Moss Landing battery plant fire: Dolan Road closed, shelter-in-place lifted
A fire broke out early Friday, Sept 18, at the Vistra battery storage plant at 7301 Highway 1 in Moss Landing, inside the building damaged in the January 2025 fire. The Sheriff's shelter-in-place for the zones within a third of a mile (MRY-B047, B050, B053) was lifted at 4pm Friday. There are no evacuation orders. Dolan Road is closed at Castroville Blvd and at Elkhorn Road; Caltrans reports Highway 1 open through Moss Landing. EPA air monitors found no hydrogen fluoride and no PM2.5 exceedances on Friday. Officials expect the fire to burn itself out within about a day. If you smell smoke around Moss Landing or Castroville, close windows and doors and follow Alert Monterey County for updates.
Open Studios Art Tour: weekend 2 is Sat–Sun Sep 19–20, 11am–5pm, free
250+ Monterey County artists open their studios this weekend, from the Peninsula to Moss Landing, Salinas and King City. The numbered purple pins on the map are the tour stops; tap one for the artist's site. The printed guide and the full artist list are on Arts4MC's site. Free, self-guided, no ticket.
Documentary: Directed by Jihan K (First-time filmmaker; Libya) Produced by Desert Power (United States & Libya) (Filmed in Egypt, Libya, United Kingdom & United States) International Awards : Venice Film Festival: Nominated for Artemis Rising Foundation’s Impact Prize for Documentary (in partnership with the Golden Globes). When Jihan was six years old, her father flew to Cairo and never returned. Mansur Rashid Kikhia was the Foreign Minister of Libya, ambassador to the United Nations, and a human rights lawyer. After serving in Qaddafi’s increasingly brutal regime, he defected from the government and became the leader of the peaceful opposition. For many, Kikhia was a rising star who could have been the next leader of Libya, however, in 1993 he disappeared from his hotel in Egypt. Jihan’s mother Baha Al Omary, a strong-willed Syrian-American artist, began searching for him, launching the family into an international political maze. Her mission to find justice brought her to the Libyan desert in the middle of the night, face to face with Qaddafi to negotiate her husband’s release. Yet it wasn’t until after the regime’s fall, 19 years later, that his body was found in a freezer near Qaddafi’s palace. My Father and Qaddafi takes the audience on a raw and reflective journey as Jihan pieces together a father she barely remembers, while discovering the troubled history and politics of Libya. Her journey starts from fading personal memories, leading to encounters with family members, her father’s peers, and historical archive footage. Hoping at first to uncover the truth, Jihan instead transforms the mystery into a curiosity that brings her closer to her father and her Libyan identity. She approaches politics not as a distant subject, but as a lived experience that penetrates into every human relationship – even between a little girl and her father. FILMMAKER Q&A TO FOLLOW. Runtime: 1:28:00, Founders Theatre