Flash Floods Hit San Diego

Facts

• Flash flooding hit San Diego on Monday, after the city saw three inches of rainfall in three hours. Mayor Todd Gloria declared a state of emergency as hundreds of people were rescued from the submerged San Diego River, Tijuana River Valley, and low-level areas on the coast.¹
• Preliminary data suggested the San Diego International Airport saw 2.7 inches of rain within the first four hours of Monday, making it a record for any day in January and the fifth wettest day ever recorded in the city. With neighborhoods from the South Bay to Oceanside underwater, some schools were canceled and freeways shut.²
• Lincoln High School was turned into a shelter during the deluge — the regional CEO of the American Red Cross Southern California Region stated it could take in 375 people. Parts of Tijuana, Mexico, and northern Baja, California were hit even harder, with US border agents rescuing at least eight migrants on the US side of the Tijuana River Valley.³
• Lifeguards and firefighters conducted 24 high-water rescues in just the San Diego and Tijuana rivers, as well as saving hundreds of people from their flooded homes. Traffic also built up along the I-15 highway as emergency crews worked to unclog storm drains.⁴
• In Los Angeles, authorities ordered evacuations near the Topanga Canyon through Tuesday morning due to potential mud or debris flow. There was also an avalanche warning in the backcountry mountains near Lake Tahoe, where the highest elevations were expected to see more than a foot of snow and wind gusts of up to 95km/hr.⁵
• By Monday afternoon, some 14.5k San Diego Gas and Electric customers had lost electricity, with another 22K residents in the city of Coronado being asked to limit their water usage for 24 hours to allow the sewer system to recover.¹

Sources: ¹New York Times, ²San Diego Union, ³NBC, ⁴FOX Weather and ⁵Guardian.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by CalMatters. Climate change has hit California particularly hard given its intensifying effect on droughts as well as the rare but severe rainstorms making landfall. The state government has already begun cracking down on local water managers and agreed on regional state-to-state water sharing, but it must also pass more bills to force lower carbon emissions if it wants to tackle the broader climate issue.
• Right narrative, as provided by Washington Examiner. Instead of working on ways to help Californians defend against high winds and rain, the state government has chosen to inundate them with fear over the world ending so it can impose power-grabbing laws. People are so afraid of the climate apocalypse that they've allowed their lawmakers to force companies to track not only their business-related emissions but those of their employees. The world isn't ending any time soon, so the public should take a moment to question if authoritarianism prompted by a changing climate is actually justified.

Predictions