Winds, torrents of rain pummel Calif.
Landslide hits Bay Area; L.A. sets up sandbags
LOS ANGELES — Flash flooding spawned a landslide in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, and falling trees blocked major thoroughfares as torrential rain fell across California, pounding the Bay Area before moving south. Officials in the Los Angeles area ordered evacuations in places vulnerable to mudslides.
Wind gusts along the Northern California coast reached a top speed of 88 miles per hour, officials said — the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane. Forecasters with the National Weather Service called it “one of the most dramatic weather days in recent memory.”
On the coastline between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, the major concern was heavy rainfall: potentially 1 inch an hour and up to 8 inches over a 24-hour period. Officials warned of potentially devastating flooding and ordered evacuations for canyons that burned in recent wildfires that are at high risk for mud flows.
Farther north, it was winds ripping down trees and power lines. Nearly 846,000 customers were without electricity statewide by Sunday evening, with most of the outages concentrated in coastal regions, according to poweroutage.us.
In San Jose, emergency crews pulled occupants out of the windows of a car stranded by floodwaters and rescued people from a homeless encampment alongside a rising river.
The storm was the second of back-to-back atmospheric rivers that drenched Northern California.
“We’re not out of the woods yet — strong winds will continue through the early evening today,” the Bay Area’s National Weather Service said.
Six Bay Area counties were at low risk of waterspouts coming ashore and becoming tornadoes, said the Storm Prediction Center. The last time the center forecasted a tornado risk in the region was in 2015, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Services reported a landslide at Market and 18th streets, and closed Market Street’s westbound lanes. Falling trees also blocked major roads.
Palisades Tahoe, a ski resort about 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, said it was anticipating the heaviest snowfall yet this season, with accumulations of 6 inches per hour for a total of up to two feet. Heavy snow was possible into Monday throughout the Sierra Nevada.
Meanwhile, Southern California was at risk of substantial flooding beginning late Sunday because of how slow the system was moving, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Los Angeles-area office.
“The core of the low-pressure system is very deep, and it’s moving very slowly and it’s very close to us. And that’s why we have those very strong winds. And the slow nature of it is really giving us the highest rainfall totals and the flooding risk,” he said at a Sunday briefing.
Much of the state had been drying out from the system that blew in last week, causing flooding and dumping welcomed snow in the mountains. The latest storm, also called a “Pineapple Express” because its plume of moisture stretches back across the Pacific to near Hawaii, arrived offshore in Northern California on Saturday, when most of the state was under some sort of wind, surf, or flood watch.
The phone was ringing incessantly at the Santa Barbara Home Improvement Center, with people inquiring about sandbags, flashlights, and generators, said assistant manager Lupita Vital. Sandbags sold out on Saturday, so customers were buying bags of potting soil and fertilizer instead, she said.
“People are trying to get anything they can get that’s heavy to use it as, you know, protection for their doors and everything,” Vital said Sunday.
“This storm is predicted to be one of the largest and most significant in our county’s history, and our goal is to get through it without any fatalities or any serious injuries,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Saturday. Classes were canceled Monday for schools across the county, which was devastated by mudslides in 2018.
Evacuation orders and warnings were in effect for mountain and canyon areas of Monterey, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties.
The rain forced organizers to postpone the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Monterey County until Monday.
“This is a dangerous system with major risks to life and property,” the weather service’s Los Angeles office said. “Residents should heed any evacuation orders.”
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.