Hilary live updates: storm brings flash-floods to southern California – as it happened | California

Closing summary

The city of Indio, in California’s Riverside County, has declared its own state of emergency, saying that the storm “exceeds the City’s capacity to address the impacts with its own personnel and resources”.

Governor Gavin Newsom had already declared a state of emergency in Riverside in Saturday.

According to Indio’s police department, the city’s 911 line is down.

The National Weather Service in Los Angeles has warned drivers to stay off the roads in Los Angeles and Ventura due to “heavy rain and dangerous road flooding”.

Flash flood warnings remain in place in both counties until 3am.

In its 8pm advisory, the National Hurricane Center reiterated its warnings about flash floods: “The “ongoing and potentially historic amount of rainfall is expected to cause life threatening to locally catastrophic” flooding as well as landslides, mudslides and debris flows through early Monday morning in the south-western US, it said.

Large swells generated by Hilary will affect the Baja Peninsula and southern California through early Monday and are “likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”

Schools are also to close on Monday in the Pasadena Unified School District, in northern Los Angeles, authorities have said.

At least nine rainfall records have already been broken across southern California on Sunday, the National Weather service has said.

They include in downtown Los Angeles, where 1.53 inches was recorded, breaking the previous record set in 1906.

In Lancaster, 2.72 inches were recorded. “This is the first time any rainfall has been observed on this date at Lancaster since records began in 1945,” the service said. “This also sets an August monthly record for rainfall on a single day.”

Record rainfalls were also recorded in Oxnard, Sandberg, Los Angeles Airport, Bob Hope Airport, Long Beach Airport, Palmdale Airport, and Santa Barbara Airport.

Nine people have been rescued from a riverbed, the fire and rescue service in San Diego has said, adding that it is “still looking for more people who may need help”.

President Biden says his administration has been coordinating its response to the storm with California, Nevada and Arizona and is also monitoring the effects of the earthquake that hit California this afternoon.

The centre of the storm is now about 10 miles south-east of Los Angeles, according to an analysis from CNN Weather, bringing with it winds of up to 45mph.

Emergency temporary shelters are remaining open in Los Angeles, authorities have said, to help homeless people affected by the extreme weather.

In total the city is providing 400 “units” of accommodation, the City of Los Angeles said, adding that it had opened five shelters near high-risk areas near the city’s waterways and potential flood zones on Saturday and another three were opening on Sunday as part of its plan to expand coverage across Los Angeles.

Transportation to shelters is being offered and Angelenos are allowed to bring their pets.

Key developments

In Nevada, to the north of California, Governor Joe Lombardo has also declared a state of emergency and activated 100 National Guard troops to assist with problems from predicted flooding in western Clark and Nye counties and southern Esmeralda County.

Hilary could wallop other western states with once-in-a-century rains, with a good chance of it becoming the wettest known tropical cyclone to douse Nevada, Oregon and Idaho. It’s expected to remain a tropical storm into central Nevada early Monday before dissipating.

In Arizona, wind gusts have neared 60 mph (97 kph) in Yuma County and officials have given out thousands of sandbags.

California’s state of emergency has been expanded to include Mono County, governor Gavin Newsom has said.

A statement from his office said the state was also organising the distribution of 300,000 sandbags and that the California National Guard had strategically prepositioned more than 350 soldiers and two dozen high water vehicles.

More than 730 firefighters and support staff have been deployed and equipment includes 43 fire engines and five helicopters.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system, is closing all campuses on Monday.

“There is no way we can compromise the safety of a single child or an employee, and our inability to survey buildings, our inability to determine access to schools makes it nearly impossible for us to open schools,” superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a media briefing.

San Diego schools have postponed the first day of classes from Monday to Tuesday.

The wires have been sending through more pictures from around the areas affected by the storm:

Food delivery service DoorDash is suspending delivery services in eight areas of southern California including Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego County and Imperial Valley, local broadcaster KTLA is reporting.

“To keep our community safe, DoorDash is activating its Severe Weather Protocol and temporarily suspending our operations in parts of Southern California,” DoorDash spokesperson Jenn Rosenberg said in a news release.

The company said it expected operations to resume at about 11am on Monday depending on weather conditions.

The National Weather Service has extended the flash flood warning for Los Angeles County until 3am on Monday and for South Central Inyo County and Western San Bernardino County until 11pm on Sunday.

In Los Angeles a “dangerous and life threatening flash flooding situation” is developing from Point Mugu and Camarillo eastward through the Thousand Oaks and Woodland Hills area and across the mountains of Los Angeles County, it said.

In South Central Inyo and San Bernardino “flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly”.

Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said that while Hilary has weakened from a Category 4 hurricane, it’s the water, not the wind, that people should watch out for most.

“You do not want to be out driving around, trying to cross flooded roads on vehicle or on foot,” Brennan said during a briefing from Miami, according to AP.

“Rainfall flooding has been the biggest killer in tropical storms and hurricanes in the United States in the past 10 years, and you don’t want to become a statistic.”

The National Weather Service has also warned people against driving through flood waters: