Strongest storm in years lashes California; 2 killed
los angeles — A huge Pacific storm — one of the most powerful to hit the area in years — parked itself over Southern California and unloaded, ravaging roads, opening sinkholes and leading to the deaths of at least two people.
The storm feeding on an atmospheric river of moisture stretching far out into the ocean was at its most fierce late Friday afternoon, dropping over 8 inches of rain in one area, and was expected to last until Saturday afternoon.
The region appeared to dodge any major disasters, but in the desert town of Victorville, several cars were washed down a flooded street, and one man was found dead in a submerged vehicle after others were rescued, San Bernardino County fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said.
And in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, a man was electrocuted when a tree falling in heavy rain downed power lines that hit his car.
Later in the same neighbourhood, a sinkhole swallowed two cars, the second on live TV as viewers watched it teeter on the edge before plunging in. Firefighters rescued one person from the first car, and the driver got out of the second before it fell. No one was injured.
Inland at the Cajon Pass, the shoulder of Interstate 15 crumbled and sent a parked firetruck spilling over the side, but no one was hurt. There were several traffic deaths on slick and flooded roads also, but it was difficult to say which were a direct result of the storm.
Other forms of travel were tough too. Amtrak canceled its rail trips for a long stretch of the state’s southern and central coast, and more than 300 arriving and departing flights were delayed or canceled at Los Angeles International Airport. Winds gusting to 70 mph lashed parts of the region.
Rains turned creeks and rivers into brown torrents and released slews of mud from hillsides burned barren by wildfires. “At one point the wind was so strong I’m surprised it didn’t blow my windows out,” retiree Phoenix Hocking said from Carpinteria. “I now have a pond in my patio. And my dog is starting to grow flippers so he can go out and do his business.” Several stretches of freeways were closed by flooding.