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World Americas

State of emergency in California as storm knocks out power for 900,000, delays and cancels flights

Affected areas include LA, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Santa Barbara



A flooded street in Santa Barbara, California, on February 4, 2024. Hurricane-force winds whipped the seas off California, while heavy rains raised flood risks from San Francisco to San Diego, as another powerful Pacific storm arrived on the state's doorstep.
Image Credit: Bloomberg

CARLSBAD, California: Swaths of the US state of California were flooded on Monday and hundreds of thousands of people were without power after a dangerous storm brought heavy rains and prompted a state of emergency.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in eight counties with a combined population of more than 20 million people, and flash flood warnings were issued for parts of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

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“This has the potential to be a historic storm, severe winds, thunderstorms, and even brief tornadoes,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told a news conference

Affected areas include Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Santa Barbara.

Nearly 900,000 customers were without power early Monday morning, according to the electricity supply tracker PowerOutage.us.

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A large tree partially blocks the southbound lane of Highway 1 in Monterey.
Image Credit: AP

Dozens of flights in and out of Los Angeles airport were delayed or cancelled, according to flightaware.com.

The National Weather Service had earlier issued a warning that a “strong Pacific storm system would bring impactful and dangerous flooding rains, heavy snow, strong winds, coastal flooding, and high surf to California”.

“Heavy rainfall will bring the threat for life-threatening flash, urban, and river flooding as well as debris flows and mudslides,” said NWS.

The storm is the second Pineapple Express weather system, or atmospheric river storm, to hit the state in the past week and arrived just as Los Angeles welcomed celebrities for the music industry’s Grammy awards, where the red carpet was tented but other attendees were forced to slog through heavy rain in glitzy cocktail attire, some with only a handbag for an umbrella.

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Residents stand along a flooded street as a powerful long-duration atmospheric river storm, the second in less than a week, impacts California on February 4, 2024 in Santa Barbara.
Image Credit: AFP

The severe conditions prompted the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Bay Area office to issue a rare hurricane-force wind warning for Big Sur and nearby areas.

The rain cancelled the final round of the professional golf tournament at Pebble Beach in Northern California’s Monterey County. Because heavy rain was forecast for Monday, the PGA Tour ended the event after only three days, naming Wyndham Clark the winner.

The San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County were not only getting drenched but the storm was expected to stall or reverse course over some areas into Tuesday, creating severe risk of flooding and mudslides.

“The Monday evening commute is going to be a complete disaster to say the least. In fact, it’s going to be bad enough that I would recommend everybody stay home in L.A. if we possibly can,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, said in a live-stream on Sunday.

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The NWS recorded peak wind gusts of 80 mph (129 kph) or higher in some places.

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