Local emergency teams prepare for potential thunderstorms
Riverside County and local city officials prepared Wednesday for potential road closures, flooding and power outages as monsoonal thunderstorms were expected to move through the mountains and parts of the desert.
"We've been seeing a lot of monsoonal activity, and that's really something that we've been paying a lot of attention to," said Shane Reichardt, a senior public information specialist with Riverside County's Emergency Management Department.
He said as stormy weather moves into the Coachella Valley, staying weather aware is key.
"The storms can be very unpredictable, and we certainly see that in the Coachella Valley," Reichardt said. When the water does come, it tends to come in big amounts and definitely has some significant impacts."
For areas where potential power outages could be an issue during inclement weather, a team is standing by at the county's east valley Emergency Operations Center in Indio. However, it would take a lot of rainfall for the center to be activated.
"If those impacts were to get significant, then that's where we start looking at what we need to do to support the recovery for that," Reichardt said.
In Palm Springs, city staff took action to prepare in case road closures became necessary.
"We have barricades pre-staged at some of our hotspots," said Daniel DeSelms, the city's emergency management coordinator. "It's usually four to six people come out in different trucks, put them in place... and that takes a couple of hours. So that's why we get ahead of it."
Last week, it didn't even take rain on the valley floor to close Indian Canyon Drive. Instead, floodwaters made their way down-mountain.
"What we are more concerned about is runoff from rains that are going to happen up in the mountain up in Idyllwild," DeSelms said. "That's what has shut down roads in the past couple of weeks, is not rain here, but rain that's happened up on the mountain."
Palm Springs' Emergency Operations Center at city hall was not anticipated to become activated for the storm coming in. It would take an inch or more forecasted for that to happen, officials said.
Sand bags were available for residents to pickup at Palm Springs fire stations. There was a limit of 10 bags per resident and sand was available behind city hall to fill them up.
