
Tropical storm watches were issued for the southern coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Also, Tropical Storm Franklin formed in the eastern Caribbean. It was far from land, moving west in the open ocean. "I can't remember a storm like this."Īlso Sunday, one of several budding storm systems in the Atlantic Ocean became Tropical Storm Emily, according to the National Hurricane Center. "It's really choppy out there, not really surfable yet, but I think we can find a good break somewhere later," Johnson said. On Sunday morning in coastal Carlsbad, just north of San Diego, 19-year-old Jack Johnson and his friends kept an eye on the huge waves, determined to surf them at some point Sunday. Meanwhile in California, the warnings from officials didn't keep everyone indoors. Power lines were toppled in many places, and emergency personnel were working to restore power and reach those cut off by the storm. Soldiers used bulldozers and dump trucks to help clear tons of boulders and earth clogging streets and roads that were turned into raging torrents a day earlier. Mexican army troops fanned out across Mulege, where some of the worst damage occurred Saturday on the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula. Rescue workers saved four other people, said Edith Aguilar Villavicencio, the mayor of Mulege township. Firefighters in Canada are battling that nation's worst fire season on record.Īs Hilary bore down on Mexico, one person drowned Saturday in the Mexican town of Santa Rosalia when a vehicle was swept away in an overflowing stream. Hawaii's island of Maui is still reeling from a blaze that killed over 100 people and ravaged the historic town of Lahaina, making it the deadliest U.S.

Hilary is just the latest major climate disaster to wreak havoc across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury, according to a dispatcher with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. It was felt widely and was followed by smaller aftershocks. Southern California got another surprise in the afternoon as an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.1 hit near Ojai, about 80 miles (130 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, according to the U.S. "There is no way we can compromise the safety of a single child or an employee, and our inability to survey buildings, our inability to determine access to schools makes it nearly impossible for us to open schools," Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a media briefing. San Diego schools postponed the first day of classes from Monday to Tuesday. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system, and said all campuses would be closed on Monday as did districts across the desert. Richard Pasch, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, said the storm should become a "post-tropical cyclone" sometime Monday as it loses a well-defined center, but that "very heavy" rain and strong winds are still likely. The storm was projected to weaken as it continued moving northward over California and into Nevada, but threats remained. It then moved through mudslide-prone Tijuana, threatening the improvised homes that cling to hillsides just south of the U.S. The storm walloped California after making landfall in Mexico's arid Baja California Peninsula on Sunday in a sparsely populated area about 150 miles (250 kilometers) south of Ensenada. Crews pumped floodwaters out of the emergency room at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. Meanwhile, rain and debris washed out some roadways and people left their cars stranded in standing water. The first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, Hilary brought intensifying rain to the region, with some mountain and desert areas seeing more than half an average year's worth of rain come down in just one day, including the desert resort city of Palm Springs, which saw nearly 3 inches of rain by Sunday evening.įorecasters warned of dangerous flash floods across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, and fire officials rescued a dozen people from knee-deep water in a homeless encampment along the rising San Diego River.

Millions braced for more flooding and mudslides, even as the storm began to weaken. LOS ANGELES - Tropical Storm Hilary drenched Southern California from the coast to inland mountains and deserts Sunday evening, prompting rescues from swollen rivers and forcing some of the nation's largest school districts to cancel Monday classes.

Southland soaked by historic floods, shaken by 5.1 earthquake 03:54
