California’s mountain and desert cities are digging from the mud from the first tropical storm in 84 years
CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — Mountain and desert city crews worked to remove mud and debris Tuesday in the aftermath of a… The first tropical storm To reach Southern California at 84 years old.
The system was dissipating as it moved over the Rocky Mountains.
Hillary dumped record rains on the deserts of California, including in stark Death Valley that had its wettest day on record on Sunday.
As Hillary moved northeast into neighboring Nevada, flooding was reported, power outages were reported, and about 400 families in the Mount Charleston area were ordered to boil water, washing out the only way in and out. The area is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Las Vegas.
Hillary first hit Mexico’s barren Baja California peninsula as a hurricane, causing one death and widespread flooding before becoming Tropical storm. So far no deaths, serious injuries or severe damage have been reported in California, though officials in San Bernardino said Tuesday that they are still searching for one missing person in a rural mountain community.
In one dramatic scene, rescue officials at the desert community of Cathedral City, near Palm Springs, drove a bulldozer through mud into a flooded nursing home and rescued 14 residents by collecting them and taking them to safety, Fire Chief Michael Contreras said.
“We’ve been able to put patients in the scoop. It’s not something I’ve ever done in my 34 years as a firefighter, but disasters like this really make us have to look at rescues that aren’t in the book and that we don’t do every day,” he said. Press Conference.
It was one of 46 rescues the city carried out between late Sunday night and the following afternoon of 5 feet (1.5 m) of mud and water.
Hillary is the latest potentially climate-related disaster to wreak havoc across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Hawaiian island of Maui is still reeling a fire that More than 100 people were killed, making it the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century. Firefighters in Canada are fighting it The worst fire season ever in the country.
Hot water and hot air were both critical factors that enabled Hillary’s rapid growth — and steered her down an unusual but not entirely unprecedented trajectory, dumping rain in some normally dry places.
Wet weather may stave off wildfires for a few weeks in southern California and parts of the Sierra Nevada, climatologist Daniel Swain said in a statement, but heavy rains are not expected in the most fire-prone areas. Online briefing Monday.
Floods and mudslides have been reported across the desert interior of Southern California, mountain regions, and parts of Nevada.
The annual Burning Man counterculture festival in the desert 110 miles (177 km) north of Reno is still on schedule to begin Saturday, but rain from tropical storm remnants has disrupted the plans of thousands of participants who have camped ahead of time. . Regulators locked the entrance gates as the storm entered California over the weekend when rain began to turn the dry, old lake bed into a muddy quagmire.
The heavy rains ended on Monday but organizers said there was still plenty of mud, so the gates will remain closed until at least noon Wednesday.
Hillary broke daily rainfall records in San Diego and dumped an entire year’s worth in Death Valley National Park, forcing the park to close indefinitely and leaving about 400 people sheltering in Furnace Creek, Stovepe Wells and Panamint Springs until roads are constructed, park officials said.
Sunday was the wettest day on record as the storm pummeled 2.2 inches into the desert region, according to John Adair, chief meteorologist at NWS Las Vegas.
The last time a tropical storm hit California in September 1939, it ripped train tracks, ripped homes off their foundations and capsized many boats. Nearly 100 people were killed on land and at sea.
in another place, Tropical Storm Harold It made landfall on the south Texas coast Tuesday, where it is expected to bring winds of up to 50 mph (80 km/h) to areas along the US-Mexico border and produce 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) of rain with Some isolated amounts of up to 6 inches (15 cm) were observed in southern Texas through Wednesday.
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Antczak and Stefanie Dazio reported from Los Angeles and Watson from San Diego. Associated Press correspondents Eugene Garcia in Cathedral City; Ken Ritter in Las Vegas; Frida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.
