Storm chaser Reed Timmer was just outside of Banning, California, where a bridge has been destroyed by the dangerous flooding from Hilary on Aug. 21.
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00:00 To the north of Banning, this is the destroyed bridge.
00:03 That's right along the San Gorgonio River.
00:06 This is the big flood that came through here.
00:08 It's normally a dry wash with a little bit of flow down,
00:11 usually related to snowmelt.
00:13 But this bridge over Maez Canyon here, right into the road,
00:17 was taken out by a significant flood
00:20 that came down off the San Bernardino Mountains.
00:22 In fact, just about every single canyon and wash flooded significantly.
00:26 Out near Oak Glen, people are still trapped.
00:30 Down Potato Canyon, out there as well.
00:32 Down Birch Creek, there was a big flood.
00:34 Mill Creek as well, in the Forest Falls area, flooded significantly.
00:38 This one came through, initially about 600 CFS,
00:42 and then exploded up above 3,000 cubic feet per second.
00:45 And that's what took out the bridge.
00:47 You can see some debris along the edge as well.
00:49 There are a lot of residents that live over just on the other side of the river there
00:53 that are trapped and they are unable to cross.
00:56 And this was definitely a significant flood.
00:58 There's still some flow coming down.
01:00 You can see the erosion and many of the natural barriers that are in place here.
01:04 Those are the San Bernardino Mountains just above,
01:06 and they rocket all the way up to about 12,000 feet.
01:10 But there's a lot of damage around this area,
01:12 on the southern and eastern and northern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains.
01:16 You can't even get to Palm Springs from the west along Interstate 10
01:19 because it's completely closed down as the Whitewater River overtopped it last night.
01:24 And that flow rocketed up above 20,000 cubic feet per second.
01:29 And that's why such a significant flood happened right down the interstate.
01:32 Motorists were trapped.
01:34 Has to be some terrorizing video coming out from there
01:37 as that mud overtopped I-10 and people were trapped in their vehicles with no escape route.
01:42 But this shows the power of water.
01:44 That's what's left of the bridge, and it expanded and eroded out the entire north side of the wash here.
01:50 And it definitely shows just how significant of a rainfall event this was.
01:54 It was a double-digit rainfall totals in the San Bernardino Mountains just above,
01:58 but the cleanup will likely take months to repair out here.
02:02 There's already been plans to rebuild this bridge,
02:04 and definitely a lot of destruction here across Southern California,
02:07 especially in the interior sections near the edges of the mountains.
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