Hilary’s water will have finished sprinkling on OC at about dawn. By then, the post-tropical storm will likely be a bit west of Reno, perhaps on its way to water Idaho’s potato crop. It’s not to early to try to sort of the successes and the failures. This is important in part because it’s not likely to be 79 years before something like this happens again. We were fortunate that the storm went aground in Baja, which took some of the stuffing out of it, rather than following a coastal route. While ocean temperatures were not too warm this year, partly thanks to an El Nino, they are trending warmer — and as they get as warm as they were in Baja California Sur, where the storm formed, we would likely have a real hurricane to contend with. In that sense, good news yesterday may be bad news for the future; to the extent that this storm was milder than expected (at least for us), it may lull us into a false sense of security. (I’ve started to think of it as “Hurricane Kohoutek,” if you’ll pardon the astronomical deep cut from the 70s.)
This post will be where I’ll follow various stories as the facts get filled in. I have four general topics in mind, but feel free to suggest others in comments.
1. OC got off fairly easy; our near neighbors did not
The canonical images of OC, for the rest of the country, were of surfers in Seal Beach riding some truly good-looking waves. The storm was not very bad here — mostly street flooding, some trees down, no injuries recorded so far. No one seems to have lost electricity in our county — as opposed to in every county we border. Except in the canyons, rain totals tended to be moderate: 2-4 inches depending on who you believe. The Canyons were facing the possibility of evacuation orders due to the prospect of mudslides; but I haven’t read mention of any.
The Inland Empire, in contrast, got hammered. The worst hit spots appeared to be San Gorgonio and the San Bernardino mountains, but people were halfway up to their knees in water in Palm Springs — which had a 911 outage — and elsewhere. Coachella Valley had damage to its schools and its roads and their environs remained flooded. Eastern San Diego County and Imperial County took the brunt of the early hours of the storm. Indio ran out of enough emergency responders and asked others for help. On the positive side, the Salton Sea has had its pollutants diluted somewhat and it will be less dusty for a while. Rancho Mirage and Cathedral City had flooded roads.
Los Angeles had many outages; a reported 40,000 homes without power. Trees and power lines are reportedly down, though I haven’t been able to relocate the source for that. Too many communities are facing flooding to name them all. Life-threatening flooding hit Malibu, and apparently extended into southern Ventura County. To a lesser degree than the IE, LA County has overflowing rivers. The northern areas — Palmdale, Lancaster, and the rest of the Antelope Valley — we one of the top spots for rainfall.
Further away, Nevada is preparing for the storm, which is expected to bring more than two years worth of rain to some of its dry rural areas in one day. I have an unconfirmed report (FOAF) of flooding on the strip, but haven’t been able to verify it. Nevada has literally never had a recorded tropical storm pass over it before; it has plenty of dry washes and such that are expected to pose great hazards.
Mexico got hammered; I hope that we’re having the grace to help out there. Migrant asylum seekers were sleeping out in the open; if lucky, covered with tarps.
2. How Well Did We Take Care of the Poor and Homeless?
I don’t know personally. This is not a Day One story for most news outlets, but while we seem to have avoided tragedies I don’t get the sense that we did that well. (Did the homeless get their vouchers?) I haven’t hear whether Anaheim implemented much of anything that Mayor Ashleigh promised — as an alternative to just buying a bunch of coffee, water, and snack food and letting people into ARTIC as some wild-eyed blogger suggested — but we should definitely follow up on this. I deputize anyone reading this to write in with reports.
3. Could This Goose Us Towards Burying Power Lines?
As noted above, trees fell and outages happened, but one story to follow up on is whether this will goose us towards doing the rational thing and burying our power lines? In the days and weeks to come, we’ll have a better sense of how many came down — and the consequences for living things nearby. Again — stronger storms — with higher winds and more water — are coming.
4. By the Way — Did We Capture Any of this Water?
Water capture is an issue that politicians love to campaign on, but for some reason not much seems to get done. Republicans campaign on building reservoirs and dams, perhaps not fully appreciating that such things take maintenance and that costs money. (Fresh water traveling unimpeded to the ocean is a disappointment; having a dam burst or get topped, sending a concentrated burst of water downstream, can be a full-scale tragedy. So let’s ask that question of some of our politicians in the weeks ahead.
*Dr. D,
Living here in San Clemente has given us a special look at what flooding and landslides are all about. As people look at their properties around the County, most say: “Well,
nothing fell down and we weren’t flooded out….so how bad could it be?” The problem
as we see it is the lasting effect of torrential rains and the stealth underground erosion
that can occur, which does not manifest itself until days, months or perhaps years later.
The proliferation of “Sink Holes”, “Earth Cracks”, “Landslides” and even “Falling Cliffs”
and “Major Residences” may be present. Our suggestion to all those who are anticipating buying a home anywhere in the county, to request a current Geological
evaluation before they buy. Right now the Buyer has to pay for this assessment, but
we believe that the cost should either be “Split” or “Paid for by the Seller”. But what
do we know?
San Clemente? You guys moved from Corona Del Mar? You in Talega or what?
I didn’t get around to writing about it, but the San Clemente council is going ahead with district elections. Only Laguna Hills is fighting it.
Yes, always get a geological report. The soils can be very different from one block to the next.
Usually we get mud flows when it’s raining, and big chunks falling as it all dries out.
A general rule of thumb is that south facing slopes are more prone to slippage. Hire a geologist to inspect the property, and they’ll explain why.