- Tropical Storm Hilary Hits Southern California
- Flooding and Rescues in Palm Springs
- Impact and Aftermath of the Storm
After dumping a year’s worth of rain, Hilary, the first tropical storm to strike southern California in 84 years, isolated the desert metropolis of Palm Springs.
Monday, major routes into and out of Palm Springs were temporarily closed due to flooding caused by 3.18in (8cm) of rainfall.
Several individuals had to be rescued from swollen rivers.
Now a post-tropical cyclone, Hilary could still cause inundation in portions of Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho.
Sunday morning, the hurricane made landfall in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.
It soon entered the United States. Death Valley National Park was closed indefinitely after receiving an entire year’s worth of precipitation in a single day.
According to the National Weather Service, the storm produced record rainfall for San Diego, Palm Springs, and several other California cities on a single day.
According to officials, emergency 911 lines were down in Palm Springs, approximately 175 kilometers east of Los Angeles, as well as in adjacent Cathedral City and Indio.
“Right now, all of our highways are flooded. Palm Springs, along with the preponderance of the Coachella Valley, has no means of entry or exit. In an interview with CNN on Monday, Palm Springs Mayor Grace Garner stated, “We’re all stuck.”
This is an extremely dire situation at present.
Monday evening, Interstate 10 through Palm Springs, which had been closed in both directions, reopened.
Sean Heslin, a resident of Palm Springs, told that during the heaviest rainfall on Sunday, many residents spent hours clearing water from their doorways to prevent their homes from flooding.
In Cathedral City, just outside of Palm Springs, 14 elderly persons were trapped in a nursing home due to flooding and mud. They were rescued by firefighters by Monday afternoon.
Fifty mobile homes were submerged in the city, and four adults had to be rescued by firefighters.
Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the US, stopped schools on Monday.
As Californians prepared for the hurricane, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck north-northwest of Los Angeles on Sunday, although it did not cause significant damage.
Poweroutage.us said that 30,000 state residents were without power Monday evening local time due to the storm.
No deaths, serious injuries, or substantial damage have been reported in the United States as a result of Hurricane Hilary.
Sunday, however, a man perished in a vehicle during a flash flood in Mexico. The peninsula of Baja California experienced torrential rainfall and 70 mph winds on Sunday.
In 1939, a tropical cyclone last made landfall in Southern California at Long Beach.
Experts say human-induced climate change has produced recent extreme weather in the US and elsewhere.
