Powerful storm throws rain and snow on Southern California – San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Heavy rain hit southern California on Tuesday, December 14, causing flood warnings, water rescue calls, power outages and crowded streets.
The rain kept Los Angeles firefighters on their toes, with at least two vehicles washed into the Los Angeles River – where they got stuck on a bridge pillar north of Washington Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. At least one of the vehicles was pushed further south.
No victims were found.
But city firefighters found and rescued a 26-year-old man who fell in the river canal near Sylmar High School Tuesday morning, officials said. The man, who was taken out of the river through a maintenance hole, suffered minor injuries and hypothermia.
Related: These are the areas in Southern California that have evacuation orders or warnings
In other places, the rain was accompanied by strong gusts of wind that knocked trees and power poles over.
In Laguna Beach, large rocks tumbled onto Laguna Canyon Road, causing a lane closure as motorists trudged through flooding along the Pacific Coast Highway and Broadway.
In Silverado Canyon, Orange County firefighters worked to rescue residents trapped in mudslides through neighborhood streets.
And flooding hit the streets of the San Fernando Valley and a neighborhood in Lake Forest where water stranded an SUV driver on a street.
Flood warnings have been issued in Orange County – near the Bond burn scar in the canyons and a large area from Tustin in the south to Laguna Beach, meteorologists said. An evacuation order had been issued near Bond’s burn scar area but was later lifted. An evacuation warning has been issued for the area below the Bobcat burn scar area in Monrovia and Azusa.
Additional evacuation orders or warnings were issued in the Inland Empire north of Fontana and northeast of Yucaipa.
# Whiter city tree down my street. No injuries. #LArain pic.twitter.com/YPaeV1eNz4
– Grace (@GraceReaza) December 14, 2021
According to a Southern California Edison outage map, more than 12,500 Southern California customers were without power as of 10:30 p.m. because of the storm.
4,984 customers who lost power were in Los Angeles County, 637 in Orange County, 1,044 in Riverside County, and 6,012 in San Bernardino County, according to the outage map. After outages affecting thousands of customers in the City of Riverside earlier in the day, power was restored at 8:30 p.m., according to Riverside Public Utilities.
By 5 p.m., most areas in Los Angeles County, Orange County, and the Inland Empire had seen between one and a half to two and a half inches of rain, weather forecasters said. Lake Forest received 2.55 inches of rain while Villa Park Dam on Santiago Creek received just over 4 inches of rain in an isolated incident, said Brandt Maxwell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s San Diego office.
In the Los Angeles County’s mountains, it measured seven inches of rain in spots and 10 inches of snow in Mountain High, said Kristen Stewart, a meteorologist with the NWS Los Angeles office.
The authors Brian Rokos and Quinn Wilson contributed to this report.
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