{"id":369534,"date":"2025-12-26T07:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/369534\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T07:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:18:13","slug":"severe-atmospheric-river-storm-causes-flooding-mudslides-in-southern-california-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/369534\/","title":{"rendered":"Severe atmospheric river storm causes flooding, mudslides in Southern California – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southern California<\/a> braced Thursday for another powerful storm system that could cause more flooding<\/a> and mudslides, a day after heavy rain and gusty winds were blamed for at least two deaths.<\/p>\n

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Forecasters said the region could see its wettest Christmas in years, increasing the risk of debris flows in areas scorched by\u00a0wildfires in January<\/a>. Those burn scar zones have been stripped of vegetation by fire and are less able to absorb water.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a falling tree killed a San Diego man, local\u00a0news outlets<\/a>\u00a0reported. Farther north, a Sacramento sheriff\u2019s deputy died in what appeared to be a weather-related crash.<\/p>\n

San Bernardino County firefighters said they rescued people trapped in cars when mud and debris rushed down a road leading into Wrightwood, a resort town in the San Gabriel Mountains about 130 kilometres northeast of Los Angeles. It was not immediately clear how many people were rescued.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFlood damage assessment in Abbotsford\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Roads in the town of about 5,000 people were covered in rocks, debris and thick mud on Thursday. With power out, a local gas station and coffee shop running on generators were serving as hubs for residents and visitors. Statewide, more than 120,000 people were without power, according to PowerOutage.us.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s really a crazy Christmas,\u201d said Jill Jenkins, who was spending the holiday with her 13-year-old grandson, Hunter Lopiccolo.<\/p>\n

Lopiccolo said the family almost evacuated the previous day, when water washed away a chunk of their backyard. But they eventually decided to stay and still celebrated the holiday. Lopiccolo got a new snowboard and e-bike.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just played card games all night with candles and flashlights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Resident Arlene Corte said roads in town turned into rivers, but her house was not damaged.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt could be a whole lot worse,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re here talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heavy rain<\/p>\n

Residents around burn scar zones from the Airport Fire in Orange County were under evacuation orders.<\/p>\n

Areas along the coast, including Malibu, were under a flood watch until Friday afternoon, and wind and flood advisories were issued for much of the Sacramento Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n

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The storms were the result of multiple\u00a0atmospheric rivers\u00a0carrying massive plumes of moisture from the tropics during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.<\/p>\n

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Southern California typically gets 1.3 to 2.5 centimetres of rain this time of year, but this week many areas could see between 10 to 20 centimetres with even more in the mountains, National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford said.<\/p>\n

Snow at higher elevations<\/p>\n

More heavy snow was expected in the Sierra Nevada, where wind gusts created \u201cnear white-out conditions\u201d in places and made mountain pass travel treacherous. Officials said there was a \u201cconsiderable\u201d avalanche risk around Lake Tahoe, and a winter storm warning was in effect through Friday.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in six counties to allow state assistance in storm response.<\/p>\n

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The state deployed emergency resources and first responders to several coastal and Southern California counties, and the California National Guard was on standby.<\/p>\n

The California Highway Patrol reported a seemingly weather-related crash south of Sacramento in which a Sacramento sheriff\u2019s deputy died. James Caravallo, who was with the agency for 19 years, was apparently travelling at an unsafe speed, lost control on a wet road and crashed into a power pole, CHP Officer Michael Harper said via email.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, residents in Princeton, British Columbia, were on high alert<\/a> as an\u00a0atmospheric river<\/a> approached, raising water levels and renewing flood concerns in the region where the Tulameen and Similkameen rivers converge.<\/p>\n

For many in Princeton, the weather system served as an unwelcome reminder of 2021, when floodwaters submerged large parts of the community.<\/p>\n

Other parts of the Province, including Abbotsford, were also under storm watch<\/a> in December as heavy rains caused further flooding in low-lying areas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern California braced Thursday for another powerful storm system that could cause more flooding and mudslides, a day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[157344,3335,43,44,41,39,42,40,519,2845,1133],"class_list":["post-369534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-atmospheric-river","tag-california","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trending","tag-u-s-news","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}