El Niño Storm Brings Heavy Rainfall in Southern California
The first major El Niño storm of the season hit Southern California on Tuesday and brought heavy rainfall, which led to flooding in numerous roadways.
According to Los Angeles Times, the first of multiple El Niño storms that is expected to arrive in the coming days flooded the 101 Freeway between Santa Barbara and Ventura. Four vehicles were also damaged after boulders fell at Pacific Coast Highway on Malibu Canyon.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert revealed that the storm on Tuesday brought the most amount of rain in Los Angeles since Hurricane Linda. According to NBC News, the 1.42 inches of rain recorded at Los Angeles International Airport was also the highest since 1979.
The storm moved out on Tuesday afternoon but National Weather Service meteorologist Emily Thornton said that heavy rain will resume and could persist on Wednesday. Southern California will likely experience fair weather on Friday, but heavy rain is expected in Los Angeles on Saturday until Sunday.
The two storms on Wednesday and Thursday could bring as much as three inches of rain and the National Weather Service already issued flash-flood warning in California.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that no major roads were closed on Tuesday and that the majority of the areas did not lose electricity during the storm. Garcetti added that they have been preparing for the El Niño storms over the past several months.
Garcetti also revealed that outreach workers in the city have reached out to homeless encampments and to residents living in flood-prone areas to convince them to move to a safer place. However, he revealed that there were several families who declined to leave.
"We feel very comfortable in terms of the shelter's capacity," Garcetti said. "Part of it is the difficulty of getting people to come in. That's not for lack of workers."
However, Los Angeles County officials revealed that they have not received the requested funding to flush out debris from Los Angeles River. Los Angeles County supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl sent a letter to the Congress to ask for the release of the $4.5 million fund needed for the maintenance.
"Without this maintenance, this portion of the Los Angeles River will only provide a low level of flood protection, which is especially critical under the current El Niño conditions," Solis and Kuehl wrote.
Another supervisor, Michael Antonovich, admitted that they are now playing catch up because they were not alerted about the problem in funding before the El Niño storm arrived.
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