dailynewsnblog
(Bloomberg) — California is facing another day of heavy rain and risks of flash floods, prompting Los Angeles County to extend evacuation orders as officials warn about the dangers for road travel in this busy holiday period.
A final system bringing bands of moderate to heavy rain will move across the state Friday, threatening flash floods in areas from Oxnard to Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service. Southern California may also see strong winds and thunderstorms near the coast.
Most Read from Bloomberg
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning from Malibu to West Hollywood through noon local time Friday. Los Angeles County extended evacuation orders for areas through 1 p.m. local time, the sheriff’s office posted. More than 50,000 homes and businesses in the state were without power Friday morning, mostly in Northern California, according to PowerOutage.us.
The Los Angeles Fire Department deployed a helicopter to rescue a woman swept into a stormwater wash Friday.
Travel has been hobbled during the Christmas holiday with flight delays and waterlogged freeways. Flooding, downed trees, storm damage, debris and mud slides have led to dozens of road closures in the LA area alone, county data show, with further closures and disruptions reported throughout the state.
Several days of deluge have impacted LA areas that were devastated by massive wildfires roughly a year ago. The charred off vegetation makes the land resistant to soaking up the water, increasing the vulnerability toward landslides, mudslides and power outages. It’s a risk that will persist whenever especially heavy rains strike Southern California until the soil recovers and vegetation grows back.
“Those soils are still hydrophobic, which means that rain just runs off like it’s hitting hard dirt or concrete,” Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said this week. “There are burn scars that have lasted for four or five years before you see any improvement.”
The heaviest precipitation hit mountain areas of the Golden State, from the San Gabriel Mountains in the south to the Sierra Nevadas to the north. More than 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain soaked Mount Baldy and Mount San Antonio east of Los Angeles, triggering mudslides in Wrightwood, where the 2024 Bridge Fire blackened 56,000 acres.
