Hurricane Hilary was downgraded to a category 1 storm as it moved towards the Baja California region on Saturday evening, amid warnings of deadly flooding.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory on Saturday night that “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” was still likely and that the storm had maximum sustained winds of 90mph (145km/h).
Sitting about 175 miles (281km) south of Punta Eugenia, Mexico, and 535 miles (855km) from San Diego, California, it is moving north-northwest at about 18mph (30km/h) an is expected to reach the Baja California peninsula on Saturday night as a hurricane.
It is then expected to weaken to a tropical storm when it reaches southern California on Sunday afternoon.
Meteorologists warned that despite weakening, the storm remained treacherous.
Hilary is expected to dump 3-6 inches (7-15cm) of rain, with isolated areas receiving up to 10 inches, across parts of the northern Baja California peninsula through Sunday night, with flash and urban flooding expected, especially in the north.
Portions of southern California and southern Nevada were expected to face similar rainfall and flooding in the day or so, the NHC said.
Hilary is expected to be the first tropical storm to make landfall in southern California in 84 years. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, proclaimed a state of emergency, and officials had urged people to finish their preparations before sundown on Saturday. It would be too late by Sunday, one expert said.
In Mexico, one person drowned on Saturday in the town of Santa Rosalia, on the peninsula’s eastern coast, when a vehicle was swept away in an overflowing stream. Rescue workers managed to save four other people, said Edith Aguilar Villavicencio, the mayor of Mulege township.
It was not immediately clear whether officials considered the fatality related to the hurricane, but video posted by local officials showed torrents of water coursing through the town’s streets.
Some schools in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, were being prepared as temporary shelters, and in La Paz, the picturesque capital of Baja California Sur state on the Sea of Cortez, police patrolled closed beaches to keep swimmers out of the whipped-up surf. Schools were shut down in five municipalities.
Many homes in the border city of Tijuana, which has a population of 1.9 million, cling precariously to steep hillsides. Mayor Montserrat Caballero Ramírez said the city was setting up four shelters in high-risk zones and warning people in risky zones.
“We are a vulnerable city being on one of the most visited borders in the world and because of our landscape,” she said.
The National Hurricane Center warns that winds could be particularly strong and gusty in and near areas of elevated terrain.
Meanwhile, officials in southern California are scrambling to get unhoused people off the streets and into shelters in preparation for the storm. The Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority said that 50 people have been moved from the Santa Fe Dam area to safer locations. The government agency says that more than 100 outreach teams will be activated throughout LA county through Monday.
“I don’t think any of us – I know me particularly – never thought I’d be standing here talking about a hurricane or a tropical storm,” said Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles county board of supervisors.
The National Park Service closed Joshua Tree national park and Mojave national preserve to keep people from becoming stranded amid flooding. Cities across the region, including in Arizona, were offering sandbags to safeguard properties against floodwaters. Major League Baseball rescheduled three Sunday games in southern California, moving them to Saturday as part of split-doubleheaders.
President Joe Biden said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had pre-positioned staff and supplies in the region.
“I urge everyone, everyone in the path of this storm, to take precautions and listen to the guidance of state and local officials,” Biden told reporters on Friday at Camp David, where he is meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea.
Officials in southern California were re-enforcing sand berms, built to protect low-lying coastal communities against winter surf, like in Huntington Beach, which dubs itself “Surf City USA”.
In nearby Newport Beach, Tanner Atkinson waited in a line of vehicles for free sandbags at a city distribution point.
“I mean a lot of people here are excited because the waves are gonna get pretty heavy,” Atkinson said. “But I mean, it’s gonna be some rain, so usually there’s some flooding and the landslides and things like that.”
“Two to three inches of rainfall in southern California is unheard of” for this time of year, said Kristen Corbosiero, a University of Albany atmospheric scientist who specializes in Pacific hurricanes. “That’s a that’s a whole summer and fall amount of rain coming in probably 6 to 12 hours.”
The region could face once-in-a-century rains and there is a good chance Nevada will break its all-time rainfall record, said the meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections and a former government in-flight hurricane meteorologist.
This article was amended on 21 August 2023 to correct that Hilary was the first tropical storm to make landfall in California in 84 years, rather than the first tropical storm the state has experienced in that time. In 1997, Hurricane Nora made landfall in Mexico before entering California.
