Southern California coastal communities are picking up the pieces after a weekend of extreme weather brought flooding that overtook city streets and intense waves battered beachside homes.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit Mexico’s Baja California over the weekend as well as southern California and Las Vegas. While meteorologists noted that Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it approached California, it still left a trail of destruction.
Footage showed massive waves crashing into Long Beach homes, destroying a boardwalk and forcing residents to flee. The damage to homes was significant, leaving some at risk of collapse.
At least nine have been deemed unsafe to enter, the Long Beach Post reported, meaning displaced residents cannot return to retrieve personal items. The storm has cost the city more than $1m from its emergency reserves, according to the outlet.
Further south, the city of Newport Beach declared a local emergency and briefly closed piers to “protect public safety”, citing “higher-than-normal surf” that inundated streets.
By Monday, cleanup work was under way and Newport Beach had reopened the piers, but officials advised residents to exercise caution near the water.
In Las Vegas, a raging torrent of water rushed over a street near the strip, and the city tied an all-time daily rainfall record for October with 1.08in (2.74cm) of rain into Sunday morning, according to the US National Weather Service.
The extreme weather comes as El Niño is supercharging the Pacific, leading to large and long-lasting storms. The last five hurricanes in the Pacific all reached major status and saw with winds of at least 111mph (178.6 km/h), and one set a record for time spent at category 5.
Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach, who forecasts and studies storm activity, told the Associated Press that the last month has been “berserk”.
“This year, just everything that forms is just lasting a long time and getting really powerful,” he said.
California is bracing for a challenging winter with severe storms thanks to an exceptionally strong El Niño. Models from the the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) show a high chance this could be a historic El Niño and deliver rainy wet weather, landslides and destructive high tides.
The state is one of the places expected to be significantly affected by the climate pattern, although the effects are expected to be seen worldwide, with temperature spikes and rising global food prices.
Associated Press contributed reporting
