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  • 3 years ago
Storm chaser Reed Timmer gives an update on the flash flood threat in Banning, California, where travel on Interstate 10 was significantly affected due to heavy rainfall from Hilary.

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00:00 Good morning from Banning, California. I'm right along I-10 and the situation just to the east
00:05 here along I-10 is really bad along the Whitewater River. It ended up coming up and over I-10 last
00:12 night closing down the interstate and causing damage to the interstate itself from Whitewater
00:18 all the way downstream. And the Whitewater River actually flows right along I-10 and as that flow
00:24 increased over 20,000 cubic feet per second last night it ended up overtopping portions of I-10
00:30 flooding out some neighborhoods along the Palm Springs area and definitely led to a very
00:34 dangerous night along I-10 for motorists. All of that rain was dumped up on the peaks of the San
00:40 Bernardino Range and just about every single river and wash flooded and had a big time debris flow.
00:46 That includes the Oak Glen area down Birch Creek, Forest Falls, Mill Creek. You also had the San
00:52 Gugorno Wash that ended up flooding very big and took out the bridge here just to the north of
00:57 Banning. But the big river is the Whitewater River that extends off to the east of that big peak
01:03 and that's where all the upslope flow was last night and the big time rainfall rates that persisted.
01:08 Those heavy rains anchored over the peaks in the San Bernardino Range and that led to
01:12 multiple surges down each individual wash. Probably three to four different flood surges
01:18 and that ended up flooding out Interstate 10. It looks like traffic is still backed up. There
01:23 is some indication that Interstate 10 is going to be opening up later on in the morning but traffic
01:28 is certainly backed up and it's getting diverted around the road closure along I-10 near the Palm
01:34 Springs area. The air out here feels very stable right now. You can definitely tell it's in the
01:39 wake of a big rainmaker tropical storm in the desert but definitely a very unprecedented
01:45 hydrological disaster around here in Southern California that played out yesterday with
01:49 Tropical Storm Hillary.
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