Crews worked to dig roads, buildings and care home residents out of the mud across a wide swath of Southwestern U.S. desert Monday, as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years headed north, prompting flood watches and warnings in half a dozen states.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Tropical Storm Hilary had lost much of its force as it headed to the Rocky Mountains, but warned that "continued life-threatening and locally catastrophic flooding" was expected in parts of the region.Forecasters said the threat for flooding in states farther north on Monday was highest across much of southeastern Oregon into the west-central mountains of Idaho, with potential thunderstorms and localized torrential rains on Tuesday.
In one dramatic scene, rescue officials in the desert community of Cathedral City, near Palm Springs, drove a bulldozer through mud to a swamped care home and rescued 14 residents by scooping them up and carrying them to safety, Fire Chief Michael Contreras said. Hilary is the latest potentially climate-related disaster to wreak havoc across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Hawaii's island of Maui is still reeling from a blaze that killed more than 100 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Firefighters in Canada are battling that nation's worst fire season on record.
"It's quite unusual for an Eastern Pacific storm to be so large since they are usually small and stay deep in the tropics," said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, an expert on Pacific hurricanes. Hilary shattered daily rain records in San Diego and likely dumped the equivalent of a full year's worth on Death Valley National Park, forcing the park to be closed indefinitely and leaving about 400 people sheltering at Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells and Panamint Springs until roads could be made passable, park officials said.
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