California transportation officials say the westbound side of an Interstate 10 bridge in eastern California has also been badly compromised by flooding in the same area where the eastbound side collapsed. 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.
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Interstate 10 is the main road between Southern California and Phoenix, Ariz., with more than 20,000 cars traveling through the closed portion daily.
Inspectors planned to assess all bridges along a 30-mile stretch of the interstate after a second bridge showed signs of damage following the storm, which sent torrents of water and debris through desert washes, said Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.
Hundreds of other cars were stranded immediately after the collapse, but the California Highway Patrol worked to divert them.
“Oh my God, we are so stuck out here”, Browne told the Desert Sun newspaper. How rare? It was the first time a Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball game was rained out since 1995.
In what is usually Southern California’s driest month, the region suddenly received a weekend of summer storms.
“Forecasters expect patches of rain and some heavy downpours through Monday as the remnants of a tropical storm off Baja California continued to stream north, producing the kind of sticky weather more akin to Houston than midsummer in Los Angeles”.
Saturday’s rainfall broke records in at least 11 locations, including five places that had the most rain ever recorded on any day in July, said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Sirard.
The 0.38 inches that fell in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday set a record for the most rainfall in July, surpassing the quarter-inch that fell in July 1886, Sweet said.
The record is especially significant, Sirard said, because downtown Los Angeles has the longest recording climate station, dating back to July 1, 1877.
“Bystanders quickly used straps from their trucks to secure vehicle to guardrail to prevent it from washing away”, the Riverside County Fire Department officials said in a statement.
The storm helped firefighters advance on two wildfires that broke out in the region on Friday.
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The wet weather was expected to continue through the Monday morning commute.
