Hilary soaked deserts, flooded roads in Calif., Nev.
PALM DESERT, CALIF. » Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, swept people into swollen rivers, toppled trees onto homes and flooded roadways as the system marched northward Monday, prompting flood watches and warnings in more than a half dozen states.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami downgraded Hilary to a post-tropical storm Monday morning, but warned that “continued life-threatening and locally catastrophic flooding” was expected over portions of the southwestern U.S., along with record-breaking rainfall.
There was the potential of flooding in states as far north as Oregon and Idaho. Remnants of the storm were expected to linger at least through Tuesday morning. Hilary, which first slammed into Mexico’s arid Baja California Peninsula, causing one death and widespread flooding, was one of several potentially catastrophic natural events affecting California on Sunday.
Besides the tropical storm, which produced tornado warnings, there were wildfires and an earthquake. So far, no deaths, serious injuries or extreme damages have been reported in the state, though officials warned the risks remain, especially in the desert and mountainous regions because of swollen waterways and the wet hillsides that could unleash mudslides.
Winding roads in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles were blocked by mud and debris flows. A stretch of the I-10 freeway near Palm Springs was also shut to traffic due to pooling water from the storm. Along the coast, a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in surffriendly Huntington Beach was also flooded.
Terry Flanigan was inside her home in Palm Desert after taking pictures of the unusual rainfall when she heard a huge crash and then a deafening thud. Then she got a text from a neighbor who said a Eucalyptus tree, more than 100 feet, had just fallen onto a condo across the street.
Flanigan, who called 911, later learned it landed on the bed of her neighbor’s 11-yearold son, who luckily was in another room.
“I’m sure they’re still terrified,” Flanigan said, adding that the mom and boy had gone to stay with relatives. “Removal crews came this morning and took off the branches, and it was very unnerving. Oh my gosh, what could
have happened.”
Maura Taura felt a similar relief after a three-story-tall tree crashed down on her daughter’s two cars but missed the family’s house in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles.
“Thank God my family is OK,” she said.
Warned about the potential dangers by emergency authorities, many residents hunkered down in their homes, leaving most freeways unusually clear of traffic jams Monday.
The storm dropped more than half an average year’s worth of rain on some areas, including Palm Springs, which saw more than 3 inches by Sunday evening, shattering the previous record of 0.21 inches.
Sunday was the wettest day on record in San Diego, with 1.82 inches, the NWS said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The previous record was on Aug. 17, 1977, when 1.8 inches fell in the area post-Hurricane Doreen.
“We basically blew all of our previous rainfall records out of the water,” National Weather Service meteorologist Elizabeth Adams in San Diego told The Associated Press.