Event Date
During Winters 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, the state of California was impacted by a series of atmospheric rivers (ARs) that caused flooding, landslides and led to Presidential Disaster Declarations for the impacted areas. During these events, the California Geological Survey (CGS) staffed the State Operations Center in the Advanced Planning Unit to provide daily briefings to the leadership at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency along with responsive information about potential landslide occurrence across the state. The CGS activated a Landslides Triage Team (LTT) to develop real-time situational awareness of landslide events with information gathered from state partner agencies, social media, news, and other reports. The CGS also supported local community recovery by deploying field teams at the request of CalOES to respond to landslide events at various communities located across the state. Building off this prior work, during Winter 2024-2025 the CGS provided continued support for state-wide landslide response during AR events, as well as support for landslide reconnaissance after the 2024 Cape Mendocino Earthquake and for watershed mitigation efforts after the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles. This presentation will summarize the events and the CGS response, including experiences from the field, responses and lessons learned for future statewide geologic events. Additionally, Maggie will give a brief overview of the CGS, including CGS programs and resources.
Biography
Maggie Parks is a Senior Engineering Geologist at the California Geological Survey where she is the Landslide Mapping Project Lead. Prior to joining the CGS in 2022, she worked in consulting throughout California, as well as in the Pacific Northwest, on engineering geology and geotechnical engineering projects. Projects included work in commercial and multi-family residential development, geohazards and geotechnical design studies, and landslide investigation and characterization. She has a PhD and Master of Science degree from UC Berkeley in Engineering and a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Geology from UCLA. She is also a California Certified Engineering Geologist (CEG), Professional Geologist (PG), and Professional Engineer (PE).