Storm Hilary: Palm Springs cut off by year’s worth of rain in one day (2024)

The desert city of Palm Springs was cut off by floods after almost a year’s worth of rain was deposited in a single day by Storm Hilary.

Roads in and out of the town, famous for its Hollywood connections, were closed temporarily after more than three inches of rain fell on Monday.

Rescuers had to save several people from swollen rivers as Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit southern California in 84 years, hit. In one dramatic scene, rescue officials in the desert community of Cathedral City, near Palm Springs, drove a bulldozer through mud to the swamped care home and rescued 14 residents by scooping them up and carrying them to safety.

The storm also broke rainfall records in San Diego, which recorded its wettest day ever after 1.82 inches fell. Hilary, now a post-tropical cyclone, could still bring flooding to parts of Nevada, Oregon and Idaho.

One person died in the Mexican state of Baja California after their car was pulled into an overflowing stream, and another person was missing.

However, as the storm caused less destruction than anticipated, many shifted their attention to more curious matters, such as whether the famous home of the LA Dodgers baseball team was flooded or merely a trick of the eye.

Photos of the stadium show it seemingly surrounded by deep, dark floodwater, prompting a flurry of reports that the stadium’s outer grounds had been inundated.

Religious conservatives were quick to attribute the apparent flooding as divine retribution for a recent LGBT pride night event involving a group accused of mocking Catholicism.

Despite many being convinced the photos show anything but heavy flooding, the Dodgers team came out to debunk the claims.

The team said the images were an optical illusion and the moat was actually sunlight reflecting from the rainwater collecting on the car parks surrounding the stadium. Shortly after the storm passed and the sun appeared, team posted photos of the stadium looking completely dry.

“Dodger Stadium trending? We get it. It looks beautiful this morning,” the Dodgers posted on Twitter/X alongside pictures of the stadium as normal.

The Los Angeles Times said it was an optical illusion that had appeared previously, in that instance after a 2005 storm. “Reflection of light, that’s what it seems like,” the newspaper’s photographer Robert Gauthier said after snapping new images on Monday.

Away from the baseball park, much of southern California was drenched by Hilary. In San Bernardino County the authorities reported mud and debris slides that closed roads and trapped firefighters.

Along the rising San Diego River officials rescued 13 people from knee-deep water in a homeless encampment while an emergency room at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage was flooded.

As Hilary prepared to make landfall over the weekend, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, declared a state of emergency and President Biden offered federal assistance.

Despite the strength of the storm, however, the region appeared to avoid sustaining serious damage. No deaths have been reported.

Paul Krekorian, president of the Los Angeles city council, said the city “was tested but we came through it, and we came through it with minimal impacts considering what we endured”.

The wet weather might stave off wildfires for a few weeks in southern California and in parts of the Sierra Nevada but widespread rain is not expected in the most fire-prone areas, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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