Storms Wreac Havoc

A days-long deluge took place for  almost a week in the San Diego and Tijuana region. As it poured down for days, the weather system claimed the lives of several people, left a trail of damaged infrastructure, downed trees and power lines in many neighborhoods, and toward the end brought a sprinkle of snow in parts of Tijuana. 
The series of powerful storms began on January 19 and stretched until January 24. The heavy rainfall was mixed with high-speed winds that reached up to 25 miles per hour. This weather combination flooded streets and waterways throughout the region, deemed several roadways impassable in both border cities, and put several residents in danger. 
Throughout the stormy weather, floods led to tragic event that included the death of a man on Monday in North County. The man was reportedly swept away by a creek saturated by rainfall and later a child was reported missing in the area after also being swept away by the heavy rain currents. In Tijuana, a video of a taxi driver whose van ended up getting stuck in rapid currents flowing on a city street garnered thousands of views online. Many residents criticized the taxi driver’s apparent fearless attempt to face inundated streets as a rather reckless move that endangered his passenger. 
When the storms began to roll into the city of Tijuana, rain forecasts were so severe that several school districts cancelled classes late and early in the week. On Sunday, when the storms hit the region the hardest, Baja California Governor Francisco “Kiko” Vega de Lamadrid urged the public to remain at home, aware that heavy rainfall can wallop the area pretty hard. 
Lamadrid said that families in certain neighborhoods were more at risk and said crews were prepared to evacuate them if needed and take them to shelters, even though most shelters in the city are already strained due to the influx of Haitian and Central American migrants, homeless residents and those who have been recently deported. 
The same weather forecasts prompted California Governor Jerry Brown to declare a State of Emergency for San Diego County and other cities across Southern California. This announcement is meant to help city officials secure funds to repair the infrastructure and roadways damaged by the wrath of these winter storms if needed. 
On the last day of these series of storms, early morning on Tuesday, a chunk of the Tijuana-La Rumorosa highway was shut down after cold temperatures brought down rain. For about two hours traffic was rerouted. 
While the storms did bring chaos to the region, it also brought relief for the drought-stricken cities that have experienced consecutive years of little rain. 
On Sunday, for example, when rainfall poured down the heaviest, more than two inches of rain were reported to fall over parts of North County including Escondido, Fallbrook, and Julian. On this same day, parts of Tijuana saw between two and three inches of rain—more than the area has seen in recent years. On average, the region receives about 10.34 inches of rain for the entire year. 
The heavy rainfall is good news, but it is far from being a cure for the drought in Southern California and Baja California. The latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that parts in Southern California remain in a severe or extreme drought despite the most recent rain. However, Northern California has benefitted greatly from the heavy rain. Early in January, for example, the federal drought monitor indicated that 40 percent of California was no longer in a drought and there was a major boost to reservoir levels across the state. 
The turnaround in the past year, the Brown administration is expected to ease drought rule statewide, according to Mercury News, that will assign a water conservation target to each city, water company, and water district based on the amount of rainfall it received in the year.