Southern Californians are facing an epic clean-up operation after the region’s wettest Christmas holiday in recent history turned areas of the state into a panorama of mud and debris.
A year ago, record wildfires scorched the dry neighbourhoods of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. But now, in what scientists call “hydroclimate whiplash”, the picture is reversed after an atmospheric river off the Pacific brought winds and rain.
Southern California recorded its wettest Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ever, with Santa Barbara airport getting 150mm of rain. More than 430mm fell in one single area of the Ventura county mountains.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were the rainiest for many parts of southern California, with more than 250mm of rain falling in parts of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles county.
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The stormy weather brought down trees, caused hundreds of car crashes and knocked out power for thousands across the state. Hundreds have found their homes and gardens hit by flows of mud.
Los Angeles’s mayor, Karen Bass, declared a temporary state of emergency.
Firefighters in Los Angeles county rescued more than 100 people on Christmas Day, with one helicopter pulling 21 people from stranded cars.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, declared emergencies in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Shasta counties.
With the heaviest rains now past, there was still a risk of flash flooding and mudslides, the National Weather Service warned. “Still not quite out of the woods, but for the most part, the worst is over,” said Mike Wofford, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles.
Forecasters predict a dry weekend before more rain around New Year’s Eve.
Householder Sherry Tocco told the Los Angeles Times how her mountain town of Wrightwood, 125km northeast of Los Angeles, was pummeled by rain that turned the roads into rivers and buried cars under rocks, debris and mud.
The river, she said, was raging before “it just came through and destroyed, took everything with it”. Ms Tocco said firefighters helped her leave and she had slept in her car.
But what fell as rain in the lowlands fell as snow in higher elevations. As much as 50mm of snowfall an hour fell in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The storms, a result of atmospheric rivers carrying plumes of moisture from the tropics, hit during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year in the US.
The system brought the wettest Christmas season to downtown Los Angeles in 54 years, the US National Weather Service said.
At least three people have been killed since the storms began earlier this week. A motorist was killed in the northern California city of Redding after becoming trapped in their vehicle during a flood. Farther south, a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy died in what appeared to be a weather-related crash. And in San Diego, a man was reportedly killed by a falling tree.
In Wrightwood, the storm knocked out power and left a gas station and coffee shop that ran on generators to serve as a hub for residents and visitors.
“It’s really a crazy Christmas,” said Jill Jenkins, who was spending the holiday with her 13-year-old grandson, Hunter Lopiccolo.
Mr Lopiccolo said the family almost evacuated the previous day, when water washed away a chunk of their backyard, but they decided to stay and still celebrated the holiday. Mr Lopiccolo got a new snowboard and an e-bike.
“We just played card games all night with candles and flashlights,” he said.
Davey Schneider hiked 2.4km through rain and flood water up to his shins from his Wrightwood residence on Christmas Eve to rescue cats from his grandfather’s house.
“I wanted to help them out because I wasn’t confident that they were going to live,” he said. “Fortunately, they all lived. They’re all okay – just a little bit scared.”
Arlene Corte said roads in town turned into rivers, but her house was not damaged.
“It could be a whole lot worse,” she said. “We’re here talking.”
Southern California typically gets 13mm to 25mm of rain this time of year. – Guardian
