Storm Rachel remnants: waves wreck California homes, Las Vegas floods

The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel have struck the southwestern United States: on the coast at Long Beach near Los Angeles waves destroyed homes, while in desert Las Vegas streets were flooded after record rainfall. This is reported by Reuters and local TV stations.

The situation was worst in Long Beach. The agency’s footage shows powerful waves breaking over the sea defences and water pouring straight into houses. Construction equipment meanwhile piled up sand berms to prevent further damage. According to a local TV station, the waves destroyed part of a wooden boardwalk about a hundred years old. Eight buildings have been declared unsafe, some have suffered serious structural damage, and one house may collapse.

Flooding also affected other parts of the coast, including Newport Beach: water flooded the streets, and city authorities declared a local state of emergency. The cause was a combination of an unusually high tide and heavy ocean swell.

The remnants of Rachel also brought unusually heavy rainfall to the mostly desert regions of California, Arizona and Nevada. On Sunday Las Vegas airport recorded 27.4 millimetres of rain — a record for that calendar date, more than three times the usual October norm and more than a quarter of the annual total. The downpours caused localised flash floods in parts of the city, and near the Strip streets turned into rivers on which cars were stranded.

Around Phoenix, Arizona, Saturday’s thunderstorms triggered a massive sand and dust storm — a haboob. Such storms are not unusual for the region, but this time it was intensified by tropical moisture linked to the remnants of Rachel.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz