Another storm slams California on Christmas Day with flooding rain, high winds and mountain snow

By Andrew Freedman, Hanna Park, CNN

(CNN) — Another atmospheric river-fueled storm lashed California on Christmas Day, setting records in parts of the state and keeping homes under evacuation orders amid the ongoing threat of life-threatening flooding and debris flows. And the rain is expected to continue into Friday.

After a harrowing Christmas Eve with rescues and evacuations because of widespread flooding in parts of the state, a line of severe thunderstorms moved into Northern California early Christmas morning, with wind gusts in excess of 70 mph. Heavy rain set off flash flooding in the San Francisco metro.

In Southern California, some areas in the mountains to the north and northwest of Los Angeles have already seen 4 to 8 inches of rain, and the atmospheric river continues to soak the region. Feet of mountain snow, severe thunderstorms and strong winds round out the multiple threats the state is facing.

Downtown Los Angeles broke its record for the wettest Christmas Eve-Christmas Day holiday since 1971, while many other areas throughout Southern California also set new records, the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office said.

While rainfall Thursday and Friday was expected to be less than Wednesday’s, the new rain can easily result in flooding because the ground is already saturated.

In the hard-hit community of Wrightwood in San Bernardino County, shelter-in-place and evacuation orders are still in effect, with authorities telling residents not to venture onto area roadways following flooding and debris flows.

Mudslides, rock slides and debris flows were again a threat on Christmas Day, particularly in areas where burn scars are present from recent wildfires. The scorched ground of these scars repels water instead of absorbing it, quickly turning rain into a surge of floodwater that pulls mud and debris with it.

One person near a burn scar had to be rescued by helicopter on Christmas Eve, Los Angeles City Fire Department Capt. Adam VanGerpen told CNN.

Los Angeles County extended evacuation orders in burn scar areas until 1 p.m. Friday as the aftermath of the rain still impacted the region.

Evacuation orders were issued for specific homes deemed most at risk, with LAPD officers door-knocking and leaving flyers in an effort to reach those residents, VanGerpen said. Many people chose to stay despite the warnings, insisting “they’ve been through this before,” he said.

Emergency crews were bracing for the possibility of another inch and a half of rain Christmas night, VanGerpen said, highlighting “a large storm cell” that’s “going to be a direct hit to the Palisades area, where we had a recent burn scar.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Shasta counties Wednesday to mobilize resources. The city of Los Angeles also declared a local emergency Wednesday evening to ensure departments “have the required resources in the days ahead,” Mayor Karen Bass said.

Here’s the latest:

• Mountain resort community hit hard: The relentless rain unleashed flooding, mud and debris flows in Wrightwood, a community in the San Gabriel Mountains about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles. To stay safe, residents are being asked to shelter in place because the city got “so much water and so much mud” flow over Highway 2, local fire officials said. Some residents had to be rescued from inundated cars and by helicopter from the roofs of homes, officials told CNN. One child suffered minor injuries, but no other injuries or fatalities have been reported in the community, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Roughly 120 emergency personnel from several jurisdictions worked overnight Christmas Eve into Christmas Day helping residents.
• Thousands without power amid high winds: Strong winds and heavy rain blasted Northern California Wednesday, including the Bay Area, where a wind gust up to 108 mph was clocked in the northern hills. Wind gusts have topped 90 mph in multiple spots across Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains. Over 60,000 Pacific Gas and Electric customers in Northern California were without power Thursday evening, while the state had about 70,000 outages overall, according to PowerOutage.us.
• Chain controls in effect for I-80: The snowy side of this storm is now ramping up in the Sierra Nevada. Requirement 2 chain controls are in effect for Interstate 80, which means chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles except those with four-wheel or all-wheel drive that also have snow-tread tires.
• Santa Barbara Airport closes due to flooding: The three-runway airport closed Thursday afternoon due to flooding on the airfield, grounding all commercial flights indefinitely. The airport temporarily had closed its airfield early Thursday morning for eight hours due to flooding as well.
• Deputy dies in Sacramento crash: A Sacramento sheriff’s deputy crashed and died on a wet roadway in South Sacramento while driving to work early Wednesday, local authorities said. “While the crash is still under investigation, it appears that the vehicle was traveling at an unsafe speed on the wet roadway and lost control,” hitting a metal power pole, the state highway patrol said. Heavy rainfall had occurred in the 5 a.m. hour and light rain was in the area during the time of the crash. The deputy, identified as James Caravallo, “was a dedicated employee” of 19 years, the sheriff’s office said.
• Tree kills San Diego man: A 61-year-old man died Wednesday when a large portion of a tree fell on him, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Capt. Jason Shanley. High winds were blowing in the area at the time when the branch collapsed, pinning the man with family members unable to help, Shanley said. Firefighters and police were able to pull the victim from under the tree, but the resident succumbed to his injuries, he added. The victim’s daughter-in-law, who spoke with CNN affiliate KFMB but asked not to be named, described him as an “elderly, loving man” who “was always helping his family.”
• Flood warning in San Francisco: The Northern California city has also experienced flooding from heavy rain, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management. Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, has temporarily paused the self-driving taxi service in the San Francisco Bay Area due to a flash flood warning on Thursday morning. “Given the critical severity of the flash flood warning early this morning, we temporarily paused our service in the San Francisco Bay Area,” a Waymo spokesperson told CNN. “We are coordinating closely with city officials and emergency management, and we will bring our service back online as soon as possible inline with our safety protocols.”

In Wrightwood, neighbors pull together after Christmas flooding

Residents in Wrightwood spent Christmas navigating flood‑damaged homes after mud and debris surged through the mountain community, partially burying cars and homes – some nearly to the roof.

“I can literally walk onto my roof, the second-floor roof, from my backyard,” Misty Cheng told CNN affiliate KABC. She was out of town when the storm hit but came back on Christmas after a neighbor sent her video showing her property rapidly flooding “like a rushing river.”

Michelle Meyers told the Associated Press she was awakened during the flooding by a call from her father, who told her he’d just been rescued by firefighters.

“I said, from what? And he said, ‘two feet of water in my apartment.’”

Meyers said flooding from an overflowing wash behind her house left mud piled “all the way to the top” of her property.

Areas where Kaitlyn Johnson lives are also buried in feet of mud. She told KABC what started as “a little bit of flooding on the street” became “very alarming, very fast.” The floodwaters “tripled in size,” eventually breaking through a fence and inundating her home.

A neighbor of Johnson’s suffered a similar experience, describing how floodwaters overtook an adjacent property then “waterfalled into our backyard.”

“Our shed is full of mud, halfway up, and up to our door handle has mud,” the neighbor told KABC.

Another Wrightwood resident, Davey Schneider, told the AP he hiked more than a mile through the rain and debris to rescue the cats left behind at his grandfather’s house.

“Granddad got rescued but the cats did not. I wanted to come and help them out because I wasn’t confident that they were going to live,” Schneider said.

The dangerous storm upended Wrightwood residents’ Christmas plans. Johnson said she planned to visit family up in Barstow before the flooding was unleashed.

Emergency officials who worked through the night helping residents acknowledged the unfortunate timing and impact on the holiday.

“San Bernardino County Fire is devastated that many families are unable to be home together this Christmas due to the ongoing impacts of this incident,” the county fire department said in a statement on Christmas Eve night.

Cheng called the flooding “literally the nightmare before Christmas” and said she was devastated when she got to her home on Christmas Day.

“I just broke out in tears … to have five feet of pure dirt and rock inside my house, in my garage, in my backyard, halfway up my windows,” she told KABC.

Some in Wrightwood did what they could to make the best of the holiday, like Jill Jenkins and her 13-year-old grandson, who stayed to celebrate Christmas after nearly evacuating the day before.

“It’s really a crazy Christmas,” Jenkins told the AP. “We just played card games all night with candles and flashlights.”

During the flooding, a gas station and a coffee shop running on generators served as hubs for some in the town of about 5,000, the AP reported.

Meyers marveled at the support community members showed one another, describing how her call for help to a friend with a Jeep quickly snowballed to about eight people offering to step up.

“And that, to me, is the beauty of this town,” Meyers told the AP. “This community, whether it’s floods or fires or now this, they really pull together and they’re out helping each other.”

Risk stretches into Friday

All told, rainfall totals in Southern California through the end of the week could be as much as 4 to 7 inches in coastal and valley locations, while foothills and mountains see 6 to 14 inches.

To put those totals into perspective, a city like Los Angeles could see anywhere from two months’ worth of rain to nearly half a year’s worth in just a week.

Los Angeles has already seen a typical December’s amount of rain following Wednesday’s storm.

Impossible travel conditions in the mountains

Feet of snow falling in the Sierra Nevada are making travel there difficult or impossible at times, and these conditions will continue through Friday. That includes Interstate 80 through Donner Pass.

During the past 48 hours, through early Christmas morning, Heavenly ski resort had picked up 28 inches of snow, while Northstar reported 38 inches of new snow and Kirkwood 33 inches. More snow continues to fall in the Lake Tahoe region. The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab received 23.6 inches in 24 hours, with another 2 to 3 feet expected.

It’s causing weather whiplash for the region, which has had much less snow than usual to start the season. The Sierra Avalanche Center and Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center have issued a Backcountry Avalanche Warning for the greater Tahoe region and eastern Sierra in Mono County through early Friday morning, warning widespread areas of unstable snow are likely due to the heavy snowfall and strong winds.

Some relief from this nonstop stormy pattern looks to finally arrive for the upcoming weekend.

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CNN Meteorologists Chris Dolce and Mary Gilbert and CNN’s Eric Levenson, Cindy Von Quednow, Diego Mendoza and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.