00:00 All right, Accuweather's Bill Waddell is live in Coachella,
00:03 southeast of Palm Springs.
00:06 - And Bill, there's some serious flooding
00:07 ongoing there right now.
00:09 - Yeah, Melissa and Bernie,
00:11 this is what we have been warning people about
00:13 for days right here on Accuweather.
00:15 Flooding, serious rains here in the deserts and valleys,
00:18 and check it out, we just had another heavy band of rain
00:21 move through, you can see all of the street flooding here,
00:23 and we're on Avenue 48, take a look over here,
00:26 this is just one of the cars the driver tried to get through
00:29 deep water, they were able to make it
00:31 through the intersection, and unfortunately,
00:33 as soon as they got to higher ground, their engine stalled.
00:36 This is just one of the drivers in trouble,
00:39 and actually, if we look farther here to the left
00:40 between these two palm trees,
00:42 you might be able to see further down the intersection,
00:44 it looks like another driver just got stuck.
00:46 So, serious flooding issues here in the Coachella area,
00:49 check out the video just into Accuweather,
00:51 despite days of warnings from local officials
00:54 asking people to avoid travel, to stay off the road
00:58 if they can, unfortunately, we have seen a lot of people
01:00 still trying to get around through some very deep water.
01:04 Some of the street flooding here deeper than a foot,
01:06 actually going over some of the sidewalks
01:08 and impacting some of the utilities,
01:10 we saw some of the electrical box lids actually floating,
01:13 so this is one of those situations where you really do
01:16 just wanna stay out of the way.
01:17 We've heard emergency responders on the scanner
01:20 being called out to 911 calls for drivers stuck in high
01:23 water and for water going into homes.
01:26 So again, here in the Coachella area
01:28 of Riverside County, California, just as we feared,
01:31 unfortunately, these heavy bands of rain dumping a lot
01:34 of water very quickly in the desert, in these valleys,
01:38 and of course, this flash flooding can happen very quickly.
01:40 So we're seeing drivers in trouble, and again,
01:43 authorities just asking people if they can to stay out
01:45 of the way and stay home,
01:46 because the situation is far from over.
01:48 - All right, Accuweather's Bill Waddell there
01:50 in Southern California for us, thank you so much, Bill.
01:53 I've seen about two inches of rain so far in the Palm Springs area.
