{"id":211710,"date":"2025-12-26T10:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211710\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:59:08","slug":"three-dead-as-heavy-rain-flash-floods-hit-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/211710\/","title":{"rendered":"Three dead as heavy rain, flash floods hit California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Further downpours and high winds are forecast for California after a series of storms hit the US state.<\/p>\n<p>They brought torrential rain, causing flash floods and warnings of debris across fire-scarred areas in the south of the state.<\/p>\n<p>Driven by an atmospheric river, known as &#8216;the Pineapple Express&#8217;, which moves heavy moisture from Hawaii to the US West Coast, the storms were forecast to dump one month&#8217;s worth of rain on California.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said that southern California, including Los Angeles, the second-most populous US city, was at risk of excessive rainfall.<\/p>\n<p>It warned of a &#8220;broad plume of moisture&#8221; producing heavy rain in the state.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Numerous flash flooding events are possible. In addition, many streams may flood, potentially affecting larger rivers. The flooding may include debris flows in or near recently burned areas,&#8221; the service said, referring to areas affected by wildfires.<\/p>\n<p>The rain is forecast to continue through today, the service said.<\/p>\n<p>The NWS warned that some areas could see winds with gusts of up to 88.5km\/h.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities declared a state of emergency in several counties, including Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not out of it yet. Rain continues to fall across LA County making roadways, waterways and flood channels extremely dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Check conditions before venturing out,&#8221; Los Angeles County officials said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Los Angeles County firefighters dig a pathway for a resident in Wrightwood, California\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0023ac25-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nFirefighters clear a path for a resident in Wrightwood, California<\/p>\n<p>Heavy rain began lashing southern California on Wednesday, where some communities had already seen 25.4cm of rain in the first storm, forecasters said.<\/p>\n<p>At least three people died in storm-related incidents, including a man killed by a falling tree, the Los Angeles Times reported.<\/p>\n<p>In San Bernardino County, adjacent to Los Angeles, authorities said they were working to divert the flow of floodwater.<\/p>\n<p>Muddy water streamed through the mountain town of Wrightwood, trapping people in their homes, said Christopher Prater, spokesperson for the county fire department.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fire department personnel were out there rescuing people, assisting them from their houses, getting them to safety, also while affecting rescues from people that were stranded in their vehicles,&#8221; he said, with work going on into the night.<\/p>\n<p>Fire-burn scar zones, which are less able to absorb water due to vegetation being stripped from them, were under special alert &#8211; including the coastal areas of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, both still recovering from devastating wildfires in January.<\/p>\n<p>In northern California, a dangerous storm was tracked developing early yesterday morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an emergency alert for flash flooding issued, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.<\/p>\n<p>The NWS office in San Francisco warned that a severe thunderstorm near Santa Cruz could spawn a tornado.<\/p>\n<p>The service was also predicting that a storm could bring heavy snowfall to the Sierra Nevada Mountains along California&#8217;s eastern border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Further downpours and high winds are forecast for California after a series of storms hit the US state.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-211710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}