Storm breaches river’s levee
NEW YORK — Regulators rushed on Friday to seize the assets of one of Silicon Valley’s top banks, marking the largest failure of a US financial institution since the height of the financial crisis almost 15 years ago.
Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th-largest bank, failed after depositors hurried to withdraw money this week amid anxiety over the bank’s health. It was the second biggest bank failure in US history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008.
The bank served mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, including some of the industry’s best-known brands.
“This is an extinction-level event for startups,” said Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, a startup incubator that launched Airbnb, DoorDash and Dropbox and has referred hundreds of entrepreneurs to the bank.
“I literally have been hearing from hundreds of our founders asking for help on how they can get through this. They are asking, ‘Do I have to furlough my workers?’”
There appeared to be little chance of the chaos spreading in the broader banking sector, as it did in the months leading up to the Great Recession.
The biggest banks — those most likely to cause an economic meltdown — have healthy balance sheets and plenty of capital.
Nearly half of the US technology and health care companies that went public last year after getting early funding from venture capital firms were Silicon Valley Bank customers, according to the bank’s website.
WATSONVILLE, Calif. — A Northern California agricultural community famous for its strawberry crop was forced to evacuate early on Saturday after the Pajaro River’s levee was breached by flooding from a new atmospheric river that pummeled the state.
Across the Central Coast’s Monterey County, more than 8500 people were under evacuation orders and warnings Saturday, including roughly 1700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — from the unincorporated community of Pajaro.
Officials said the Pajaro River’s levee breach is about 100 feet (30.48 meters) wide. Crews had gone door to door Friday afternoon to urge residents to leave before the rains came but some stayed and had to be pulled from floodwaters early Saturday.
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First responders and the California National Guard rescued more than 50 people overnight. One video showed a member of the Guard helping a driver out of a car trapped by water up to their waists.