First responders urge Californians to stay off the roads as Hilary strikes
AccuWeather's Bill Wadell reported live from Southern California on Aug. 20 as a lot of people were still on the roads through flash flooding from Tropical Storm Hilary.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Aggie Weathers Bill Waddell is in Indio, CA and that's southeast of Palm Springs.
00:07 And Bill, they've seen some intense rain in the past hour or so with thunderstorms
00:12 and severe thunderstorm warnings off to the south.
00:14 Yeah, that's right guys. You can see a lot of rain, a lot of humidity and a lot of moisture
00:20 taking over the camera lens. Right here in Indio, the heaviest rain just moved through
00:25 about five minutes ago and you can see right here on the sides of the roads,
00:28 some street ponding, some water cars splashing through. But again, this is very light conditions
00:33 compared to the downpours that we just saw just within the past 10 minutes. Check out the new
00:37 video just in the Aggie Weather a short time ago. Streets quickly filling with water in Cathedral
00:43 City, cars splashing through. Despite officials urging people to stay home and off the roads,
00:49 we're seeing a lot of people that are trying to travel today. Now over in the Palm Springs area,
00:54 several main roads connecting the city to Interstate 10 are blocked right now. Police
00:59 officers are worried about low-lying spots going underwater. And before the heaviest
01:04 rain moved in a short time ago, there was actually a helicopter and a large police drone overhead
01:09 to help monitor the situation in Palm Springs. We know that firefighters and other rescue crews
01:15 are on standby with high water rescue vehicles and rafts. Again, they're urging people if they can
01:20 to stay home and avoid traveling just because as you're seeing, when that heavy rain comes in these
01:26 deserts, in these valleys, it does not take much for these streets to flood. And we know we still
01:29 have hours of rain ahead of us. All right, thank you. There's Bill Waddell there on the ground for
01:35 us in California. And as we talk about this, it was pretty interesting to see that as Bill was
01:40 saying, lots of people out and about. Bernie, I thought we had seen it all yesterday with the
01:45 long lines at Costco, but people are still out and about today. Yeah, and this is where things
01:49 Things are going to be getting a lot worse.