(TNS) — During severe winter storms, Cold Springs Creek above Montecito turns into a torrent of mud, uprooted trees and shed-size boulders as it drains three square miles of sheer mountain front.

The only thing protecting the people, homes and businesses below is a low dam that the Army Corps of Engineers built in 1964 at the mouth of the creek's canyon, forming a basin between the steep banks to catch the crashing debris.

Over the decades, the basin filled up with sediment and grew thick with brush and trees.

A Northern California utility says it has restored power interrupted by a wildfire six weeks ago to all customers able to receive it.

Pacific Gas & Electric said this week the last of about 10,000 residents of Paradise and the surrounding area that lost electricity on Nov. 8 had their power restored by Sunday night. The San Francisco-based utility said it still working to restore natural gas service to many customers.

(TNS) — More than any other Northern California community, Chico has opened its arms to Camp Fire survivors from nearby Paradise.

An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 evacuees have crowded into Chico following the deadliest wildfire in California history, swelling the population by at least 10 percent in a city that was already laboring under a housing shortage. Survivors are taking relatives' spare bedrooms and sleeping in campers in friends' backyards, while their children now attend school in Chico's churches and community centers — and even in a vacant spot in the city's main shopping mall.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles this week issued a reminder of new laws or changes to existing laws going into effect Jan 1, 2019 that motorist and auto insurance professionals should be aware of.

The new laws or changes are:

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday imposed a $4.3 million penalty on American Labor Alliance and CompOne USA for selling workers’ compensation and liability policies to employers of farmworkers without being properly licensed with the California Department of Insurance.

The penalty follows a cease and desist order issued by CDI 2016 against the Agricultural Contracting Services Association Inc. and its affiliates, the American Labor Alliance and CompOne USA, and Board Chair Marcus Asay, and an order issued by Jones in 2017 them to refrain from selling insurance policies in California.

The California Department of Industrial Relations issued a report on Tuesday showing that 376 Californians died on the job in 2017, the same as in 2016.

California’s workplace fatality rate remains stable with slight fluctuations over the past eight years, while on a national level the rate of fatalities fell from 3.6 to 3.5 per 100,000 workers, according to the DIR.

(TNS) - Behind a chain-linked fence along Fifth Avenue between C and D streets in San Rafael, workers using a crane hoisted a bundle of steel beams that would be integrated into the framework of what will soon be a new $36 million public safety building.

“Right now we are erecting steel beams and columns for the first and second floor,” said Jorge Meza, the project manager with Kitchel CEM of Sacramento who is overseeing work.

Monday marked a return to school and some semblance of routine for thousands of children who lost their homes to a deadly wildfire in Northern California.

Schools in Butte County have been closed since Nov. 8, when the Camp Fire ignited and quickly swept through the towns of Paradise, Concow and Magalia in what would become the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century. At least 88 people were killed and dozens remain unaccounted for.

(TNS) — Sixty-three-year-old Ernest Foss had swollen legs and couldn’t walk. Vinnie Carota, 65, was missing a leg and didn’t have a car. Evelyn Cline, 83, had a car but struggled to get in it without help.

Dorothy Herrera, 93, had onset dementia and her husband Louis, 86, couldn’t drive anymore. And 78-year-old John Digby was just feeling sick the morning of the Camp Fire when he refused a neighbor’s offer to drive him to safety.

As every risk ­manager knows, the world is as fraught with risk as ever. This becomes even more apparent as natural disasters, cyberattacks, corporate malfeasance and political and economic uncertainty make headlines and create new business concerns. The following review of some of the notable risk events of 2018 can both remind us where we have been and provide insight into the challenges and opportunities we could face in the years to come.