Highways submerged in water, power lines and trees downed down, neighborhoods covered in mud: tropical storm Hilary has caused significant damage in California, where authorities believe Monday, August 21 to have avoided the worst after its passage.

This storm, very rare in Southern California, broke daily rainfall records, according to the US Weather Service (NWS). Some places received the equivalent of a year's worth of rain in the space of 24 hours.

In Oak Glen, a small mountainside village halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, the deluge caused a vast mudslide that invaded the streets, an AFP photojournalist found. Knee-deep slush, Brooke Horspool spent her morning clearing to help her neighbours, whose garage was destroyed and who are still stuck in their homes. "They can't go out: if they open the door, the mud rushes into the house," said the accountant, who has spent his entire life in the area. At 49, he witnessed the "worst flood" he had ever seen.

Hilary had made landfall Sunday in the Baja California peninsula, located in northwestern Mexico. It caused the death of a person, swept away with his vehicle by the waves.

Palm Springs, cut off from the world

In California, where a magnitude 5.1 earthquake also shook the southern part of the state on Sunday, the worst seems to have been avoided. The metropolises of Los Angeles and San Diego, the most populous in the affected area, have no deaths related to the storm, according to press conferences given Monday by the authorities. However, they continue to call for caution. As a precaution, the Los Angeles School District, the second largest in the United States, chose to close its schools on Monday.

Elsewhere, the damage is still being assessed. The deluge turned many roads into rivers, especially around Palm Springs, a city about two hours from Los Angeles in the desert, which was cut off from the world.

"Right now, all our roads are flooded. You can no longer enter or leave Palm Springs, and this is the case for most of the Coachella Valley. We're all stuck," Mayor Grace Garner told CNN Monday morning.

In the nearby city of Cathedral City, rescuers evacuated residents trapped by mud and water by transporting them in backhoes, an AFP photojournalist found.

The famous Death Valley National Park, known for its extreme temperatures, closed because of flash floods that hit the region.

Despite record rainfall, southeastern California has "escaped worst-case flood scenarios," said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. According to him, the rain "did not fall as quickly as we feared (...) And the impacts of the floods were fortunately not as catastrophic as they could have been."

Climate change

The storm is now losing its force. After passing through Nevada, it is expected to head to the states of Oregon and Idaho, further north.

U.S. President Joe Biden is closely monitoring the operations, according to the White House. He also arrived with First Lady Jill Biden in Hawaii on Monday to see the damage caused by deadly wildfires and learn about ongoing search operations.

Hilary is the first tropical storm of the season to make landfall on the Pacific side. According to scientists, storms are becoming more powerful as the world warms with climate change. "We also need to look at what climate change has to do with these severe weather events," federal disaster management agency chief Deanne Criswell told CNN. "What the risk will look like in the future."

With AFP

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