Water rescues, floods and power outages as rain drenches parts of Southern California

Thousands of Los Angeles residents were without power, countless commuters were jammed on freeways and at least 10 people were rescued from Southern California rivers Tuesday during a heavy rainstorm.

 

More than 7,300 L.A. Department of Water and Power customers from Watts, Westlake and surrounding communities still had no power at noon because of the storm, LADWP officials said. The utility estimated it would have power restored by 5:30 p.m.

 

An outage knocked out power to Caltrans water pumps that keep the 710 Freeway dry, leading to flooding near Gage Avenue, said Caltrans spokesman Patrick Chandler. The freeway was shut down for a short period until the southbound side gradually reopened. The northbound lanes where the flooding was centered were reopened just after noon, the CHP reported.

 

 

Where the freeways were open, drivers still ended up in hazardous situations. The California Highway Patrol said that on Tuesday from 4 a.m. to noon there were 527 reported accidents on Southern California freeways. For the same time period last week, when it was sunny, there were 267 accidents.

 

In Orange County, a hillside in Silverado Canyon gave out under the morning downpour and briefly buried a road under four feet of mud stretching 15 feet across, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Shane Sherwood. The incident was one of three mud flows in the area that crews had to clean up before noon. No one was injured he said.

 

In the San Gabriel Valley, storm water washed out the ground beneath a home’s garage, partially collapsing a wall and spilling debris into Rubio Wash, county public works officials said. The home was red-tagged and a railroad bridge project next to it has been stopped.

 

 

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