A powerful Pacific storm which blew over Southern and Central California caused wind-driven heavy rain, triggering rescues, calls for evacuations, toppling trees and power lines and disrupting travel and outdoor events. As per Indian express reports, the fire fighters rescued seven people and two dogs from the Sepulveda basin, a recreation and flood-control area along the Los Angeles River. One person was taken to a hospital with a non-life-threatening injury. Mudslides and flooding partially closed a section of freeway and the Pacific Coast Highway in beach areas. This could be the strongest storm to hit Southern California since January 1995 said the National Weather Service said.
Due to the strong build-up of the storm feeding on atmospheric river of moisture, the storm stretches far into the Pacific. The strength is as such that some neighborhoods were forced to evacuate due to safety purpose as the area is now prone to mudslides and debris flows. Numerous flights were delayed or cancelled at the state’s airports on Friday.
“It’s crazy,” said Robin Johnson, an academic adviser at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s just pouring down rain. The wind is just going nuts.”
“At one point the wind was so strong I’m surprised it didn’t blow my windows out,” retiree Phoenix Hocking said in a Facebook message 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.”
The storm not only hit California but is also to affect some parts of the north into the San Joaquin Valley and up to San Francisco. It was not expected to bring significant rain in the far north where damage to spillways of the Lake Oroville dam forced evacuation of 188,000 people last weekend.
Rain caused trees to crack and fall down in the golf’s Genesis Open at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Elsewhere in the city a tree brought down power lines as it fell on a car and a person was hospitalised for possible electric shock, the Fire Department said. Reports from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and also areas near University of California have reported disasters by mid-afternoon.
