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California

More flash floods possible as storms move across Southern California

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A 30-foot tall Chinese elm tree was blown over on Via Sotelo in Riverside.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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Janette Johnson looks at her mud-covered driveway on Via Sotelo in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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Janette Johnson looks at her coral tree that split wide open during the severe wind and rain that damaged dozens of trees and homes in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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Valentin Roman removes branches of a fallen Chinese elm tree on Via Sotelo in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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John Britton rests from clearing mud and debris from the front of his son’s house on Via Sotelo in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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A work crew prepares to remove a pair of Chinese elm trees on Via Sotelo in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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Scott Britton looks at a line on his front door where storm water rose and inudated his home on Via Sotelo in Riverside.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
By Joseph Serna
 and Anh Do
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A flash flood watch remained in effect Monday for Riverside County after a slow-moving downpour drenched several Inland Empire communities and stranded cars in several feet of water over the weekend.

Riverside Canyon saw more than 1 1/2 inches of rain over a two-hour period Sunday and Valley Vista near Hemet had more than three inches of rain, said Stephen Harrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Firefighters had to rescue five adults and three children who became trapped near the 91 Freeway and 14th Street, KTLA reported.

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The showers also resulted in at least two inches of rain in the slow lane of the eastbound 60 Freeway at Main Street, leaving cars stuck in the water, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Monday’s flash flood watch was issued for the mountains and deserts in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as Coachella Valley, and is in effect until 8 p.m.

The stormy weather pattern is a spinoff from Hurricane Norbert, which is dwindling in strength along the peninsula of Baja Mexico, officials said.

Despite the heavy downpour, the rain does little for the region’s long-term drought outlook, officials said.

“Unfortunately, these storms don’t really make a dent in the drought,” Harrison told The Times on Monday. “We need a large, prolonged rain event to really make a dent.”

Forecasters said the same thing last month when a near 500-year rain event in the San Gabriel Mountains flooded several communities and triggered destructive mudslides.

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Joseph Serna

Joseph Serna is the deputy editor of culture and talent at the Los Angeles Times and helps oversee its career training and recruitment efforts.

Anh Do

Anh Do, the community engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, works across the newsroom to spotlight our journalists and journalism, bringing our diverse talent closer to the audiences they serve via virtual and live events. She’s a member of the recruiting team and also represents the paper in communicating with the public who have questions about The Times’ journalistic standards and practices. Before this job, she spent 11 years in Metro covering Asian American issues and general assignments. A second-generation journalist, she has reported for the Seattle Times, the Orange County Register and Nguoi Viet Daily News. Do, born in Saigon, is a graduate of USC with degrees in journalism and English. Her writing on culture and trauma has won awards from Columbia University and the Asian American Journalists Assn. She received Yale’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism and, in 2016, was part of The Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attacks. Apart from words, she’s passionate about all things canine, spending nearly three decades supporting dog rescue around the globe.

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