Los Angeles has been hit with another disaster in the middle of Hurricane Hilary, TMZ reports.
According to the report, residents of Los Angeles were trapped inside, watching their favorite Netflix shows, surfing social media or deciding where to order some Uber Eats, a 5.1 magnitude quake, centered in Ojai rocked the city.
Most West Coast folks also got a firsthand taste of the earthquake warning system on their phones when an alert was blasted out reading, “Earthquake Detected! Drop, Cover, Hold On. Protect Yourself.”
The National Weather Service has been using push notifications for the storm since it hit L.A. early Sunday morning. Just 2 hours before the earthquake alert went out, residents’ phones blew up with a warning for flash floods in several areas.
Hilary, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm, made landfall in Mexico, while the neighbours to the north are getting rained down officials say it could be the most devastating storm to hit the state in years.
Tropical Storm Hilary inundated streets across Mexico’s arid Baja California Peninsula with deadly floodwaters Sunday before moving over Southern California, where it swamped roads and downed trees, as concerns mounted that flash floods could strike in places as far north as Idaho, Associated Press (AP) reports.
Forecasters said Hilary was the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years, bringing floods, mudslides, high winds, power outages and the potential for isolated tornadoes. The storm already dumped more than 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) of rain in some mountain communities and threatened more than an average year’s worth of rain in inland desert areas.
Hilary made landfall along the Mexican coast in a sparsely populated area about 150 miles (250 kilometers) south of Ensenada Sunday, then moved through mudslide-prone Tijuana, threatening the improvised homes that cling to hillsides just south of the U.S. border. By Sunday evening, the storm had moved over San Diego and was headed north into inland desert areas, AP reports.