Palm Springs And Coachella Valley Work To Clean Up After Tropical Storm Hilary Brings Floods, Damage

On Monday morning in Palm Springs and across the Coachella Valley, residents and visitors woke to a serene sunrise and cloudy skies, a very different picture from the weather throughout much of the night.

The storm brought more than half of an entire year’s worth of rain to the region in a single day. Flooding was significant across the valley, but there have not been reports of deaths or serious injuries at this point. Now the desert cities will have to contend with serious cleanup and damage control.

Main roads have been closed as a precaution since Saturday and some 30 miles of Interstate 10 was closed due to flooding, which made it virtually impossible to get out of or into the city of Palm Springs from the west as of now. The westbound lanes of the 10 reopened at about 12:15 p.m. Monday and the eastbound side reopened shortly before 1 p.m.

The storm brought serious impacts, including residents in a mobile home park in Mecca — in the southern part of the Coachella Valley — being evacuated due to flooding. Some of the most severe flooding has been in that area. Other big impacts included a sinkhole opening up on an Indian Wells street and a Rancho Mirage hospital needing floodwaters pumped out of its lower floors. Arcing power lines set off some small fires in Palm Springs, but the local fire department was able to put them out.

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911 call line failure

There were intermittent power outages for some residents, and in the middle of the night, the 911 call line went down across the Coachella Valley. There’s still no estimate on when it may be back online. Riverside County sent an alert to residents with alternative numbers to call for their area, but it’s unclear if visitors also received that alert.

Sunrise on Monday after the worst of Tropical Storm Hilary had passed was a serene sight over the Coachella Valley.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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Shane Reichardt, Riverside County Emergency Management Department’s public information officer said so far the impacts they’ve seen and responded to have been relatively minor and expected, such as some water getting into homes. They’ve also conducted some swift water rescues, primarily of people who got stuck in their vehicles in flooded streets, he said.

“Generally speaking, we've seen impacts like these before, so it's hard to say that the tropical storm delivered more of a punch than we've seen with some other storms,” Reichardt said. “Certainly we're seeing damage, so it's not an insignificant storm by any measure.”

He said the true extent of the damage won’t be known until later today and in the coming days.

Taking precautions

Before the storm, most people I spoke with were skeptical about how bad it would be, though many were still taking precautions, with many grocery stores in the area running out of essential supplies such as water, battery and flashlights.

Unhoused folks I spoke with weren’t sure where to go for shelter — for example, there’s only one overnight shelter here in the city of Palm Springs and it only has 20 beds. Many businesses closed early on Sunday or didn’t open at all. Overall, it does seem most people heeded the message to prepare and stay home.

Reichardt said the tropical storm along with the coincidental impact of an earthquake up in Ojai in Ventura County is yet another reason to always be prepared for a disaster year-round here in Southern California. And, of course, human-caused climate change is only making our wild weather here more extreme.

“We have a very diverse state and we can have a lot of different things that happen from fires to floods, to earthquakes,” Reichardt said. “By residents having a preparedness mindset, their go bag looks the same for earthquakes as it does for fires, for floods. We want people to learn lessons from each event and make sure that they are prepared for themselves, their families, their specific situation.”