CLEARLAKE, Calif. – An upcoming murder mystery and dinner will benefit two local organizations.

“The Mafia Murders” will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 31, at the Highlands Senior Center, 3245 Bowers Road in Clearlake.

Doors open at 6 p.m.

Proceeds from the dinner will support Lake County Youth Services and the Lake County Theatre Co.

The cost is $40 per person. VIP tables also are available.

All tickets are presale only.

For more information, call 707-994-5437.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – California's governor has once against issued his Christmas pardons list, which this year includes cases from Lake and its neighboring counties.

Altogether, Gov. Jerry Brown granted 105 pardons on Wednesday.

Among the individuals granted pardons this year was Robert George Swisley, who on July 30, 1984, was sentenced in Lake County Superior Court to three years' probation for possession of a controlled substance for sale.

Swisley's pardon said he was discharged from probation on July 30, 1987, having completed his sentence.

In February 2013 Swisley obtained an order from Placer County Superior Court “evidencing that since his release from custody, he has lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen,” with the court granting a certificate of rehabilitation and recommending that Swisley be granted a full pardon.

Other cases from neighboring counties included on the governor's latest pardon list include:

– Marlon Cox, now a resident of New Jersey, sentenced in April 1982 in Napa County to prison for sale and transportation of marijuana or hashish;
– Charles Lee Kelly, who in March 1996 was sentenced in Yolo County to prison for possession of a controlled substance for sale;
– Harry Lee Perdue, sentenced to probation in March 1997 in Yolo County for driving under the influence causing injury; and
– Joseph Mary Villanueva Jr., who in January 1995 was sentenced to probation in Yolo County for transportation of a controlled substance.

The Governor's Office said the individuals granted pardons all completed their sentences and have been released from custody for more than a decade without further criminal activity.

Individuals who have been convicted of a crime in California may apply to the governor for a pardon, Brown's office reported.

All applicants for a pardon who were eligible obtained a Certificate of Rehabilitation, which is an order from a superior court declaring that a person convicted of a crime is now rehabilitated, according to the process.

A gubernatorial pardon may be granted to people who have demonstrated exemplary behavior and have lived productive and law-abiding lives following their conviction. Pardons are not granted unless they are earned, the Governor's Office reported.

When a pardon is granted, the California Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are notified so that they may update their records on the applicant. The pardon is filed with the Secretary of State and the Legislature, and it is a public record, officials said.

Of the pardons included in Brown's Wednesday list, more than 60 of the cases involved various drug convictions – solicitation, transportation, sales, possession, cultivation and manufacturing.

Other crimes for which pardons were granted included assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm, assault with a firearm, attempted grand theft, attempted robbery, bad check possession, burglary, conspiracy to commit a crime, dissuading a witness from testifying, driving under the influence, grand theft, inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant, injuring or destroying insured property, knowingly receiving stolen property, perjury, possession of a dangerous weapon, robbery, soliciting a murder, vehicle theft and vehicular manslaughter.

By day's end Brown had withdrawn a pardon he had given to a Southern California man, Glen Williams Carnes, who had been convicted in 1998 of possession of a controlled substance for sale. The Los Angeles Times reported that federal regulators recently had disciplined Carnes.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – California’s hopes for ending one of its worst droughts in more than a century of recordkeeping hinge on the state receiving much more precipitation than normal in 2015.

After three consecutive years of below-average snow and rainfall, surface and groundwater reservoirs are depleted.

Surface reservoirs are unlikely to be recharged to normal levels unless precipitation and snowpack this water year are both well above historical averages.

Abundant snowfall in the mountains would be an important component of a drought-ending scenario.

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has scheduled the winter’s first manual measurement of the snowpack on Dec. 30.

Generally, California’s snowpack supplies about a third of the water needed by the state’s residents, agriculture and industry as it melts in the late spring and summer.

Due to several December storms, rainfall in Northern California so far this water year has been more than normal, but this precipitation has not generated greater-than-normal snowfall in the Sierra Nevada.

The largest storm blew in from the south, and its warm temperatures resulted in less snowfall than might have been delivered by a colder storm.

Electronic readings of the snowpack show that its water equivalent is only 54 percent of average statewide for Dec. 23.

One Dec. 30 manual measurement will be at the Phillips Station snow course off Highway 50 near Echo Summit. Results of the 11 a.m. survey should be publicly available by early afternoon.

Water year 2014 ended on Sept. 30 as the third driest such period on record; only 1924 and 1977 recorded less statewide precipitation. It was the driest year ever in the San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast and South Coast.

This year also was the warmest year on record in California, according to the California Climate Tracker.

These extraordinarily dry and warm conditions strengthened the drought’s hold on California, and reservoir storage continued to fall through most of 2014.

Shasta Lake, the state’s largest reservoir, normally holds nearly 2.8 million acre-feet (AF) of water in late December but today has only 62 percent of that average amount, 1.723 million AF.

Due to the recent storms, Shasta’s storage has risen since Nov. 29, when it held only 1.046 million AF, its lowest amount of the past quarter century.

Similarly, Lake Oroville, a key reservoir of the State Water Project that normally holds more than 2 million AF in late December, today contains 1.267 million AF, only 59 percent of the average amount.

The lake’s storage had fallen before the recent rains to 898,221 AF on Nov. 21, its lowest storage since 1986.

DWR’s initial water allocation to the SWP’s 29 customers for 2015 was announced on Dec. 1 as 10 percent, an increase from the five percent allocated for 2014. This winter’s precipitation will determine whether the allocation is changed in the months ahead.

The 29 water contractors have requested 4,172,686 AF for 2015. One acre-foot is enough water to cover one acre to a depth of one foot; it can meet the needs of a typical California family of four for a year.

The final SWP allocation for calendar year 2013 was 35 percent of the slightly more than the 4 million AF requested.

In 2012, the final allocation was 65 percent. It was 80 percent in 2011 after an initial allocation of 25 percent. The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2007. The most recent 100-percent allocation was in 2006.

Trees are an essential part of California’s climate and are vital to improving air quality and conserving water.

To help educate Californians on the value that trees provide to building successful, healthy cities and neighborhoods, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, and California ReLeaf are announcing the annual statewide Arbor Week poster contest for students in third, fourth and fifth grades.

Students are asked to create original artwork based on the theme “We Need Trees and Trees Need Us”. Submissions are due to California ReLeaf by February 13, 2015.

Winners will be featured at the State Fair and awarded cash prizes provided by the California Community Forests Foundation.

Cal Fire and California ReLeaf are partnering to encourage cities, nature groups, schools, and youth organizations to celebrate California Arbor Week by planting trees in their communities.

California ReLeaf is an alliance of community-based groups, individuals, businesses, and government agencies working to protect the environment by planting and caring for trees and the state’s urban and community forests.

“Trees are vital, functional parts of our communities, our homes and yards, and our lives”, said Cal Fire Deputy Director Duane Shintaku. “This is especially true during times of challenging drought conditions. Focused education for California’s youth is one of the most effective ways we can increase awareness of the important roles trees play in California and the many benefits they provide to the communities in which we live.”

The goals of Arbor Week include educating Californians about trees, encouraging tree planting, teaching elementary school children the environmental, social, and economic benefits of trees, and protecting the state’s valuable natural resources.

“One of the numerous benefits of trees is that they make California’s cities and towns healthier places to live,” said Cindy Blain, executive director of California ReLeaf. “Children who have access to nature and green spaces to play and learn are more active, have lower incidences of obesity, concentrate better in school, and demonstrate healthier social behaviors. Planting and caring for trees means investing in a better future for our children and California.”

Contest rules, as well as educational materials related to the value of trees, community benefits of trees, jobs in the urban and community forestry field, and tree identification can be downloaded at www.arborweek.org/contests .

The contest is sponsored by California ReLeaf, Cal Fire, and the California Community Forests Foundation.

California Arbor Week runs March 7-14 every year to mark famed horticulturist Luther Burbank’s birthday and to raise awareness of the benefits of trees in our communities.

In 2011, legislation was passed to define California Arbor Week in statute.

Visit www.arborweek.org for more information.

The European Space Agency’s orbiting Rosetta spacecraft is expected to come within four miles of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in February of next year.

The flyby will be the closest the comet explorer will come during its prime mission.

“It is the earliest we could carry it out without impacting the vitally important bound orbits that are currently being flown,” said Matt Taylor, the Rosetta project scientist from the European Space Research and Technology Center, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. “As the comet becomes more and more active, it will not be possible to get so close to the comet. So this opportunity is very unique.”

The low flyby will be an opportunity for Rosetta to obtain imagery with a resolution of a few inches per pixel. The imagery is expected to provide information on the comet’s porosity and albedo (its reflectance).  The flyby will also allow the study of the processes by which cometary dust is accelerated by the cometary gas emission.

“Rosetta is providing us with a grandstand seat of the comet throughout the next year. This flyby will put us track side – it’s going to be that close,” said Taylor.

The Rosetta orbiter deployed its Philae lander to one spot on the comet's surface in November. Philae obtained the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide analysis of the comet's possible primordial composition.

Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when our sun and its planets formed.

Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation.

Observations will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.

For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov .

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday reappointed Michael Picker to the California Public Utilities Commission, where he has served since January 2014, and designated him president of the commission.

Gov. Brown also announced the appointment of Liane Randolph, who has served as deputy secretary and general counsel of the California Natural Resources Agency, to the commission.

“Michael Picker’s deep experience and sound judgment make him uniquely qualified to take on this role,” said Gov. Brown. “Liane Randolph has handled very difficult issues with insight and balance and will be a real asset to the commission. Most importantly, both appointees share a commitment to seeing California achieve its ambitious renewable energy goals.”

Before serving on the commission, Michael Picker, 62, of Sacramento, was senior advisor for renewable energy in the Office of the Governor from 2009 to 2014.

Picker was principal at Lincoln Crow Strategic Communications from 2000 to 2009 and a consultant at Kaufman Campaign Consultants from 2000 to 2002.

He served as deputy treasurer at the California State Treasurer’s Office from 1998 to 1999 and chief of staff to Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr. from 1992 to 1999.

Picker served as deputy assistant for toxic substance control in the Office of the Governor from 1981 to 1982 and was a stop environmental cancer organizer at the Campaign for Economic Democracy from 1978 to 1982. He was a member of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District Board of Directors from 2012 to 2014.

Picker earned a master of business administration degree from the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management.

This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $138,867. Picker is a Democrat.

“I’m honored by the governor’s trust and confidence, and take his charge to heart – reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen safety programs and modernize the agency,” said Picker. “I look forward to continuing this important work with my fellow commissioners and I welcome Liane Randolph to the commission.”

Liane Randolph, 49, of Sacramento, has served in several positions at the California Natural Resources Agency since 2011, including deputy secretary and general counsel.

At the agency, she advised the secretary and has worked on numerous policy, regulatory and legal issues, including: the California Environmental Quality Act, timber harvest plans, renewable energy, well stimulation regulations, Klamath River restoration and dam removal, State Parks, the California Coastal Commission and the Electric Program Investment Charge Program.

Randolph was an attorney at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman from 2007 to 2011 and served as chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission from 2003 to 2007, where she also served as a staff attorney from 1996 to 1997.

She served as San Leandro city attorney and was a principal at Meyers Nave from 2000 to 2003, where she was an associate from 1997 to 2000.

Randolph was an attorney at Remcho, Johansen and Purcell from 1994 to 1996 and an associate attorney at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips from 1993 to 1994.

She earned a juris doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $134,591. Randolph is a Democrat.

Picker’s reappointment and designation as president and Randolph’s appointment are all effective Jan. 1, 2015.

A report released this month by Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds that the Ebola outbreak exposes serious underlying gaps in the nation’s ability to manage severe infectious disease threats.

Half of states and Washington, D.C. scored five or lower out of 10 key indicators related to preventing, detecting, diagnosing and responding to outbreaks.

Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia tied for the top score – achieving eight out of 10 indicators. Arkansas has the lowest score at two out of 10.

California, Delaware, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin scored seven out of 10.

The indicators are developed in consultation with leading public health experts based on data from publicly available sources or information provided by public officials.

“Over the last decade, we have seen dramatic improvements in state and local capacity to respond to outbreaks and emergencies. But we also saw during the recent Ebola outbreak that some of the most basic infectious disease controls failed when tested,” said Jeffrey Levi, PhD, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, or TFAH.

“The Ebola outbreak is a reminder that we cannot afford to let our guard down. We must remain vigilant in preventing and controlling emerging threats – like MERS-CoV, pandemic flu and Enterovirus – but not at the expense of ongoing, highly disruptive and dangerous diseases – seasonal flu, HIV/AIDS, antibiotic resistance and health care-associated infections,” Levi said.

Some key findings from the “Outbreaks: Protecting Americans from Infectious Diseases” report include progress and gaps in the areas of:

– Preparing for emerging threats: Significant advances have been made in preparing for public health emergencies since the Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks, but gaps remain and have been exacerbated as resources were cut over time.
– Forty-seven states and Washington, D.C. reported conducting an exercise or using a real event to evaluate the time it took for sentinel laboratories to acknowledge receipt of an urgent message from the state’s laboratory.
– Only 27 states and Washington, D.C. met a score equal to or higher than the national average for the Incident and Information Management domain of the National Health Security Preparedness Index.
– Vaccinations: More than two million preschoolers, 35 percent of seniors and a majority of adults do not receive all recommended vaccinations.
– Only 14 states vaccinated at least half of their population against the seasonal flu (from fall 2013 to spring 2014).
– Only 35 states and Washington, D.C. met the goal for vaccinating young children against the hepatitis B virus (Healthy People 2020 target of 90 percent of children ages 19 to 35 months receiving at least three doses).
– Health care-associated infections: While health care-associated infections have declined in recent years due to stronger prevention policies, around one out of every 25 people who are hospitalized each year still contracts a health care-associated infection.
– Only 16 states performed better than the national standardized infection ratio for central-line-associated bloodstream infections.
– Only 10 states reduced the number of central line-associated bloodstream infections between 2011 and 2012.
– Sexually transmitted infections and related disease treatment and prevention: The number of new HIV infections grew by 22 percent among young gay men, and 48 percent among young black men (between 2008 and 2010); more than one-third of gonorrhea cases are now antibiotic-resistant; and nearly three million baby boomers are infected with hepatitis C, the majority of whom do not know they have it.
– Thirty-seven states and Washington, D.C. require reporting of all (detectable and undetectable) CD4 and HIV viral load data, which are key strategies for classifying stage of disease, monitoring quality of care and preventing further transmission of HIV.
– Food safety: Around 48 million Americans suffer from a foodborne illness each year.
– Thirty-eight states met the national performance target of testing 90 percent of reported E.coli O157 cases within four days (in 2011).

“The best offense to fighting infectious diseases is a strong and steady defense,” said Paul Kuehnert, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation director. “Infectious disease control requires having systems in place, continuous training and practice and sustained, sufficient funding. As we work with communities across the nation to build a Culture of Health, we recognize that promoting and protecting health, and readiness to respond to wide-scale health threats are essential.”

The “Outbreaks” report recommends that it is time to rethink and modernize the health system to better match existing and emerging global disease threats.

Priority improvements should include:

– Core abilities: Every state should be able to meet a set of core capabilities and there must be sufficient, sustained funding to support these capabilities. Some basic capabilities include: investigative expertise, including surveillance systems that can identify and track threats and communicate across the health system and strong laboratory capacity; containment strategies, including vaccines and medicines; continued training and testing for hospitals and health departments for infection control and emergency preparedness; risk communications capabilities that inform the public without creating unnecessary fear; and maintaining a strong research capacity to develop new vaccines and medical treatments;
– Health care and public health integration: Systems must be improved so the health care system, hospitals and public health agencies work better together toward the common goals of protecting patients, health care workers and the public; and
– Leadership and accountability: Stronger leadership is needed for a government-wide approach to health threats at the federal, state and local levels, and there must be increased support for integration and flexibility of programs in exchange for demonstration of capabilities and accountability.

The report and state-by-state materials are available on TFAH’s Web site at www.healthyamericans.org .

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Cleanup and repairs are under way at Upper Lake Elementary and Upper Lake Middle School, where vandals did damage this past weekend.

Becky Jeffries, Upper Lake Union Elementary School District's chief business official, said both schools were extensively tagged with what appeared to be gang graffiti.

School let out for the holidays last Friday, Dec. 19, at which time the tagging hadn't occurred, she said.

However, when staff came in on Monday, they discovered the tagging. She said a custodian who lives nearby believes the damage was done sometime Saturday or Sunday night.

Jeffries said the elementary school had graffiti up and down the sidewalks, on walls and on windows, while the back of the middle school's gymnasium and storage sheds were tagged.

She said that the district's head of maintenance said no damage of this magnitude has been done to the schools in about a decade.

Last year a small amount of graffiti was left on a wall at the elementary school, but Jeffries added, “It was nothing like this.”

Nothing similar was reported at the nearby high school, she said.

Sheriff's deputies came out to the schools on Monday and took a full report, with Jeffries noting that they promised to conduct extra patrol in the area.

She did not have a damage estimate available on Tuesday, explaining that the costs to the district include dedicating all four maintenance staff to the cleanup, along with paying for paint and cleaning supplies.

With the students off on vacation – they return on Monday, Jan. 5 – maintenance staff had planned to spend the time making repairs around the campus sites, Jeffries said.

Instead, Jeffries said they've been focusing all of their attention on cleaning up the graffiti, with plans to paint the walls.

“Our maintenance crew has been able to scrape it off the glass,” she said.

The district now may end up considering surveillance cameras, something they've never felt the need to have before, Jeffries said.

“It’s just unfortunate and sad that it’s come to that,” she said.

Anyone with information about the vandalism is encouraged to call the Lake County Sheriff's Office at 707-262-4200.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While rain and snow is forecast to fall across much of the nation in the coming days, Lake County can expect some rain Christmas Eve and mostly clear conditions on Christmas Day.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a holiday week for the county with more temperate weather.

The only rain meteorologists predict for this week is expected during the day and night on Wednesday, when up to a 60 percent chance of rain is forecast.

Rainfall totaling a tenth of an inch or less is expected Wednesday, the National Weather Service reported.

Winds of up to 15 miles per hour – with gusts as high as 20 miles per hour – also are forecast on Wednesday.

Christmas – which falls on Thursday – is expected to be sunny, clear and cool across the county, with daytime highs in the low 50s and nighttime lows in the high 30s.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday are expected to be mostly sunny during the day, with cloudy conditions at night.

Temperatures the rest of this week are expected to drop into the high 30s at night, ranging up to the high 50s during the daytime hours, according to the forecast.

In other weather-related news, Clear Lake has continued to steadily rise in recent days due to rainfall.

The lake was at 2.58 feet on the Rumsey gauge late Monday, according to the US Geological Survey.

For comparison, Clear Lake's depth on Dec. 21, 2013, was 0.62 feet Rumsey, and 3.78 feet Rumsey on Dec. 21, 2012, based on county records.

A full lake is 7.56 feet Rumsey, a depth not normally seen until the spring months.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – A Christmas Eve fire did serious damage to a home near Kelseyville.

The fire at the stick-built home, located on Soda Bay Road near Crystal Drive in Buckingham, was dispatched shortly before 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to Kelseyville Fire Capt. Paul Scott.

Radio reports indicated that Soda Bay Road was closed briefly for emergency vehicles during the incident.

Kelseyville Fire responded with two engines, a water tender and seven personnel, while Lakeport Fire sent an engine and three personnel as part of a mutual aid response, Scott said.

When firefighters arrived, the home was fully involved, said Scott.

He said the home's owner was on site when firefighters were working, but Scott was not sure if the owner had been home when the fire started. No injuries were reported.

The fire was continued in about 30 to 40 minutes, Scott said, with mop up taking place afterward.

“The guys did a really good stop on it,” with no other structures damaged, Scott said.

Scott said the home is still standing, but the inside was destroyed and the structure appeared to be a complete loss.

He said the fire's cause is under investigation.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Despite recent wet weather, many Californians are still suffering from the effects of the state's drought – some even have wells that are going dry.

USDA Rural Development recently provided Rural Community Assistance Corp., RCAC, with a $254,000 grant to help low-income homeowners repair or replace their domestic wells.

“This drought has been devastating to folks all across the state,” said USDA Rural Development California State Director Glenda Humiston. “These funds are just one step USDA is taking to help ensure those living in our rural communities have the resources they need to access to clean, safe drinking water.”

RCAC will use the grant to provide low-interest loans to homeowners living in rural areas with populations up to 50,000 and earning $62,883 or less.

Funding from USDA Rural Development was made available through the Household Water Well System Grant program.

“The drought has had a huge impact on folks with private wells. We are very pleased to work with USDA to finance the replacement of failed wells and help mitigate the drought’s impact,” said Stanley Keasling, RCAC’s chief executive officer.

Interested applicants should contact Cyndy Elliott with RCAC at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 209-576-0430.

USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, offers programs designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – On Monday Gov. Jerry Brown issued the first state of emergency proclamation for four counties as the results of a severe rainstorm that hit the state earlier this month.

The storm – which hit Dec. 11 – resulted in heavy rainfall, which in turn caused damage to roads and highways throughout the state as a result of mudflows, debris, flooding and erosion.

The Monday state of emergency proclamation is for Marin, Mendocino, San Mateo and Ventura counties, the Governor's Office reported.

The proclamation directs Caltrans to formally request immediate assistance through the Federal Highway Administration's Emergency Relief Program.

Officials said the Governor's Office of Emergency Services continues to work with other impacted counties to complete damage assessments and evaluate the need for additional action to help communities respond to and recover from the effects of these storms.

Lake is among the counties continuing to wait for an emergency declaration due to the rainfall, flooding and associated damage resulting from the several inches of rain that fell in the county.

On Dec. 11, the county of Lake, along with the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport all declared states of emergency because of the storm's impacts, as Lake County News has reported.

Lake County's members of the state Legislature, Assemblyman Bill Dodd and Sen. Mike McGuire, along with fellow North Coast legislators asked Gov. Brown on Dec. 16 for a disaster declaration for Sonoma, Marin and Lake counties due to the severe flooding in those areas.

At that point, the damage total for the three counties was estimated at more than $20 million and expected to climb much higher as assessments are completed.

The Lake County Office of Emergency Services reported that it is working to compile local damage information.

County residents are asked to report damages to their respective municipalities – within the city of Clearlake, contact 707-994-8201; within the city of Lakeport, contact (707) 263-5615; and within the unincorporated areas of Lake County, contact (707) 263-2382.

Those reporting damages should include quotes/estimates/receipts for repairs, name, home address, location of the damaged property and contact information.
 
Follow the Lake OES Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-OES/307452049434603 for more information and updates.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.