CALIFORNIA: States in the arid west are mostly racing to prepare for their lives as Hurricane Hillary crosses Mexico on Saturday, with destruction and one death reported.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Saturday night that winds at Hillary had dropped significantly but remained at a dangerous 90 mph (145 km/h) with high winds. , which will take the storm from Level 4 to Level 1 on the Saffir-Simpson five-point scale.
NHC said the center of the typhoon would “move near the center of the Baja California peninsula and west of the coast on Saturday night and Sunday morning” and then cross Southern California in the afternoon.”
“Heavy rains” affecting the Baja California region and the southwestern United States, “life flooding with the potential to cause serious damage.
The storm is expected to turn into a hurricane before reaching southern California and southern Nevada, heavy rain and flooding are still possible.
Mexico’s civil protection agency said on Saturday that rivers and streams in Loreto and Mulegue have risen too high, and Baja California’s east coast has also collapsed due to earthquakes and foreclosures. A car got caught in a current in Mulague and one person died.
In the Mexican tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas People, residents and workers have built protective panels and placed thousands of sandbags as massive waves hit the shore. Military personnel spotted the beaches of the city, which is a popular destination for Mexican and foreign tourists in the southern part of the Baja California peninsula.” Yesterday we were all cautious,” Omar Olvera told news agency at the beach restaurant where he works in Cabo San Lucas on Saturday. There were sandbags around the restaurant.
“We’re just watching the workers and waiting for the weather to improve,” he said. Near Los Cerritos, it was closed due to high tide. “Last night we didn’t feel the wind as strong as we would like, but it still worries us,” said Marco Segura, a 57-year-old worker at Los Cerritos.
The Mexican government sent nearly 19,000 state troops through the worst of the storm, while the Federal Fire Company sent 800 workers and hundreds of vehicles to respond with electricity.
In the US, “regions of southern California and southern Nevada are projected to receive 3 to 6 inches of rain, and up to 10 inches in isolated amounts,” the NHC said.
“Safety and even the possibility of serious damage.” Nancy Ward, California Governor’s Director of Emergency Management, said Hillary could be one of the worst storms to hit the state in more than a decade. “Make no mistakes,” she said at a press conference on Saturday. “This is a very stormy, very dangerous and very serious storm.”
FEMA dispatched teams to areas Hillary had targeted before, and Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for much of California. At Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border, he was briefed on storm preparations by senior staff on Saturday.
The White House says Biden and her crew, First Lady Jill Biden, plan to visit Hawaii on Monday to assess the fire damage.
