Hundreds of thousands without power in California as rain moves south and intensifies
By Jill Cowan, Vik Jolly and Corina Knoll
LOS ANGELES – Emergency workers rescued drivers stranded in floodwaters in Los Angeles, mudslides overtook a stretch of a winding highway in Ventura County, and flights were grounded at the Santa Barbara Airport, as the most significant storm to hit California so far this year lashed the state Sunday (4).
Though winds also continued to wreak havoc in many areas, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people, forecasters warned Sunday evening that the most severe peril still lay ahead — particularly for Los Angeles, where the storm was still in its early stages.
“We’ve got more rain coming, heavy rain, through the overnight hours,” said Joe Sirard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, north of Los Angeles. “Plus the existing rain that we’ve had, plus the rain we had earlier this week.”
As a result, Sirard said, the already saturated ground could slide, rivers and streams could overtop their banks, and streets in low-lying areas could flood.
Here’s what else to know:
— The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning until midnight Pacific time for all of Los Angeles County, which includes downtown Los Angeles, where the Grammy Awards were taking place. Just before 5:00 p.m. Sunday, forecasters said another 2 to 5 inches of rain could fall in the area.
— Evacuations were ordered for parts of Santa Barbara County near waterways, including all state campgrounds. Water was rising so quickly near Mission Creek in the city that police officers began knocking on doors to urge nearby residents to leave.
— Residents were also told to evacuate in the La Tuna Canyon Road area and the northern portion of Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles County, as well as unincorporated parts of Ojai.
— Officials in Orange County issued a voluntary evacuation warning for some sparsely populated areas where homes are tucked into wooded hillsides, and warned that the warning could become a mandatory evacuation order “with little or no notice.”
— 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. Farther north, the danger was winds ripping down trees and power lines. Overall in the state, more than 870,000 customers had lost power as of Sunday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.
— Nineteen people were rescued off the coast of Long Beach on Sunday afternoon after winds broke the mast off their boat and the 40-foot vessel hit rocks, said Brian Fisk of the Long Beach Fire Department.
— In Northern California, pounding rain and heavy winds felled a tree in San Francisco that blocked a major thoroughfare, and wind gusts in the nearby mountains reached a top speed of 88 mph, officials said — the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane. Forecasters with the weather service called it “one of the most dramatic weather days in recent memory.”
-New York Times
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