics, there were 108,159 of you reading Noozhawk this past week. As most of you know, these Best of Bill columns are my take on the Top 5 most-read stories during that period.
After the week’s top two stories, the other three positions had unusual volatility — right up until midnight Dec. 3. Our third-place story raced through our traffic in under nine hours. Capping a long day of back and forth among a half-dozen stories, fourth place ended in a tie.
As a reminder, this is not a news story. It is my opinion column, and I’ve got plenty of them today.
1. Firefighters Battle Vegetation Fires Along Highway 101 in Goleta
A spectacular fire erupted along Highway 101 in Goleta the afternoon of Nov. 27, shutting down the freeway’s northbound lanes and nearby Calle Real for several hours as firefighters battled the blaze — and a second one that ignited a little over an hour later.
As our Tom Bolton first reported, the fire was called in just before 4 p.m., and crews arrived within a few minutes.
Santa Barbara County fire Capt. Daniel Bertucelli said the fire was found burning in a copse of trees and thick vegetation on the north side of the freeway, in the area between Patterson and North Kellogg avenues.
Also found at the site? An illegal homeless encampment, and a pretty elaborate one at that. Just apparently without working smoke alarms or a sprinkler system.
Not long after the first fire was extinguished, a second one broke out about 150 yards away, Bertucelli said. He said the second blaze prompted the incident commander to request additional assistance, which included engines from the Santa Barbara and Montecito fire departments.
Sending thick, black smoke high into the sky, the fire was burning uncomfortably close to the Maravilla Senior Living community at 5486 Calle Real.
Spotting of flames also was reported on the south side of the freeway, and the Santa Barbara Humane Society was forced to evacuate all of the animals at its facility at 5399 Overpass Road.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Any guesses on the conclusion?
2. Driver Killed in Rollover Crash on Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara
A late-night car crash in Santa Barbara killed the 22-year-old driver when he was ejected from the vehicle as it was rolling over up a Highway 101 exit ramp.
According to Santa Barbara police spokesman Anthony Wagner, the driver was traveling north on the freeway around 11:30 p.m. Nov. 29 when he turned onto the Cabrillo Boulevard/Hot Springs Road exit ramp.
“The vehicle continued north through the intersection with Cabrillo Boulevard without stopping, and struck the curb and light pole on the opposite corner,” he said.
As our Tom Bolton first reported, the impact of the high-speed collision sent the car tumbling over up the southbound freeway exit ramp.
Wagner said the driver, identified Dec. 3 as James Owen Caverly of Santa Barbara, was ejected in the wreck and was pronounced dead at the scene. He was the car’s only occupant.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, Wagner said.
3. State May Implement Stay-at-Home Order for Santa Barbara County
Moving his goalposts yet again, Gov. Gavin Newsom is close to reimposing a stay-at-home order for most of California if coronavirus-related metrics keep increasing and health-care system capacity tightens.
Santa Barbara County — like 50 other of the state’s 58 counties — already is in purple purgatory, the previously most-restrictive category in Newsom’s oxymoronic “reopening” blueprint.
Although new COVID-19 cases and hospitalization trends have been rising locally, the county is still well below statewide averages, as is the Central Coast, for that matter.
So, what SCIENCE is Newsom following this time? For his latest revision, he divided the state into five regions, and threw Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties in the Southern California pool, a vast area that includes counties not just hundreds of miles away but those that are the real danger zones in the current coronavirus surge.
For instance, one of our new regional partners — Imperial County — has just two intensive-care unit beds available, while another — Los Angeles County — is down to 122. That’s a hospitalization crisis under the definition of Newsom’s original March 19 stay-at-home order, which was to buy the health-care system time to increase capacity.
By comparison, as our Giana Magnoli reported Dec. 3, Santa Barbara County is using 61 percent of its ICU beds, with 13 of them — 22 percent — occupied by COVID-19 patients.
And while our coronavirus hospitalizations doubled in the last week — to 50 from 25 — the county Public Health Department is assuring the community that there are enough beds and resources to handle the demand.
In fact, the county’s ICU needs peaked in late June at a still-manageable 69 percent.
So much for individual county metrics. First it was local hospitalizations, then it was local testing, then it was colored tiers, and now it’s back to hospitalizations but on a geographic scale the size of Ohio. And nothing we do here makes a damned bit of difference.
Meanwhile, each sweeping new decree from Sacramento sets off a frantic hunt for answers as everyone tries to figure out how they’ll be affected by the arbitrary, contradictory and constantly changing rules. Even the “stay at home” part of a stay-at-home order is nonsensically elastic.
Voluntarily, the public largely accepted and embraced social distancing, wearing masks around others, and frequent hand washing and sanitizing. That hasn’t changed.
Voluntarily, nearly every business adopted — and is enforcing — responsible precautions to protect their customers, their employees and their bottom line, even through an unprecedented intentional shutdown of our economy. That hasn’t changed.
But in the absence of a true scientific response, such as the vaccines that are tantalizingly close to rollout, COVID-19 will continue to be a threat. And most of us — like, more than 98 percent of us — will live with that.
For the remainder who are the most vulnerable to the contagion, it would be more productive and effective if we were to concentrate on building defenses around them, where they are.
Although not without risks, that route provides a more realistic path forward than another lockdown creating chaos, collateral damage, and frightening public health and economic impacts of their own. Especially when Santa Barbara County is unfairly yoked to areas nowhere near us and nothing like us.
Click here for a comprehensive list of confirmed closures under a stay-at-home order.
4. (tie) Where to Go for COVID-19 Testing in Santa Barbara County, and What to Expect
If you’re like just about everyone, you’ve probably searched for this online yourself: Where can I get tested for COVID-19?
Since coronavirus tests became more widely available in Santa Barbara County, Noozhawk has reported regularly on the locations and details, but our Giana Magnoli’s Nov. 29 roundup is our most complete source list to date.
Unlike just a few months ago, you have a growing number of options now, including free tests as well as those that require insurance or fees.
Given the ongoing crisis concerns, it’s a good idea to check availability ahead of time and make an appointment where you can.
Click here for Giana’s report.
4. (tie) Fire Damages Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant in Old Town Goleta
Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant, an Old Town Goleta institution since 1958, was badly damaged in an early morning fire Dec. 3.
As our Tom Bolton first reported, Santa Barbara County firefighters were dispatched around 3:15 a.m. to the restaurant at 254 Orange Ave.
Fire Capt. Daniel Bertucelli said crews arrived to find flames and heavy smoke coming from the structure. An aggressive attack was mounted and the fire was soon out.
There were no injuries in the incident, which is under investigation.
It’s been a while since I’ve eaten at Pepe’s, but I have a soft spot for the Carne Asada and the Huevos Rancheros.
Here’s hoping for a quick recovery.
5. Federal Grand Jury Indicts Conception Dive Boat Captain on 34 Manslaughter Counts
The captain of the Conception dive boat was indicted Dec. 1 on 34 federal counts of seaman’s manslaughter in last year’s disaster, one of the deadliest in recent U.S. maritime history.
The Santa Barbara-based Conception caught fire in the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 2, 2019, while anchored off Santa Cruz Island. All of the boat’s 33 passengers and one crew member were trapped in a below-deck bunk room and died from smoke inhalation.
The captain, 67-year-old Jerry Boylan of Santa Barbara, survived, along with four other crew members who were sleeping on the upper decks.
As our Giana Magnoli first reported, the federal grand jury indictment alleges that “Boylan caused the deaths of 33 passengers and one crew member ‘by his misconduct, negligence and inattention to his duties.’”
“As a result of the alleged failures of Captain Boylan to follow well-established safety rules, a pleasant holiday dive trip turned into a hellish nightmare as passengers and one crew member found themselves trapped in a fiery bunk room with no means of escape,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna of the Central District of California said in a statement.
“The loss of life that day will forever impact the families of the 34 victims.”
The indictment accused Boylan of three specific safety violations:
» Failing to have a night watch or roving patrol at the time of the fire, as required by the U.S. Coast Guard
» Failing to conduct sufficient fire drills
» Failing to to conduct sufficient crew training
Each count carries a possible 10-year federal prison term with conviction.
The cause of the fire remains unknown, but investigators said they believe it began in an area where electronic devices and items with potentially combustible lithium ion batteries were being charged overnight.
Some of the dead were found with their shoes on, leading to speculation they were trying to escape but were trapped by flames.
Families of the victims have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the Conception’s owner, Truth Aquatics, and a surviving crew member has sued for negligence and damages, according to court records.
Boylan had worked for Truth Aquatics since 1983, and became a captain in 1985. The company suspended operations last fall.
• • •
Last Year on Noozhawk
What was our most-read story this time last year? Firefighters Have Mostly Tamed Cave Fire, With Help from Mother Nature.
• • •
Bill Macfadyen’s Story of the Week
Do they, though? Why Stress-Baking and Cleaning Make You Less Anxious.
• • •
Best of Bill’s Instagram
A cheeky apple thief and the South Coast coastline are in my Instagram feed this past week.
• • •
Watch It
The conversation may be hard to follow, unless you speak Siberian husky or Alaskan malamute. HT to my friend, Lety Pantoja.
(Globe Lite video)
• • •
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— Bill Macfadyen is Noozhawk’s founder and publisher. Contact him at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com, follow him on Twitter: @noozhawk and Instagram: @bill.macfadyen, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
