Topped with solar panels, each home in California’s first all-electric, solar- and battery-powered microgrid home community also has a so-called Sun Vault in the garage to store electricity. And each of those homes is connected, giving them the ability to collectively withstand power shortages induced by extreme heat, wildfires or earthquakes. … LA-based KB Home and SunPower, headquartered in San Jose, received $6.6 million from the agency to pay for the microgrid’s batteries and research that the University of California, Irvine and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will conduct.

One recent study of flood exposure in Los Angeles suggests that the population exposed to dangerous flooding, or a flooding event with 1 percent annual probability, is between 10 and 40 times greater than US government maps show. … The numbers of at-risk Angelenos surprised even the researchers ….