A large portion of Southern California
is waking up
under a state of emergency this morning
as Hurricane Hillary barrels toward land.
California
Governor Gavin Newsom
is deploying more than 7000 responders
and residents who plan to wait out
the storm.
They are stuffing sandbags
and stocking their refrigerators
before Hillary makes landfall
as a tropical storm later today.
In the next 48 hours.
Hillary is expected to bring catastrophic
flooding, fierce
winds, heavy
downpours, to Southern California,
to the coast there
in what officials say
will be
the wettest tropical cyclone
in the state's history.
We're joined now by CNN
meteorologist Allison Chin.
Charts of the rain from Hurricane Hilary.
That's really the major concern
over the winds, right?
Absolutely, yes.
And it really it's because it's
going to be more widespread.
You're going to have a larger population
that really sees the impacts
from the rain.
Now we take a look at where
the rain is now.
You're starting to see
a lot more of that rain surge back
in not only to California,
but also in Nevada, areas of Arizona,
even Utah.
And eventually
it will spread into the Pacific,
northwestern states as well.
The overall threat,
again, is very widespread.
Places like Los Angeles,
Las Vegas
and San Diego under a moderate risk
for excessive rainfall.
Las Vegas,
one of
two places
that in Bishop, California,
have already set record rainfall amounts.
That was from yesterday.
More records are likely to come in
the next 24 to 48 hours.
But it's this pink area here
that's a high risk for excessive
rainfall, the highest category
you could be in.
And that includes Death Valley
National Park and places
like Palm Springs and Palm Desert.
To put this in perspective.
This is a photo from last summer
Death Valley National Park.
All of these cars trapped
after a severe flooding event took place
and they had mudflows
subsequently afterwards.
This was caused by last in an inch
and a half of rain,
less than an inch and a half.
And that's
because this area only sees about
two inches roughly every year.
The forecast for the next
36 hours is two to four inches.
So you're talking a year's worth of rain
in a short period of time.
And even last year,
when we had significant
flooding problems,
they only got less than that.
So, again,
we're likely going to see those problems
not just in Death Valley,
but really for a lot of these areas
of Southern California,
Nevada, portions of Utah, Arizona,
and then even spreading further north.
That's why you have all of these flood
watches in effect.
Another concern
also is severe thunderstorms.
We have the potential for damaging winds
and yes, even a few tornadoes
for areas of southern California
as we head into the afternoon
and the evening hours.
This is a large storm
with a huge footprint,
unlike what we usually see in San Diego.
Normally, we're used to small pockets
that kind of bounce around.
That's not the case.
It's already pouring
rain out into the desert and east of us.
So it will come
and it will have the impact.
The projected
just the
threat of
mudslides and flooding is forcing
some people to leave their homes.
And evacuation
orders already in effect
for parts of San Bernardino County
and on Catalina Island,
people who have certain
medical needs
have been strongly encouraged
to evacuate the island.
We spoke to a man who said that
he's heading back to the island
this morning to ride out the storm.
I'm sure what to expect tomorrow,
but we've been warned
that the power might be turned off
on the island so far
and with storm surge waves and things.
So it could be pretty rough, I guess
a across Southern California
store shelves.
I get that
they're they're empty
as people prepare to stay indoors,
at least for the next couple of days.
CNN's Natasha Chen with more
now from Los Angeles.
Amara and
Victor, officials in San Diego
have been telling residents
there to be prepared
for the most intense weather
to come through Sunday afternoon.
First, a strong rains
followed by heavy winds,
especially in the mountain areas
inland to the east.
In fact,
we've got lots of national parks
and preserves
like Death Valley Joshua Tree, Mojave.
They're all closed to discouraging people
from coming.
A lot of plans
for big events
and concerts have been canceled
or postponed this weekend.
For example, baseball games
that were scheduled for Sunday
moved to Saturday
that concerts
at the Hollywood Bowl canceled.
And even the U.S.
Navy has moved their ships
and submarines
from San Diego temporarily
until this weather passes through.
The Coast Guard
and other emergency officials
are telling people
throughout town that Southern California
to really just avoid the water,
stay out of the water,
stay out of the flood prone areas.
Now, people whose homes and areas
may have seen flooding
in the winter storms months ago
should be prepared to do
similar things here with sandbags
bringing items indoors,
not driving out into the weather
if they don't have to.
But officials also say that,
you know,
the wildfires and earthquakes that
Californians are used to
they're the
Californians who are used to
those disasters
should be prepared in this case,
especially since this is an event
that can be tracked by radar
as opposed to those other
natural disasters
that sometimes
you can't tell the direction
or the timing of them.
Officials are really just warning people
that if they don't have to be out,
please do not go out Sunday and Monday.
The school districts and other employers
may be making their own decisions
come Monday
about whether
students and workers actually
show up to their place of work
or to school.
Aaron, Victor, back to you.
President
Biden and his team are closely
monitoring Hurricane Hillary
this morning.
FEMA officials held a call yesterday
ahead of the storm to brief the president
in that call.
FEMA explained
that they are deploying a team
to Southern California.
So it's in place when the storm hits.
None of their resources
will be pulled
from Maui to help with this storm.
I'm joined now by Craig Fugate.
He is a former FEMA administration.
Good morning, Craig.
Really appreciate
you joining us this morning.
So what is the top priority
for a team on the ground like that
when preparing for a storm like this?
Well, it's
really a union
with the state regional office
and the local officials,
so that as they start looking at
what they potentially
would need, FEMA's already working on it.
The thing we've learned going
as far back as Katrina, as far back
as Hurricane
Andrew is you can't
wait to know how bad something
is to start moving resources in.
So, again,
they'll be linking up
with local officials, state officials,
anticipating what they're thinking
and start moving
resources in anticipation of those needs.
And what kind of
resources are we talking about?
Well, for flooding,
what we're probably looking at with
this storm is going to be
widespread power outages.
So everything from emergency power
to cleanup kits
to some basic commodities.
But as was pointed out,
this is primarily
going to be a rainstorm.
We're looking at a lot of flooding.
And historically,
this is the thing I think
we sometimes lose track of.
We keep talking about when
these storms are deadly from water.
In fact,
more people
drown in hurricanes and tropical storms
than they do from the wind.
And so the important message
you're putting out there is stay home,
stay off the roads, don't drive through.
Flooded areas
could keep the death toll down.
Given the severity of the storm.
Yeah, you know, I'm
from Southern California, Craig.
My family is there.
You know, we're used to wildfires.
We've dealt with,
you know, plenty of earthquakes.
But storms,
even the simple rainstorm,
we're not used to.
And now we're talking about,
you know, a tropical storm.
Are you
what do you have specific concerns
about the fact that it's, you know,
at least the winds
and some of the gusts could hit.
And, of course, this rain event
could hit an area
that is not accustomed
accustomed to this kind of rainfall
in such a short period of time.
And is California set up to
handle a storm like this?
Well, you know,
as far as the response for California
office emergency services and their team,
I'm not concerned about that.
California is one of those states
where a water resource,
a lot of capabilities.
I am concerned
and this has been
something we're seeing repeated
over and over again
is extreme weather in areas
that have never experienced it before.
And what we don't know.
What we don't know.
Our infrastructure wasn't built for it.
You know,
comparing it
to other types of different disasters
doesn't always tell us to happen.
And I think the big concern is people
under estimate
how deadly this flooding can be,
particularly if they've been in an area
that's not usually seen this
and drive out thinking
that normal areas would be okay.
Finding them on the water,
try to drive through them and drown,
you know?
Yeah, that that's definitely a concern.
And, you know, I think
what's at the top of mind
for so many people
is this climate crisis right?
We're seeing disaster
after disaster, obviously fueled
by climate change.
And the impact that we're seeing
is FEMA's resources being drained.
We heard from
you know, Deanne
Criswell, FEMA's administrator,
who said that their disaster fund
is nearly out of money.
It's only August,
which means the peak of hurricane
season is not even here yet.
When you hear that
and it's going to cost about $6 billion.
That's what
we're hearing in terms of the estimate,
in terms of,
you know,
Maui's wildfires and the response there.
What could this mean for the future?
I mean, are you concerned
Well, obviously, and again,
when people say it's FEMA's
money, it's not yours,
it's the taxpayers money.
And the taxpayers are increasingly
seeing more and more of these events.
And the other thing we're seeing combined
with the insurance crisis,
because FEMA only reimburses
for uninsured losses.
So we see more and more people
underinsured or without insurance.
More and more governments
without insurance,
it increases the tax bill for you and me.
And this is increasing.
So, again, Congressman,
I'm not worried about being
we're running out of money,
but I do
think we need to be concerned as a nation
that if we're not investing more
in buying down our risk
and making more investments
and building roads
for future, not past events
as tax payer,
we're going to continue to pay the bill.
Yeah.