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| Homes in Long Beach, California, battered by days or waves generated by offshore hurricanes are crumbling under the assault. Photo via Facebook from Storm Chaser Jordan Hall |
The two storms are causing additional damage in a summer and autumn that has produced a lot of tropical trouble on the Pacific side of North America.
RACHEL
Tropical Storm Rachel is long gone now, having fed a storm in northern New York and New England that dumped heavy rains Tuesday.
Rachel started harassing California several days ago when the storm was still offshore.
A Kelvin wave has elevated sea levels along the coast. Then, huge waves from then-Tropical Storm Rachel created more destruction Thursday night and Friday.
The most damage occurred in on Long Beach Peninsula. The boardwalk there and homes lining the boardwalk, were damaged in previous storms this year.
By Saturday night, the century-old Long Beach boardwalk was almost completely in ruins and homes along that boardwalk were beginning to crumble.
"At least eight buildings, including some condos and apartments, have been red-tagged. Another property has been yellow tagged.
One home appeared severely damage and at risk of falling into the ocean."
A home that is red tagged means the house is unsafe for occupation and nobody should enter them until repairs make the structure safe.
Video showed the buildings cracked and sagging, threatening to collapse, as waves continued to batter and undermine the structures over the weekend .
The Long Beach Marathon went on as scheduled Sunday, but had to be rerouted away from the beach due to storm damage and coastal flooding. Elsewhere along the coast, homes on Dana Point were also damaged by waves.
A large crack appeared on an embankment separating the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. The crack was narrow in a video taken yesterday, but was much wider today
The storm dumped heavy rain on far southern California.
Southern California seldom gets much rain in October, But several stations, especially in the mountain Palomar and Birch Hill, at elevations of over 5,300 feet elevation each had a little more than 3.8 inches of rain.
In coastal communities, Carlsbad had 1.65 inches, Oceanside had 1.55, and National City had 1.29 inches. San Diego itself has had 0.84 inches so far. Three quarters of an inch fell just on Saturday. Normal for San Diego for the entire month of October is just a half inch.
On top of all this, little or no rain fell north of Las Angeles. Gusty winds from the storm helped spread a growing brush fire in Santa Clarita. The fire burned 475 acres and forced evacuations, but it has since calmed down and residents have returned home.
Meanwhile, gusty winds and flash flooding harassed Arizona, Utah, Nevada and southwest Colorado.
In Utah, about 70 runners Sunday in Utah's Moab 240 ultramarathon were evacuated from the race route after they were stranded by flooding. None of the athletes were injured.
The event was ultimately canceled. "The weather has become too dangerous to safely continue - we've received reports of aid station structures blowing away, trees falling down, wind, rain, freezing temps - and we're expecting conditions to get worse tonight."
A major route through Cottonwood Canyon, Utah was closed by flooding, too. A little over an inch of rain fell in Las Vegas, causing flash flooding that stranded cars and blocked roads.
HURRICANE SIMON
Powerful Hurricane Simon has been torturing the west coast of Mexico over the past few days.
It's been moving northwestward, parallel to the Mexican coast since at least Sunday. Top winds were 150 mph on Sunday.
Winds with Simon had decreased to 90 mph. The hurricane has been close enough to the Mexican coast to.cause battering waves and torrential rains. Tropical storm Rachel and Hurricane Simon have so far teamed up to kill 5 people in Mexico.
The hurricane was meandering very slowly Wednesday with a somewhat unpredictable path. Current projections have it going into the Gulf of California later this week.
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