Hilary slams southwest US with heavy rain

Tropical Storm Hilary drenched Southern California with record rainfall, shutting down schools, roads and businesses before edging in on Nevada on Monday.Some 17mn Americans were under flood and high-wind advisories, watches and warnings as remnants of the storm moved north, dumping heavy rains from the California-Mexico border up through Las Vegas and into parts of the Northwest, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.One of the hardest hit communities has been Palm Springs, California.Mayor Grace Garner told CNN that the city’s 911 emergency system was knocked out by the storm."Right now we have flooding on all of our roads. There’s no way in or out of Palm Springs, and that’s the case for the majority of the Coachella Valley. We’re all stuck,” she said during an interview on the network.A steady rain fell on Monday morning in many parts of the region, where record-breaking downpours had already fallen.Hilary was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone overnight.Some mountain and desert areas could see rain accumulation totals reaching 5-10” (12-25cm) from the storm, as much as the deserts typically see in a year, forecasters said.Los Angeles, the second-most populous city in the United States, experienced flooded streets and downed trees and power lines in some neighbourhoods, officials said on Monday, urging residents to stay vigilant.The rain was expected to slowly dissipate throughout the morning in Southern California, but officials warned residents not to let their guard down as dangerous flooding could wash out roadways and inundate neighbourhoods."The ongoing and historic amount of rainfall is expected to cause life-threatening to locally catastrophic flash, urban and arroyo flooding including landslides, mudslides and debris flows today,” the weather service said.California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for much of Southern California while President Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to move personnel and supplies into the region.Despite the storm’s weakening as it tracked inland, US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Deanne Criswell urged people to take the dangers seriously”.Before striking the US Southwest, the storm passed northward through Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. It killed at least one person in Mexico, triggered flash flooding and swept away roads.It crossed the border on Sunday afternoon, hitting San Diego County with its first tropical storm ever recorded and becoming the first to pelt Los Angeles County since 1939.As the region hunkered down for the storm on Sunday, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit Southern California north of Los Angeles.In Ventura County just northwest of Los Angeles, Fire Department Captain Brian McGrath told CNN on Monday that the bulk of the rain had passed through the county with no significant road closures, although authorities were surveying for any extra storm or earthquake damage such as fallen trees.Nancy Ward, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said Hilary could be one of the worst storms to hit the state in more than a decade.