Hurricane Hilary threatens dangerous rain for Mexico's Baja. California may get rare tropical storm
Hurricane Hilary headed for Mexico's Baja California with «life-threatening and potentially catastrophic» rain and flash flooding, while officials as far north as Los Angeles scrambled to get the homeless off the streets, set up shelters and prepare for evacuations.Hilary is expected to plow into the Mexican peninsula sometime Sunday and then surge northward and enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years by late Sunday or Monday. The U.S.
National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for a wide swath of Southern California from the Pacific coast to interior mountains and deserts. Officials talked of evacuation plans for California's Catalina Island.
«I don't think any of us — I know me particularly — never thought I'd be standing here talking about a hurricane or a tropical storm,» said Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. After rapidly gaining power early Friday, Hilary slowed some later in the day but remained a major Category 4 hurricane late Friday with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph), down from 145 mph (230 kph).
Late Friday, the storm was centered about 285 miles (460 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving north-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph) and was expected to turn more toward the north.
The latest forecast track pointed to Hilary making landfall along a sparsely populated area of the Baja peninsula at a point about 200 miles (330 kilometers) south of the Pacific port city of Ensenada. It is then expected to continue northward, raising fears that its heavy rains could cause dangerous flooding in the border city of Tijuana, where many homes in the city of 1.9 million cling
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