California

The last time California had a similar amount of snow was 1952, when winter storms famously trapped a luxury train near Donner Pass, crushed a mining camp outside Bishop and closed roads across the mountains for months. The snowpack that April measured 237% of average, similar to what this year’s level is approaching, but state officials note the surveys were done differently then.

“It is difficult to compare years across the decades due to the increase in number of survey sites over time, but this year will certainly be in the top,” Sean de Guzman, manager of snow surveys and water supply forecasting for the California Department of Water Resources, said in an email before Monday’s measurements.

The April snow survey in 1983, another big winter, recorded 227% of average snowpack, though the methodology also differed then.

Regardless of how many decades you have to go back to find comparable snow, ski resorts this year will vouch for the current bounty.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, one of the snowiest, recently surpassed its previous high of 668 inches of snow at its main lodge. On the summit, it counted 879 inches Friday. Resorts throughout the Sierra will likely stay open into July.

The big winter also has been marked by inconvenience, if not outright hardship.

Communities from the San Bernardino Mountains to Lake Tahoe have been buried in snow for weeks with roofs of homes collapsing, water lines freezing and power lines toppling. An avalanche has closed Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra, north of Lee Vining, since February. Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks both have had unprecedented shutdowns because of storms.

The state Department of Water Resources conducts its snow surveys every month in winter and spring, but the April measurement is most crucial. It reflects snow levels at their peak, allowing surveyors to gauge how much melt-off will pour from the mountains and provide for cities and farms in the coming year. Nearly a third of the state’s water supply typically comes from snow.

Already, winter storms have lifted the state’s big reservoirs from near historical lows during the drought to mostly above-average levels. Shasta Lake, the state’s biggest reservoir, has risen nearly 120 feet since Dec. 1, more than doubling its volume and, as of this week, was holding 104% of the water it averages at this point in the year.

Most reservoirs, which are much smaller than Shasta, have begun releasing water in order to make room for the anticipated crush of snowmelt.

Concerns of flooding are running high, perhaps greatest in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The mountains nearby have received the brunt of this year’s storms, with the southern Sierra logging a record 298% of average snowpack as of Friday. Already runoff is overwhelming the region’s infrastructure.

A vast lake that once sprawled across the floor of the valley has re-emerged in the Tulare Lake basin, putting farms, roads, homes and even a few small communities under water. The situation is expected to worsen over the next few months as the snowmelt picks up.

The National Guard, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources have already begun sending supplies and personnel to assist with the flooding. Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested a presidential disaster declaration to bolster the emergency response.

State surveyors measure snowpack in terms of its water content, not its depth or another metric, in order to best forecast water supplies. Data is collected at more than 260 sites between the southern Sierra and Oregon border, mostly electronically and in real-time so cumulative results can be gauged before the official start-of-the-month manual surveys.

Friday’s statewide snowpack measured 236% of the April 1 average.

On Monday, the state’s measurements at Phillips Station, which has a long and celebrated history of recording snowpack with snow tubes and other instruments, are scheduled. The results will feed into the updated start-of-the-month total.

What has been as spectacular as this winter’s sheer bounty of snow is the fact that it comes after the state’s driest three-year stretch on record.

“This is California’s hydrology,” said Jay Lund, director for the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis and a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “We have more flood and drought years than average years, and the way the climate is changing, we’re probably going to see even more of that.”

Reach Kurtis Alexander: [email protected]; Twitter: @kurtisalexander

The last time California had a similar amount of snow was 1952, when winter storms famously trapped a luxury train near Donner Pass, crushed a mining camp outside Bishop and closed roads across the mountains for months. The snowpack that April measured 237% of average, similar to what this year’s level is approaching, but state officials note the surveys were done differently then.

“It is difficult to compare years across the decades due to the increase in number of survey sites over time, but this year will certainly be in the top,” Sean de Guzman, manager of snow surveys and water supply forecasting for the California Department of Water Resources, said in an email before Monday’s measurements.

The April snow survey in 1983, another big winter, recorded 227% of average snowpack, though the methodology also differed then.

Regardless of how many decades you have to go back to find comparable snow, ski resorts this year will vouch for the current bounty.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, one of the snowiest, recently surpassed its previous high of 668 inches of snow at its main lodge. On the summit, it counted 879 inches Friday. Resorts throughout the Sierra will likely stay open into July.

The big winter also has been marked by inconvenience, if not outright hardship.

Communities from the San Bernardino Mountains to Lake Tahoe have been buried in snow for weeks with roofs of homes collapsing, water lines freezing and power lines toppling. An avalanche has closed Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra, north of Lee Vining, since February. Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks both have had unprecedented shutdowns because of storms.

The state Department of Water Resources conducts its snow surveys every month in winter and spring, but the April measurement is most crucial. It reflects snow levels at their peak, allowing surveyors to gauge how much melt-off will pour from the mountains and provide for cities and farms in the coming year. Nearly a third of the state’s water supply typically comes from snow.

Already, winter storms have lifted the state’s big reservoirs from near historical lows during the drought to mostly above-average levels. Shasta Lake, the state’s biggest reservoir, has risen nearly 120 feet since Dec. 1, more than doubling its volume and, as of this week, was holding 104% of the water it averages at this point in the year.

Most reservoirs, which are much smaller than Shasta, have begun releasing water in order to make room for the anticipated crush of snowmelt.

Concerns of flooding are running high, perhaps greatest in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The mountains nearby have received the brunt of this year’s storms, with the southern Sierra logging a record 298% of average snowpack as of Friday. Already runoff is overwhelming the region’s infrastructure.

A vast lake that once sprawled across the floor of the valley has re-emerged in the Tulare Lake basin, putting farms, roads, homes and even a few small communities under water. The situation is expected to worsen over the next few months as the snowmelt picks up.

The National Guard, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources have already begun sending supplies and personnel to assist with the flooding. Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested a presidential disaster declaration to bolster the emergency response.

State surveyors measure snowpack in terms of its water content, not its depth or another metric, in order to best forecast water supplies. Data is collected at more than 260 sites between the southern Sierra and Oregon border, mostly electronically and in real-time so cumulative results can be gauged before the official start-of-the-month manual surveys.

Friday’s statewide snowpack measured 236% of the April 1 average.

On Monday, the state’s measurements at Phillips Station, which has a long and celebrated history of recording snowpack with snow tubes and other instruments, are scheduled. The results will feed into the updated start-of-the-month total.

What has been as spectacular as this winter’s sheer bounty of snow is the fact that it comes after the state’s driest three-year stretch on record.

“This is California’s hydrology,” said Jay Lund, director for the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis and a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “We have more flood and drought years than average years, and the way the climate is changing, we’re probably going to see even more of that.”

Reach Kurtis Alexander: [email protected]; Twitter: @kurtisalexander

On Friday, city officials announced they had leased the land for free to Safe Ground Sacramento, a nonprofit group, for up to four months. People can park their cars or RVs on the property, and the city will provide up to 33 trailers for people to live in.

The city said the site will be self-governed by what it calls a “resident council,” along with an operations plan that must be approved by the City Council in the next 30 days.

“I am incredibly proud that through months of hard work and open communication we found an innovative solution for this site that benefits our entire community,” Councilmember Sean Loloee, whose district includes the land, said in a city blog post .

For decades, major cities across California have been grappling with homelessness, a problem that has only worsened in recent years as a housing shortage has increased rents and made it difficult to find an affordable place to live. California now has nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data.

Cities have tried lots of different approaches to address the issue. In San Jose, a city of nearly 1 million people at the south end of the San Francisco Bay, officials installed about 500 small homes for homeless people to live in. The program reduced the rate of the city’s homeless people who were unsheltered for the first time in years, Mayor Matt Mahan said.

Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state would build 1,200 of these small homes across the state — homes that are as small as 120 square feet (11 square meters) that have electricity but no running water. Sacramento is scheduled to get 350 of those homes, most of which will likely be at the state fairgrounds, according to Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Across California, local governments have plans for a 15% reduction in homelessness by 2025. Those plans originally called for a 2% reduction in homelessness, a goal that angered Newsom because he thought it was too low. Local governments revised those plans after Newsom threatened to withhold state funding.

The homeless encampment in Sacramento, known as “Camp Resolution,” is not meant to be permanent. The city said the initial lease will run for four months. But the lease can be renewed until “all the residents obtain permanent housing.”

“We are anxious to assist Camp Resolution residents to demonstrate that homeless people can self-govern and assist each other to obtain permanent housing,” said Mark Merin, executive director for Safe Ground Sacramento.

Latest updates:

Long COVID linked to lower brain oxygen levels

Long COVID is associated with reduced brain oxygen levels, worse performance on cognitive tests and increased psychiatric symptoms, according to a new study. In an analysis of two parallel studies — a laboratory study involving cognitive testing and imaging and a population survey — researchers from the University of Waterloo found that individuals who experienced symptomatic COVID-19 illness showed impaired brain function compared to those who had not been infected. The paper was published Wednesday in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity .

“We are the first to show reduced oxygen uptake in the brain during a cognitive task in the months following a symptomatic COVID-19 infection,” said Dr. Peter Hall , lead author and researcher in the School of Public Health Sciences at Waterloo. “This is important because a lack of sufficient oxygen supply is thought to be one of the mechanisms by which COVID-19 may cause cognitive impairment.”

In the population survey of more than 2,000 Canadians aged 18 to 56, respondents who had COVID reported difficulty concentrating, as well as increased symptoms of anxiety and depression. These effects were more detectable among unvaccinated individuals. Older women, in particular, appeared most impacted by the brain imaging outcomes.

“It appears that, regardless of gender and other demographic factors, COVID-19 infection at baseline is correlated with increased problems with emotion regulation six months later: depression, anxiety and agitation. In some cases, we are talking about symptom levels that are at or above recommended as cut-off scores for psychiatric diagnoses,” Hall said.

Vaccines will hit commercial market with next virus strain

In an update to the potential timeline for commercialization of COVID-19 medical countermeasures , including vaccines, the federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) said it expects that to happen once the doses are reformulated for the next coronavirus lineage. “Provided that one is authorized and recommended by FDA and CDC, we expect this transition will align with a possible strain change that accounts for any potential variants,” the agency said. Once the national pandemic emergencies are lifted on May 11, the government will not provide funding for free tests or treatments beyond what is available in the national stockpile, with vaccines likely to remain free for most U.S. residents through government programs and most commercial insurance. But the ASPR noted that there may not be enough to last through the end of 2023, especially if the nation sees more seasonal waves of cases and hospitalizations. “The treatments transition to commercial markets will vary by product and will likely occur for at least one product before the end of the year,” the update said.

Hopes dashed for combo flu and COVID vaccine this year

According to a federal official, vaccines that provide vaccination against both influenza and COVID-19 will not be ready this year. Dr. Peter Marks of the Food and Drug Administration previously said he expected the combination shots to be ready for consumers in 2023. But this week he told a webinar by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases that hitting a target for the fall season was “too heavy a lift,” and they would not be available until 2024. “I think that had to do with the fact that it was not so clear that annual vaccination against COVID-19 was likely to be necessary until the past several months,” Marks said. “But our goal is for the following season to have that available.” Pfizer and Moderna have both been working on developing the combo shots, but Pfizer told investors in January that it did not anticipate hitting the market with its shot until 2025.

State cases and hospitalizations remain stubbornly high

California tallied another 237 confirmed COVID-19 deaths this week, bringing the statewide pandemic toll up to 100,424 as of Thursday, with an average of 18 people still dying each day due to the virus. While the COVID-19 state of emergency ended this week, the prevalence of the coronavirus remains stubbornly high as the state’s overall metrics appear to have stalled for the third consecutive week.

California’s health department reported an average of 2,760 new daily cases — or about 6.9 per 100,000 residents — as of Thursday, compared to 2,859 cases per day, or 7.1 per 100,000 residents in the prior week. The state’s seven-day rolling coronavirus test positivity rate, which tracks the percentage of lab test results that are positive for the virus, remains unchanged at 6.5%. The state’s wastewater facilities show levels of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material plateauing in most regions. The daily average of COVID patients in California hospitals now numbers 2,506, compared to 2,607 last week. Nearly 4% of the state’s inpatient beds are now in use for COVID-19 patients, up from 2.61% over the same period.

Biden asks for $1.6 billion to tackle pandemic fraud

President Biden will ask Congress to approve $1.6 billion in funding to clamp down on fraud tied to a variety of COVID-19 pandemic relief programs, the White House said on Thursday. The move comes ahead of anticipated investigations by House Republicans into the trillions of dollars of aid distributed by the president and his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Some $600 million will go toward rooting out criminal syndicates, $600 million will be used for investing in fraud and identity theft prevention, and $400 million will go toward helping victims who had their identities stolen. The White House will also ask that the statute of limitations for pandemic unemployment insurance fraud is increased to 10 years. The money will help triple the size of the Justice Department’s COVID Strike Force.

“We must empower law enforcement to pursue, investigate, prosecute, and recover money from those who were engaged in major or sophisticated fraud — from well-off individuals who took hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars from taxpayers to sophisticated criminal syndicates engaging in systemic identity theft,” the White House said.

Last month, a federal watchdog report estimated that the government distributed about $5.4 billion in COVID aid to people with “questionable” Social Security numbers.

Global cases down 76%, deaths down 66%

There were over 4.8 million new COVID-19 cases and over 39,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths reported globally in the last 28 days, according to the latest epidemiological update from the World Health Organization. The figures mark a decrease of 76% in cases and 66% in deaths compared to the previous 28-day period, the U.N. health agency said. The countries with the highest number of newly reported deaths were the United States, China, Japan, Brazil and the United Kingdom. But all saw declines over the past month.

The WHO cautioned the numbers are likely underestimates of the true number of global infections and reinfections. “This is partly due to the reductions in testing and delays in reporting in many countries,” the update said. “Data presented in this report may be incomplete and should, therefore, be interpreted with caution.”

A separate report from the WHO’s technical advisory group showed that the omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 continues to grow in proportion. It was detected in 41.5% of sequenced samples, compared to 18.7% in the first half of January. The emerging sublineage XBF made up an estimated 1.2%.

L.A. County sets end date for emergency declarations

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to end the local COVID-19 emergency declarations at the end of the month. But they warned that does not mean the pandemic is over. “COVID-19 is still with us,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said, according to ABC7 . “No, we don’t want to abandon those tools that got us to this place… but with effective vaccines and testing abundantly available we can move on to the next phase of our response to COVID-19.”

The proclamation of a local emergency and proclamation of a local health emergency will expire on March 31. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said despite the end of the declarations, her agency will review existing health orders and some may stay in place. “A health officer always has authority to mitigate the impact of communicable diseases,” she said.

Newsom officially ends state of emergency, says “extreme peril” no longer exists

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday officially ended California’s COVID-19 state of emergency with a signed proclamation , nearly three years to the day he issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order on March 4, 2020. He declared “the conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property … no longer exist.”

The governor’s office said the state will now embrace its endemic SMARTER Plan to deal with the next phase of the pandemic. It added that COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and treatment continue to be available at sites within local communities, at least for now. Newsom’s COVID-19 state of emergency accounted for 74 executive orders that included nearly 600 rules.

California has reported more than 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, but Newsom’s office noted that the state’s per capita death rate was among the lowest in the nation . “If California had Texas’ death rate, 27,000 more people would have died here,” it said in a fact sheet . “If California had Florida’s rate, 56,000 more people would have died here.” It added that the national COVID-19 death rate of 339 per 100,000 persons was far above California’s rate.

“People who lost their life to COVID, people who lost neighbors and loved ones, we lament and are still saddened by that,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary, said in a statement. “But to get to this point where we feel prepared to lift the state of emergency to move forward, that’s a big deal for Californians across the state.”

U.K. considered exterminating all cats early in the pandemic

A former British health minister said the government considered culling all pet cats in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. James Bethell told Channel 4 News on Wednesday that there was serious concern that domestic cats could spread the novel coronavirus.

“What we shouldn’t forget is how little we understood about this disease. There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease,” he said. “In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?” In July 2020, the government warned pet owners not to kiss their cats after a female Siamese became the first known animal in the U.K. to catch the disease, according to the Guardian .

The revelation comes as Bethell’s boss, Matt Hancock, the country’s former health secretary, on Wednesday denied wrongdoing after a newspaper published extracts of more than 100,000 private messages he sent on WhatsApp in the first weeks of the pandemic. The Daily Telegraph said the exchanges show that he ignored scientific advice to test everyone entering nursing homes for COVID-19, leading to excess deaths. Hancock countered that the U.K. did not have the testing capacity. “The messages imply Matt simply overruled clinical advice. That is categorically untrue,” said a statement released by a spokesman. “He went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives.”

Infants gain protection from vaccinated mothers, study finds

Mothers who are vaccinated against COVID-19 during pregnancy pass off some protection to their newborns, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed health records for more than 30,000 babies born to members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California between December 2020 and May 2022, comparing the likelihood of positive COVID-19 tests for babies of mothers who received two or more doses of the vaccine during pregnancy with babies of mothers who were unvaccinated. They found that children of vaccinated mothers were better protected for at least six months after birth.

“Our analysis supports the continued value of vaccination during pregnancy in protecting not only the mother, but the child as well,” said lead author Ousseny Zerbo, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, in a statement . “Because babies under 6 months cannot currently be vaccinated against COVID-19, receiving this protection through their mothers in utero is very important.” During their first two months after they were born, the risk of a positive COVID-19 test was reduced by 84% for infants of vaccinated mothers during the delta period and 21% during omicron. But they found that protection waned over time in both periods. In the delta period, protection dipped to 62% at four months and 46% at six months. During the omicron period, the protection fell to 14% at four months and 13% at six months. The study was published in Nature Communications .

Overall, the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 was significantly lower for children of vaccinated mothers than those of unvaccinated mothers.

“Even though the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines was less during the omicron period, the vaccines still provided some protection for infants against both infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and hospitalization,” said senior author Nicola Klein, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center. “Maternal vaccination is the best way to protect infants under 6 months of age who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated.”

Pfizer seeks authorization of booster for children under 5

Pfizer and BioNTech said on Wednesday that they submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking emergency use authorization for their omicron-targeting bivalent COVID-19 vaccine in children 6 months through 4 years of age. The updated booster is currently authorized as the third dose of the three-dose primary series for children in this age group. The authorization of a booster dose would allow families to give their young children a fourth dose to better protect them against more recent sublineages of the virus. Last week, the companies asked the FDA for full approval of the updated shots as a primary course and a booster dose for people 12 years of age and above.

One year later, they are still waiting for needed upgrades from Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

“I thought by now we’d be moving in,” Ernst said. “It just doesn’t end.”

Bay Area residents are under growing pressure to get rid of gas appliances in their homes. Last month, regional pollution regulators passed rules barring new gas-powered residential furnaces or water heaters from being installed, even in existing homes, starting a few years from now. And people will be charging their electric cars at home in growing numbers heading toward 2035 when sales of new gas-powered cars will end in the state.

But homeowners who want to abandon fossil fuels are confronting a major obstacle: getting PG&E to move quickly enough to provide more electricity.

Homes connected to the grid have electric panels, a steel box holding circuit breakers that manage the flow of electricity into the building. Residents adding more electricity-gulping appliances sometimes need a new panel capable of supplying more amperage, or amps, so more electricity can flow into a home.

The process requires a collaboration with PG&E. Property owners may need to make renovations to accommodate new equipment, including not only the panel but also the wiring into a building and other parts connecting the system to neighborhood power lines. PG&E is closely involved in the work to ensure it follows safety codes.

PG&E said the part of the process it works on most directly — reviewing and approving the wiring changes and connecting the home to neighborhood power lines — takes on average four weeks (and the company seeks to reduce that to three). About half of all panel upgrades are simple requests that take less than a month, according to PG&E.

But the other half are more complex and time-consuming, with a process that PG&E says typically runs five to 14 months from start to finish for individual residential panel upgrades. That timeframe includes homeowners’ negotiations with PG&E over issues such as where to locate the panel  — which is the responsibility of the homeowner, but ultimately requires PG&E approval.

In other words, this scenario requires time, patience and money  — and is likely to become increasingly common as more households electrify appliances in older homes.

Ernst knew her house would need far more electricity than the old stucco bungalow’s 125-amp electric panel, especially because they plan to get an electric car. So she called PG&E.

She’d already gone through the process before. The home had a 40-amp service when she and her husband bought it in 2019, and it took PG&E about five weeks to connect the new 125-amp electric panel.

This time, her panel upgrade request was assigned to PG&E’s “express connections” department. She bought the bigger 320-amp panel to replace the smaller old one. Her contractor just needed to know where to install the new panel, which is about four times larger than her current panel. It couldn’t be located in the same place as the old one, Ernst said, because of space constraints and other technical limits.

Ernst has exchanged dozens of emails with a PG&E “express connections” employee based outside the Bay Area, according to a review of these files by The Chronicle. She’s sent diagrams, measurements, detailed descriptions, photographs from various angles and her contractor’s notes.

At one point, a PG&E staffer passed along a photograph to Ernst that was marked up by another utility employee with three location options for the new panel. The first option was actually the neighbors’ house and the other two were areas too narrow. In another exchange, PG&E recommended Ernst use an external door to the first floor garage space to build a utility closet and give the company the keys. Ernst declined because that would cut off access to the first floor through that door and reduce storage space.

Not once in the last 12 months has a technician or any other PG&E staffer visited her property, she said. This is the crux of the problem, according to Ernst, who said PG&E simply cannot do this work remotely by reviewing photos with any efficiency.

PG&E’s Express Connect department, which generally operates remotely, is meant for simpler projects, according to utility spokesperson Lynsey Paulo.

However, PG&E attributed the long time frame to Ernst, saying her original application for a new electric panel was originally filed twice. “Applications were incomplete and (the) customer did not respond to requests for additional required information, so applications were canceled,” according to an emailed statement from Paulo.

Ernst said she’s had to answer the same questions repeatedly and the PG&E representative seemed to be failing to log the information. She said she was shocked to learn her application had been canceled without warning earlier this year, and it has since been reinstated.

Ernst is hopeful they have finally reached a compromise that only requires they demolish old stucco planters built into the front of her home to install the new panel. But there’s no guarantee.

“Who in their right mind is going to say: ‘Sure, I’m ready to electrify,’ ” Ernst said. “If people hear about my story — forget it.”

PG&E has acknowledged that its response times for a variety of services have been slowed because of urgent demands that the utility prioritize wildfire prevention work, such as putting power lines underground. In addition to individual homeowner upgrades, the utility has been slow to connect new housing developments to the grid — prompting complaints from officials in areas like Tracy, and leading state Sen. Scott Wiener to propose a bill to address the problem.

The experience of having a funky, old home is common in the Bay Area, where about 65% of homes were built before 1978 — before many current building codes and when demand for electricity was far less, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

But soon, the upgrade difficulties could become more widespread as swapping out appliances becomes mandatory. In the coming years, anyone with unrepairable water heaters (starting in 2027) and gas furnaces (in 2029) must install electric ones, according to new regulations from the air district, which is seeking to reduce health-harming pollution from nitrogen oxides.

Greg Nudd, deputy air pollution control officer with the air district, said property owners who adopt electric appliances gradually can get by, at least at first, without time-consuming panel upgrades. Nudd said he installed an electric water heater in his home without triggering an upgrade, though he will need a panel upgrade when he replaces his furnace.

Nudd says the air district tried to build in time before the rules kick in to allow for the industry to catch up with more energy-efficient appliances and for PG&E and homeowners to prepare on their ends too.

“We do recognize we’re pushing the envelope on technology,” Nudd said.

But some residents say the challenges are immense.

Sunnyvale resident Mike Kapolnek spoke out during air district meetings to warn board members about potentially troublesome consequences for homeowners who can’t make those upgrades without getting into a monthslong queue for PG&E.

Kapolnek told The Chronicle he’s been waiting since September to have PG&E approve a location for a new electric panel so he can forgo most gas appliances for electric ones. Utility staff at one point directed him to install metal poles in front of the panel for safety reasons — in his narrow driveway.

He lives on a residential street with older homes and huge magnolia trees — both complicating factors, despite the charm. He’s anticipating further delays once the utility grapples with where to install a new electric drop, the line bringing electricity from street power lines to the house because of those magnolia’s sprawling branches.

He’s hoping this will be resolved by summer, “if we’re lucky,“ Kapolnek said.

Reach Julie Johnson: [email protected]; Twitter: @juliejohnson