Hilary live updates: tropical storm brings flash-floods and tornado warnings to southern California – latest news

Emergency temporary shelters are remaining open in Los Angeles, authorities have said, to help homeless people affected by the extreme weather.

In total the city is providing 400 “units” of accommodation, the City of Los Angeles said, adding that it had opened five shelters near high-risk areas near the city’s waterways and potential flood zones on Saturday and another three were opening on Sunday as part of its plan to expand coverage across Los Angeles.

Transportation to shelters is being offered and Angelenos are allowed to bring their pets.

Key developments

In Nevada, to the north of California, Governor Joe Lombardo has also declared a state of emergency and activated 100 National Guard troops to assist with problems from predicted flooding in western Clark and Nye counties and southern Esmeralda County.

Hilary could wallop other western states with once-in-a-century rains, with a good chance of it becoming the wettest known tropical cyclone to douse Nevada, Oregon and Idaho. It’s expected to remain a tropical storm into central Nevada early Monday before dissipating.

In Arizona, wind gusts have neared 60 mph (97 kph) in Yuma County and officials have given out thousands of sandbags.

California’s state of emergency has been expanded to include Mono County, governor Gavin Newsom has said.

A statement from his office said the state was also organising the distribution of 300,000 sandbags and that the California National Guard had strategically prepositioned more than 350 soldiers and two dozen high water vehicles.

More than 730 firefighters and support staff have been deployed and equipment includes 43 fire engines and five helicopters.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system, is closing all campuses on Monday.

“There is no way we can compromise the safety of a single child or an employee, and our inability to survey buildings, our inability to determine access to schools makes it nearly impossible for us to open schools,” superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a media briefing.

San Diego schools have postponed the first day of classes from Monday to Tuesday.

The wires have been sending through more pictures from around the areas affected by the storm:

Food delivery service DoorDash is suspending delivery services in eight areas of southern California including Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego County and Imperial Valley, local broadcaster KTLA is reporting.

“To keep our community safe, DoorDash is activating its Severe Weather Protocol and temporarily suspending our operations in parts of Southern California,” DoorDash spokesperson Jenn Rosenberg said in a news release.

The company said it expected operations to resume at about 11am on Monday depending on weather conditions.

The National Weather Service has extended the flash flood warning for Los Angeles County until 3am on Monday and for South Central Inyo County and Western San Bernardino County until 11pm on Sunday.

In Los Angeles a “dangerous and life threatening flash flooding situation” is developing from Point Mugu and Camarillo eastward through the Thousand Oaks and Woodland Hills area and across the mountains of Los Angeles County, it said.

In South Central Inyo and San Bernardino “flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly”.

Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said that while Hilary has weakened from a Category 4 hurricane, it’s the water, not the wind, that people should watch out for most.

“You do not want to be out driving around, trying to cross flooded roads on vehicle or on foot,” Brennan said during a briefing from Miami, according to AP.

“Rainfall flooding has been the biggest killer in tropical storms and hurricanes in the United States in the past 10 years, and you don’t want to become a statistic.”

The National Weather Service has also warned people against driving through flood waters:

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The storm has passed through Mexico with “not too much damage” and only rain remains, president Manuel López Obrador has tweeted.

“We are continuing to care for the victims and to restore communications and electricity,” he said.

Surfers have been taking advantage of the big waves caused by the approaching storm:

I’m not sure if this counts:

Here’s the moment an earthquake – no damage or casualties so far reported – interrupted live coverage of the chaos already being caused in California by Hilary on Sunday afternoon:

Hilary will be the first recorded tropical strength storm ever to hit San Diego County, just north of the Mexican border; such a storm is also extremely rare for southern California.

Nora hit a remote part of Imperial County to the east in 1997, and in 1939, before storms were named, another came ashore in Long Beach to the north, in Los Angeles County.

It’s all part of a pattern of unusual weather to hit North America this year, with parts of the US including California sweltering under scorching heat and Canada suffering from extreme wildfires. Scientists have said that climate change has made weather patterns more extreme.

In Palm Springs, a desert getaway in Riverside County about 100 miles (160 km) east of Los Angeles and which has been one of the hottest parts of California this summer, the streets have flooded.

The city of 45,000 people typically gets around 4.6 inches of rain in an entire year and could receive 6-10 inches from this one storm.

Flood waters have also raced through the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River, which normally contains just a trickle.

It’s just after 5.3opm in Los Angeles and the eye of the storm is just north of the Mexican border, according to US National Weather Service meteorologist Lisa Phillips, who held a briefing at 4.30pm.

As of 2 pm PDT (2100 GMT), Hilary was about 115 miles (185 km) south-southeast of San Diego, California, the forecaster said. It was moving north-northwest at 23 mph (37 kph).

In Mexico, nearly 1,900 people have been evacuated to shelters in the Baja California peninsula, according to the country’s army.

Schools and other nonessential activities have been canceled through Monday, and authorities in the city of Tijuana, bordering San Diego, have urged people in high-risk zones to move to temporary shelters.

Around the coastal town of Mulege, on the eastern side of the Baja California peninsula, one person died after his family was swept away while crossing a stream on Saturday. Phone lines and electricity were cut in several of the surrounding villages after lamp-posts fell, the Mexican army added.

Mexico’s Navy has also evacuated about 850 people from five islands in the path of Hilary, which was previously designated a Category 4 hurricane before it weakened.

Storm Hilary has been weakening over the last 48 hours. But it is still set to be the wettest storm ever to hit the US Southwest, according to Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS), Reuters reports.

“This is a dangerous storm,” said Taylor, who works for NWS’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. “It’s not just the rain totals but the intensity.”

Hilary is set to dump vast amounts of water on many parts of the US Southwest that are more accustomed to dry conditions.

Areas such as Palm Springs, California, which typically gets about 4.6 inches of rain in an entire year, could receive 6-10 inches from this one storm. California’s Death Valley area, which receives only about 2.2 inches of rain a year, could receive 3-4 inches from this event.

Storm surges – when the ocean is pushed inland – could produce coastal flooding in parts of Baja California and the storm was carrying heavy rain that could cause catastrophic flooding in some areas, the NHC added.

Rainfall of 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15 cm), with isolated amounts of 10 inches, is expected across the northern Baja California peninsula as well as portions of Southern California and Southern Nevada, the Miami-based agency said.

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