San Diego sees widespread flooding during wettest January day on record
The wallop of a Pacific front on Monday stunned California's second largest city even as it was expecting rain.
SAN DIEGO — Winter storms for relatively dry San Diego are hit-or-miss, but mostly miss, so the wallop of a Pacific front Monday stunned California's second-largest city even as it was expecting rain.
It was the third of three Pacific storms to strike the West Coast since Friday, with the first bypassing the region and the second producing only about one-third of an inch of relatively warm rain. A city that walked it off was then punished by the third storm, which had been forecast to be stronger.
It was the wettest January day on record in San Diego, the National Weather Service said. A high school in the city was being used as a temporary shelter after about 100 homes were in some way affected by the flooding, according to Mayor Todd Gloria, who declared a state of emergency "due to extreme rainfall and flash flooding."
Video posted to social media showed cars being swept away by fast-moving waters, on roads turned into rivers.
Tijuana and other parts of northern Baja California were hit hard. At least eight migrants were rescued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and San Diego Fire Department rescuers when they were endangered by the floodwaters of the Tijuana River Valley on the U.S. side, authorities said.
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