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u.s. news Diamars 26 OctOber 2021

Drought-stricken California pounded by massive storm

(AP) — A massive storm Flooding was reported across fornia Highway Patrol closed
barreled toward South- the San Francisco Bay Area, a stretch of State Route 70 in
ern California on Monday closing streets in Berkeley, Butte and Plumas counties
after flooding highways, inundating Oakland’s Bay because of multiple land-
toppling trees, cutting Bridge toll plaza and over- slides within the massive Di-
power to about 380,000 flowing rivers in Napa and xie Fire burn scar.
utility customers and Sonoma counties.
causing rock slides and In the state’s Central Valley,
mud flows in areas burned “It’s been a memorable past Sacramento got 5.4 inches
bare by wildfires across 24 hours for the Bay Area as (13.7 centimeters) of rain,
the northern half of the the long talked-about atmo- smashing the all-time one-
state. spheric river rolled through day rainfall record dating to
the region,” the local weather 1880, the weather service
Drenching rains and strong office said. “We literally have said. Interstate 80, the major
winds accompanied the gone from fire/drought con- highway through the Sierra
weekend arrival of an atmo- ditions to flooding in one to Reno, Nevada, was shut
spheric river — a long plume storm cycle.” down by heavy snow early etation can’t soak up heavy inches of rain could trigger
of Pacific moisture — into Monday. rainfall as quickly, increasing debris flows in the CZU
the drought-stricken state. The weather service called the likelihood of flash flood- Lightning Complex Fire
preliminary rainfall totals The same storm system also ing. burn scar when the storm
Rainfall records were shat- “staggering,” including 11 slammed Oregon and Wash- moves through early Mon-
tered and heavy snow pound- inches (27.9 centimeters) at ington state, causing power “If you are in the vicin- day.
ed high elevations of the Si- the base of Marin County’s outages that affected tens of ity of a recent burn scar and
erra Nevada. The National Mount Tamalpais and and thousands of people. Two haven’t already, prepare now Further south, evacuation
Weather Service issued nu- 4.02 inches (10.2 centime- people were killed when a for likely debris flows,” the warnings for parts of west-
merous flash flood warnings. ters) in downtown San Fran- tree fell on a vehicle in the Sacramento weather service ern Santa Barbara County
cisco. greater Seattle area. tweeted. “If you are told to were upgraded to evacuation
There were widespread evacuate by local officials, or orders in the area burned by
power outages in Northern “It looks like yesterday was In California’s Colusa and you feel threatened, do not this month’s Alisal Fire.
California, with Pacific Gas the 4th wettest day ever for Yolo counties, state highways hesitate to do so. If it is too
& Electric reporting Sunday downtown SF where records 16 and 20 were shut for sev- late to evacuate, get to higher Officials said mountain ar-
evening that about 130,000 go back to the Gold Rush eral miles because of mud- ground.” eas above 9,000 feet (2,745
customers did not have elec- years,” the weather service slides, the state Department meters) in the Sierra Nevada
tricity, though the utility said said. of Transportation said. South of San Francisco, evac- could get 18 inches (46 cen-
power had been restored to uation orders were in effect timeters) of snow or more
about 250,000 customers. About 150 miles (241 kilome- Burn areas remain a concern in the Santa Cruz Mountains from Sunday until Monday
ters) to the north, the Cali- because land devoid of veg- over concerns that several morning.

North Carolina man identified as victim of John Wayne Gacy

(AP) — A North Carolina man who moved to DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that uses genetic
Chicago was one of the victims of John Wayne In 2011, Dart’s office exhumed the remains of eight information to locate relatives of dead people who
Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young victims, including Alexander, who had been bur- have not been identified. The organization com-
men and boys in the 1970s, authorities said ied without police knowing who they were. Dart pared the DNA profile from the unidentified vic-
Monday. called on anyone who had a male relative disappear tim’s remains to profiles on a genealogy website to
in the Chicago area in the 1970s to submit DNA. find potential relatives. That led it to Alexander’s
Francis Wayne Alexander would have been 21 or 22 That was the time when Gacy was luring young family, and Alexander’s mother and half-brother
years old when Gacy killed him sometime between men and boys to his home to eventually kill them. provided their DNA for comparison.
early 1976 and early 1977, Cook County Sheriff
Tom Dart said at a news conference in announcing Within weeks, the sheriff’s office announced that Between the genetic testing, financial records,
the identification of Alexander’s remains. it had identified one set of remains as those of Wil- post-mortem reports and other information, inves-
liam Bundy, a 19-year-old construction worker. In tigators were able to confirm that the remains were
Alexander’s family didn’t even realize he had been 2017, it identified a second set as those of 16-year- Alexander’s. And determining when he was killed
dead all these years, the sheriff said. old Jimmy Haakenson, who disappeared after he largely stemmed from knowing when the victim
phoned his mother in Minnesota and told her that who was buried on top of him went missing.
“They just loved him, but they thought that he he was in Chicago.
wanted nothing more to do with them, so that’s Dart and Lt. Jason Moran, who headed the inves-
why there was never a missing person’s report,” The details of Alexander’s life in Chicago are tigation, said the department might be able to use
Dart said. sketchy. Born in North Carolina, he moved to the method used to identify Alexander to identify
New York, where he was married, and then on to scores of other people in the county who died and
In a statement, Alexander’s sister, Carolyn Sand- Chicago in 1975, where he was soon divorced. were buried anonymously.
ers, thanked the sheriff’s office for giving the fam-
ily some level of “closure.” According to the sheriff’s office’s news release, the Dart said Alexander’s family wasn’t ready to speak
last known record of Alexander’s life were traffic publicly about the identification and his office de-
“It is hard, even 45 years later, to know the fate of tickets he received, the last one in January 1976 — clined to give Alexander’s hometown. But in its
our beloved Wayne,” Sanders wrote. “He was killed a year in which he earned little money. How he news release, the sheriff’s office did thank the po-
at the hands of a vile and evil man. Our hearts are crossed paths with one of the most notorious serial lice department in Erwin, about 35 miles (56 kilo-
heavy, and our sympathies go out to the other vic- killers in American history is a mystery, as authori- meters) south of Raleigh, for its help.
tims’ families. ... We can now lay to rest what hap- ties say all they know is that “Alexander lived in an
pened and move forward by honoring Wayne.” area that was frequented by Gacy and where other The submission of DNA from people who sus-
identified victims had previously lived.” Gacy lured pected Gacy might have killed their loved ones has
Alexander’s remains were among 26 sets that po- some victims to his house by promising to hire helped police solve at least 11 cold cases of homi-
lice found in the crawl space under Gacy’s home them for construction jobs, but Alexander worked cides that had nothing to do with Gacy, who was
just outside the city. Three other victims were in bars and clubs. executed in 1994. It has also helped families find
found buried on Gacy’s property and another four loved ones who while missing, were alive, includ-
people whom Gacy admitted killing were found in The identification of Alexander came together ing a man in Oregon who had no idea his family
waterways south of Chicago. when the sheriff’s department teamed up with the was looking for him.