News Desk
ISLAMABAD/CALIFORNIA: As California’s elite coastal enclave of Montecito and Santa Barbara braced for heavy downpours and storm, authorities told residents including celebrities such as Prince Harry and Meghan and Oprah Winfrey to leave the community.
Weather forecasters warned Californians to prepare for a “relentless parade of cyclones” over the next week as they were ordered to evacuate and move to safe places, the BBC said.
Heavy downpour lashes Prince Harry’s residence
The heavy downpour lashed Santa Barbara, home to celebrities such as the Duke and Duchess, Prince Harry and Meghan, and the deluge had already 12 lives and left thousands of residents without power.
Local authorities said that more than 100,000 people were without electricity as of Monday afternoon.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said around 90 percent of Californians, some 34 million people in the most populated US state, were under flood watch.
Californian Governor Gavin Newsom said that they expect to see the worst of it still ahead of them.
Montecito Fire Department directed Santa Barbara residents and nearby canyons to immediately leave the community.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the evacuation order had been issued after the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that was going to change before nightfall on Monday.
The authorities told the residents, who were unable to flee, to move to their innermost rooms or the high ground.
It could not be ascertained if Prince Harry or his wife and children were currently in Montecito.
The US National Weather Service (NWS) said that up to 20cm of rain had already fallen over 12 hours in the region.
Montecito is also home to many Hollywood celebrities such as actor Rob Lowe and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who posted a video from the banks of a flooded creek on Monday said it was crazy as the creek next to his house never flows but it was probably about nine feet up and was going to go another two feet up.
The evacuation order comes on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide in Montecito that claimed 23 lives and destroyed more than 100 homes.
This new round of severe weather conditions will bring heavy rain on already flooded rivers, damaging winds that are expected to topple trees and power lines, and heavy snow in the California mountains.
