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1.4 million under rare flash flood warning as ‘life-threatening landslides’ batter California
A strong storm is lashing California on Monday, causing flooding and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.
As the storm sat over the Los Angeles basin, more than 1.4 million people are under a rare flash flood warning. Up to 9in of rain has already fallen in the area, the National Weather Service has said.
Officials are particularly worried about the Hollywood Hills area and Santa Monica mountains, where the NWS warned of “life-threatening landslides and additional flash flooding”.
Officials in northern California reported one person was killed when the storm passed through there. An elderly man in Yuba City died when a redwood tree fell in his backyard.
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Key events
The storm has brought heavy snow to California’s Sierra Nevada in what experts said could be the biggest snow event this season.
The ski resort Palisades Tahoe said Sunday it was anticipating the heaviest snowfall yet this winter. It had already received 2ft of snow over four days, and anticipated another one to two feet of snow.
The UC Berkeley central sierra snow lab reported more than a foot of snow over the last day.
We received 14.8″ (37.5 cm) of #snow in the last day and 20.7″ (52.5 cm) in the last 2 days. We are expecting plenty more today.
High winds caused power interruptions overnight but everything is back online.
Pic: Weighing snow samples to get their water content.#CAwx #CAwater pic.twitter.com/G3qmnrFAJg
— UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab (@UCB_CSSL) February 5, 2024
The heavy snow was expected to continue Monday throughout the Sierra Nevada. Authorities have urged motorists to avoid mountain roads.
Over 500,000 without power across California
More than 500,000 households and businesses across California are without power, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages across the country.
The outage are concentrated in northern California, and are likely affecting more than one million people. In some counties, nearly half of all residents have lost electricity as powerful winds, some as high as 100mph, knocked down trees and power lines.
Pacific Gas and Electric, which provides power to nearly half of all Californians, has said the “hazardous weather conditions” may impact when they will be able to restore services.
In Los Angeles, the intense rain has triggered mud and debris flows in the Hollywood Hills and the Santa Monica mountains.
Firefighters evacuated several homes overnight in Studio City and Tarzana after mud, rocks and trees flowed into residences. No one was injured.
“I’ve been doing damage reports all night, so I’ve seen a fair amount of damage, and of people being evacuated from homes due to mudslides,” said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service near Los Angeles.
Lindsay Horvath, an LA county supervisor, urged residents near wildfire burn areas of Topanga and Soledad canyons to heed orders to get out ahead of possible mudslides.
Officials have put in place evacuation orders and warnings for mountain and canyon areas of Los Angeles county as well as Monterey, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
The storm traveled across northern California on Sunday, where it inundated roads and forced down power lines and trees.
The weather service’s San Francisco Bay Area office issued its first ever “hurricane force wind warning.” Winds in the region exceeded 60mph (96 kph), with some gusts in the mountains topping 80mph (128 kph).
A hillside collapse in downtown San Francisco blocked traffic on Sunday afternoon.
To the south, in San Jose, emergency services pulled stranded motorists out of cars caught in floodwaters and rescued people from a homeless encampment alongside a rising river.
1.4 million under rare flash flood warning as ‘life-threatening landslides’ batter California
A strong storm is lashing California on Monday, causing flooding and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.
As the storm sat over the Los Angeles basin, more than 1.4 million people are under a rare flash flood warning. Up to 9in of rain has already fallen in the area, the National Weather Service has said.
Officials are particularly worried about the Hollywood Hills area and Santa Monica mountains, where the NWS warned of “life-threatening landslides and additional flash flooding”.
Officials in northern California reported one person was killed when the storm passed through there. An elderly man in Yuba City died when a redwood tree fell in his backyard.
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
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