1 killed as storms bring record rainfall, flooding to SoCal. When will rain finally end?

Healthcare workers are reflected in a puddle as they carry picket signs outside St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood.

, Christian Martinez, Nathan Solis and Ashley Ahn

Dec. 22, 2023 Updated 2:58 PM PT

Slick roads, urban flooding and mudflows continued to plague Southern California on Friday, leading to at least one death as a stormy week that brought tornado warnings, heavy flooding and at-times historic rainfall begins to wind down.

A 28-year-old man was taken to a hospital after his vehicle plunged into the Dominguez Channel off Avalon Boulevard in Carson at around 3:40 a.m., said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Pasquale Aiello of the Carson station. The driver later died at 4:55 a.m., Aiello said. No one else was in the vehicle, he added.

The investigation into the crash is ongoing, but a witness said the vehicle was hydroplaning and speeding at 70 to 75 mph, according to Aiello. Rain was falling as a “misty light sprinkle” at the time of the crash, he said.

“We still have to investigate, look at the car, look at the tires,” Aiello said. “The road looked fine, but investigators are going to have to look at everything to determine what caused [the crash].”

A flood watch was in effect in L.A. County until 4 p.m. Friday after it was extended four hours. An estimated 0.5 to 2 inches of additional rainfall along the coasts and valleys and 2 to 5 inches in the foothills and mountains were expected through Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service. Overall, Los Angeles County received about 2 to 4 inches of rain over a five-day period, meteorologist Ryan Kittell with the National Weather Service in Oxnard said.

“Overall, a healthy rain storm, but much different than L.A. County’s neighbors,” Kittell said, referring to Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Oxnard received 3 inches of rain in an hour early Thursday morning, which equals about a month’s worth of rain for the area.

The weather service reported a “band of heavier showers and isolated thunderstorms” affecting the Pacific Coast Highway near Point Mugu in Ventura County on Friday morning. The Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach was closed due to flooding Friday morning, but reopened before noon, according to the California Department of Transportation.

Scattered showers carried brief, but heavy precipitation into the area around Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, according to the National Weather Service. Over a one-hour period, a weather station at Somis, north of Camarillo, received 0.31 inch of rain.

At least 60 homes were red-tagged Thursday in Ventura County as a result of flooding, which hit Oxnard and Port Hueneme hard.

For the most part, the bulk of the rain seems to have passed. Joe Sirard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said rain was expected to continue in moderate amounts Friday with a slight chance of thunderstorms across Los Angeles County.

“The precipitation should taper off rather quickly, and by late Friday night it should be dry through the weekend,” Sirard said. That will continue through Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Eastern Ventura County was hit hardest by the dual storm systems that began Sunday, recording more than 4 inches of rain and culminating with Thursday’s deluge that caused extensive flooding and misery for residents.

Annika Hernandez of Port Hueneme was among those evacuated in the city Thursday amid flooding. She, her husband, Albert, and their children, Adam, 13, and Kiara, 11, lay down on cots in a shelter set up at Oxnard College.

“Last night when the rain started hitting really hard, about 1 a.m.,” said Hernandez, “it kept me up — because you could tell that it was not a normal amount of rainfall.”

Preliminary data from Thursday suggested that Oxnard experienced one of the heaviest downpours ever seen in the area, with rainfall rates of 3 inches an hour sustained for more than an hour. That amounts to a month’s worth of rain in less than 60 minutes, officials said. Tornado warnings were also briefly issued for parts of the county Thursday.

In the 55-plus community of Hueneme Bay on Thursday evening, a line of dirt and debris could be seen against the sides of buildings and cars, evidence of the height of the floodwaters, which have since receded. Garage doors were bowed inward, and trash and debris lined the streets.

The neighborhood was evacuated, but residents were allowed to return around 4 p.m.

Inside Holly Donohue’s home, the floors and carpets were soaked.

“I woke up and I really couldn’t believe that we had that much water in the house,” the 70-year-old said. She pointed to a spot about 2 feet off the ground where the water had flooded her patio.

She said she was unsure if her cars would run, because they had both been sitting in feet of water.

Donohue and the home’s other occupants were stuck inside Thursday for a time as they waited for the water to recede. Opening the front door would have meant letting more water into the home.

The Ventura County Fire Department had asked Donohue if she wanted to be evacuated, but she declined.

“As long as we have power,” she said.

Sirard, the National Weather Service meteorologist, said this week’s storm forecasts underestimated rainfall for the region’s coasts and valleys, while it overestimated amounts in the foothills and mountains.

In Los Angeles County, as of 7 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service’s five-day rainfall totals for Los Angeles proper ranged from 1 to over 4 inches, with the highest amounts recorded in the San Fernando Valley, including 4.82 inches in Porter Ranch, 4.54 inches in Northridge and 4.3 inches in Van Nuys.

In Santa Barbara County, the highest rainfall amounts were recorded in the Santa Ynez Valley and the county’s southern coast, with many locations recording over 6 inches of rain. The Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management reported several roads flooded during Thursday’s deluge.

Eastern Ventura County also recorded over 4 inches of rain in most parts. Matilija Canyon, in the mountains north of Ojai, recorded a whopping 10.31 inches of rain during the storm system.

Times staff writer Karen Garcia contributed to this report.