The storm billed as the worst in a decade delivered on its monster promise Friday, knocking out power to nearly 70,000 customers across Southern California, canceling flights at all major airports, closing at least two key highways while swamping others, shuttering resorts and triggering multiple flash-flood warnings. At least two deaths appeared to be storm related.
The 150-mile-wide system spread its watery tentacles throughout Southern California, soaking coastal and valley areas, piling up snow in the mountains and whipping up winds that toppled trees almost everywhere.
Heavy gusts may have been the root cause of a fatal injury in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
In a Sherman Oaks neighborhood, a 55-year-old man was electrocuted Friday after a tree branch fell onto power lines and landed on a vehicle. The man, who was not immediately identified, was apparently touched by the electric line or charged water, LAPD Sgt. Jack Richter said.
A second death was reported in the High Desert of San Bernardino County.
The San Bernardino County Fire Department reported on Twitter that they plucked one person from atop a partially submerged vehicle, but another person died, during a series of swift-water rescues near Pebble Beach and La Paz drives in Victorville. The department said the victim was found in another vehicle that was fully submerged.
Collapsing trees were credited with turning the lights out for about 70,000 homes and business throughout the region, including 30,000 in the San Fernardo Valley and 22,500 in Orange County, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison.
Edison spokeswoman Sally Jeun said at one point 37,500 of the utility’s customers were without power in multiple counties.
Of course, Friday was a work day and many commuters were out and about. There’s no way around it, it wasn’t a particularly good day to be driving the freeways – especially in Ventura County.
The California Highway Patrol said several feet of mud spilled onto the 101 north of Ventura, closing the northbound lanes at La Conchita.
Flooding shut down the 110 Freeway in both directions neat Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles. Most of the rest of Southern California’s freeways were snarled by rain-spurred gridlock.
Then, well to the east, the CHP was called out to help at least a dozen motorists who were trapped by flooding in San Bernardino County along Highway 138, south of where it meets Highway 2.
In Los Angeles, firefighters were called out to rescue eight people from the rising waters of the Sepulveda Basin, some of them with an an inflatable boat, said Erik Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Happiest place open; Knott’s not
The onslaught of severe weather also forced the delay or cancellation of flights Friday at Los Angeles International Airport, Long Beach Airport, Orange County’s John Wayne Airport and Ontario International Airport, airline officials said.
Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles International Airport, said officials anticipated delays for nearly 300 flights there and cancellations for as many as 60 flights.
At Ontario International Airport, six flights scheduled to arrive and seven scheduled to depart were cancelled, said Dan Adamus, chief marketing officer for the Ontario International Airport Authority. In Orange County, several airlines cancelled flights out of John Wayne Airport.
In anticipation of the ominous forecast, Knott’s Berry Farm, the Mountain High ski-snowboard resort, the Santa Anita Park horse race track near Pasadena and the Los Alamitos Race Course at Cypress all closed.
Bucking the trend, Disneyland remained open.
Bear Mountain, Snow Summit and Snow Valley resorts in the San Bernardino Mountains all remained open, too. But officials sidelined some chair lifts out of concerns about the severe wind.
Because of the deluge, interim Los Angeles County Health Officer, Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, cautioned water enthusiasts to avoid swimming, surfing and playing in the ocean near outlets for storm drains and rivers because of the bacteria and debris swept downstream. Contamination could make people ill, he warned. The health advisory was to remain in effect until 2 p.m. Monday.
In many places, the rainfall has been coming down in buckets. And as of midafternoon, amounts were beginning to mount, according to the National Weather Service.
By Friday evening, San Marcos Pass in Santa Barbara County reported a stunning 7.62 inches of rain while the tourist hot spot of Solvang reported 5.84 inches.
The high, and in some cases eye-popping, amounts of rain did not come as a surprise to weather experts, who have been saying for days that a sort of perfect storm was brewing and expected to explode over Southern California.
Season of deluge
The eye-popping, amounts of rain did not come as a surprise to weather experts, who have been saying for days that a sort of perfect storm was brewing and expected to explode over Southern California.
“It’s a pattern that we’ve seen pretty much since the beginning of the year, where you have a strong polar jet stream swooping out of the North Pacific,” said Bill Patzert, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Patzert said a low pressure system being towed by the jet slammed into a Pineapple Express-style plume of moisture barreling in from the west.
“It’s another one of these atmospheric river events that originates in the subtropics at about Hawaii,” he said.
No, it’s not the work of El Niño, which turned out to be a bust last winter – at least for the southern part of the state. And the dry La Niña we thought was coming but fizzled out isn’t holding the moisture back, Patzert said.
The absence of both, he said, “has really opened the door for these cold storm events coming out of the north colliding with atmospheric rivers. It’s this type of set-up that has brought some of our wettest winters.”
While it seemed for a while there that it would never rain again in Southern California, Patzert said a wet winter was destined to return to the region at some point.
“There are three seasons in California,” he said. “There is drought, followed by fire, followed by deluge.”
Staff writers John Blodgett, Dana Bartholomew, Shane Newell, Laylan Connelly, Cynthia Washicko and Stephanie K. Baer, Brooke Edwards Staggs and Scott Schwebke, and The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
‘Singing in the Rain’
“It’s a pattern that we’ve seen pretty much since the beginning of the year, where you have a strong polar jet stream swooping out of the North Pacific,” said Bill Patzert, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “And what it’s doing is dragging a low pressure system. It’s pretty intense and it’s definitely taking aim at the Southland.”
That is clashing with a Pineapple Express-style plume of moisture barreling in from the west.
“It’s another one of these atmospheric river events that originates in the subtropics at about Hawaii,” Patzert said.
The result? Copious rainfall. Crazy wind. Crippling snowfall.
“It’s definitely not like ‘Singing in the Rain’ with Gene Kelly,” Patzert said.
No, it’s not the work of El Niño, which turned out to be a bust last winter – at least for the southern part of the state. And the dry La Niña we thought was coming but fizzled out isn’t holding the moisture back, Patzert said.
The absence of both, he said, “has really opened the door for these cold storm events coming out of the north colliding with atmospheric rivers. It’s this type of set-up that has brought some of our wettest winters.”
Staff writers John M. Blodgett, Dana Bartholomew, Shane Newell, Laylan Connelly, Cynthia Washicko and Stephanie K. Baer, Brooke Edwards Staggs and Scott Schwebke, and The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
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