Heavy rains and flooding washed out parts of Interstate 10 in Southern California, shutting down traffic in both directions.
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I-10 connects California with Arizona, and the bridge collapse was approximately 50 miles from the Arizona border.
The Riverside County Fire Department said it had to extract a driver who crashed in the collapse. Other compromised sections of the freeway were also closed. Motorists traveling between California and Arizona will need to detour hundreds of miles out of their way by using Interstate 8 to the south or Interstate 40 to the north.
Play video “Flood Sweeps Away Caravan Park”.
Unfortunately I-10 is the shortest distance between Los Angeles and Phoenix. The tropical moisture from Dolores is streaming northward into southern California and Arizona bringing rain showers and scattered thunderstorms.
The storms dropped as little as a quarter-inch of rain in downtown Los Angeles, and as much as 2 inches of rain in the mountains of Ventura County, according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
California is now facing one of its most severe droughts on record and Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in January after four years of water shortages.
Inspectors fanned out Monday to check all bridges along a 30-mile stretch of the freeway after a second bridge showed signs of damage following the storm Sunday, said Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.
Pamala Browne and her daughter were on their way to Palm Desert, Arizona, when they were suddenly stranded after the westbound lanes closed.
The positive side to the heavy rainfall was that California needed it since it has been in a disgusting drought and helped firefighters battle two different fires that were happening over the weekend in Southern California. “There’s no end to the cars that are stuck out here”.
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