Berkeley Hills residents will soon be required to have a 5-foot ember-resistant zone around their homes. The state is getting more serious about its defensible space laws for fire prevention.
Kate Darby Rauch
Freelancer Catherine "Kate" Rauch has been contributing to Berkeleyside for several years, and also happens to live in Berkeley, near downtown. Her work as a journalist has encompassed everything from 10 years as a daily news reporter for the East Bay Times, based in Richmond, to freelancing for a range of news sources including the Washington Post, Newsday, the Seattle Times, SF Chronicle and Oakland Magazine. Kate likes general assignment work and jumping into a variety of topics and stories, but has a background as a health writer, which includes writing for WebMD, Babycenter.com, Caring.com, UC San Francisco Medical Center, Kaiser and Sutter Health. Her awards include a first place in health and science writing from the Washington State Press Association, a first place in spot news from the Peninsula Press Club, and a second place in feature writing from the California Association of Newspaper Publishers. She's also worked as an anthropologist in rural Alaska. She has an MS degree from the Columbia School of Journalism and a BS from UC Berkeley in cultural geography.
Posted inCommunity
Historic Cal buildings still shuttered months after fire
Investigators say no cause was determined for the May 2 fire at the former Anna Head School. UC Berkeley says no decision has been made on the buildings’ fate.
Posted inCity
Update: Case of elderly Berkeley homeowner burdened by major code repair debt will continue in the fall
Leonard Powell hopes the court will find that Berkeley and a receiver mismanaged his home code problems.
Posted inNature
Whale once moored near Berkeley causing a stink in Richmond
Richmond Mayor Tom Butt took matters into his own hands, and worked with a contractor to bury the creature Thursday.
Posted inCity
Berkeley’s tree removal aims to ‘set an example’ for wildfire management
The city has cut down nearly 300 trees, mostly eucalyptus and Monterey pine, since 2019 and is now ramping up defensible space inspections of private property in high-fire areas.
Posted inNature
Dead whale towed to waters northwest of Berkeley to decompose
A male gray whale found early last month has been anchored near Brooks Island and spotted by boaters coming into the Berkeley Marina.
Posted inCommunity
‘This land is coming back to us’: Berkeley community garden gifted to Ohlone land trust
An anonymous donor paid $435,000 to save part of the Ashby Community Garden in Southwest Berkeley and has given it to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.
Posted inBusiness
Berkeley yoga studio fires co-founder whose boyfriend made the antisemitic flyers dropped in the hills
The owner of Hella Yoga found that his business partner, Kelly Johnson, had used company computers to register a business for her boyfriend to spread hate.
Posted inCrime & Safety
Hundreds of antisemitic flyers dropped in Berkeley Hills driveways
The flyers have been tied to a fringe white supremacist group. Similar flyers have been distributed across the Bay Area.
Posted inCity
The ‘probabilities and uncertainties’ of forecasting tsunami damage in Berkeley
The odds of a worst-case tsunami hitting Berkeley in the next 50 years are 1 in 20, experts say. Such an event could cause up to 10-15 feet of flooding.
Posted inCity
Scarce rapid tests force Berkeley nursing homes to make agonizing choices
Most nursing homes don’t have enough rapid tests for managing omicron, leading to poignant decisions on who they can help.
Posted inCommunity
Group asks Cal to preserve century-old buildings, once home to historic girls school
The Anna Head School opened in 1892. Now a group of historians, architects and contractors wants to work with UC Berkeley to preserve some of the school’s decrepit buildings.