New Year’s Eve storm floods streets, strands motorists, cancels horse races

The New Year of 2023 arrived in a deluge of rain that flooded streets throughout Southern California, stranding motorists, drenching celebrations and causing overnight havoc. And another heavier storm is expected later in the week.

The downpour contributed to a low turnout at Los Angeles’ big New Year’s Eve celebration at Grand Park in Downtown L.A. Organizers expected about 40,000 people to attend, but little more than 6,000 showed up.

The soaking also caused Santa Anita Park to cancel its New Year’s Day racing program on Sunday. But the horses were expected to be back on the track on Monday, and the popular Corgi dog race was delayed until February 19. Track officials said all tickets sold for Sunday will be fully refunded automatically with no further action required by purchasers.

In San Bernardino County, raging floodwaters trapped two adults and a child in a stalled car in Lytle Creek. Several 911 calls alerted the San Bernardino County Fire Department to the stranded vehicle about 2:30 a.m. Sunday at Forest Service Road and South Lytle Creek Road.

A specialized water rescue team was dispatched to save the trapped people, who were uninjured in the ordeal.

Battalion Chief Mike McClintock said the waters were “gnarly.”

“It was a pretty risky situation they had going on,” McClintock said. “The water was rushing pretty fast. For our crews to get at them by foot was pretty risky.”

In Jurupa Valley, firefighters rescued a woman at 3:16 a.m. Sunday who was trapped on an island in the Santa Ana River bottom, surrounded by a 40-foot-wide river that had swelled to waist deep. Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department reached the woman in the river near West Market Street at Via Cerro and rescued her in an inflatable raft that was guided back to shore.

Firefighters said the woman refused medical treatment. No further information was available.

 

In Tustin, the Orange County Fire Authority rescued five people from two vehicles on the flooded Fourth Street offramp from the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway at 11:53 p.m. Saturday. Authorities said one adult was sitting on top of a vehicle and four adults were sitting inside a second vehicle. No one was injured.

A downed tree almost fell onto a house in Beverly Hills and blocked Coldwater Canyon Drive, near Cielo Drive for several hours. Police said the tree fell at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday and was cleared from the roadway by 7 a.m. Sunday.

Also in Los Angeles, the Universal Studios Boulevard onramp to the southbound Hollywood (101) Freeway was closed due to flooding but reopened late Sunday morning, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Thick mud oozing onto the roadway forced the closure of State Route 138 between the Los Angeles-San Bernardino County Line (263rd St.) and State Route 18. Traffic was being diverted Sunday.

In West Covina, two people were pulled by emergency workers from a car that got stuck in three to four inches of water under Interstate 10 on Saturday.

The rains prompted a voluntary evacuation alert in Orange County on Saturday for the burn area in Silverado and Williams canyons. The alert was lifted at 7 a.m. Sunday.

While the storm cleared for New Year’s Day, more strong rain is expected this week, according to David Sweet at the National Weather Service.

Two low-pressure fronts are heading toward Southern California, the later expected to bring extreme winds, heavy storms and flooding, Sweet said.

The first storm will likely bring light rain by Monday night or Tuesday. The second front arrives Wednesday night or Thursday, bringing two to four inches of rain to the lower areas and eight to ten inches in the mountains, Sweet said. That storm is forecast to generate winds of up to 50 mph.

(City News contributed to this report.)

Source: Orange County Register