Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby spoke with AccuWeather about what he witnessed in the mountains of California as Hilary's heavy rain led to intense debris flows.
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00:00 Aaron Rigsby is tracking a lot more
00:02 as Hillary brought major flooding to parts of California.
00:05 Aaron Rigsby is now in Kettleman City, California.
00:09 Aaron, thank you so much for joining us.
00:10 What are you seeing today?
00:12 - Well, today, you know, it's pretty much just those people
00:16 beginning to clean up processes
00:17 and assessing how bad the damage actually is,
00:20 especially up in these mountain communities
00:21 that were hit really hard last night.
00:23 One of the mudslides that I documented
00:25 when I was there early this morning
00:27 still had a lot of progress to do
00:28 before they were able to open up that road
00:30 and get the residents out of there
00:32 and get supplies up there that they need.
00:34 - And what was kind of the most astonishing,
00:38 the thing you saw?
00:38 'Cause you captured rock flows, debris flows.
00:40 You also saw a lot of people out on the road.
00:42 Were there any surprises for you while you were out there?
00:45 - I was very surprised to actually how many people
00:48 were still carrying on about their day
00:50 as if nothing was going on.
00:52 Even though it's not affecting, you know,
00:54 an area in particular, it doesn't mean
00:56 that when you're on these road trips
00:57 or wherever people are gonna come across
00:59 most flash floods.
01:00 We saw instances of I-10 completely washed out yesterday
01:04 and it stranded drivers for hours on end.
01:06 And if you're not prepared for that,
01:08 there's the potential where you could run out of gas,
01:10 the car could get too hot, you could get too cold,
01:13 and you don't really know how long
01:14 you're gonna be stuck there for.
01:15 The most astonishing thing that blew me away
01:18 was actually how fast these debris flows
01:21 would come down into these valleys.
01:23 I had just come through two minutes prior
01:25 from the one that I had filmed,
01:27 and there was absolutely not even a trickle of water
01:29 coming through there.
01:30 I came back up there two minutes later
01:32 and boulders the size of cars and a bunch of mud
01:35 was roaring through there and coming down the street
01:37 and coming down the hill valley toward my location.
01:40 - And you've been through quite a few different storms,
01:43 chasing many different weather items.
01:47 How does this compare to other things that,
01:49 especially for those that don't live
01:51 in the mountainous areas or through the Western terrain?
01:55 - Well, it's very unique to see how these tropical systems
01:58 affect different areas of the country.
02:00 We have storm surge and a lot of that wind damage
02:03 further out east into the Gulf of Mexico
02:05 and over closer to the East Coast.
02:07 For California, you have so many burn scars
02:10 and these areas aren't typically used
02:12 to seeing that much rain.
02:14 And their drainage systems are a lot different
02:16 than what we have further out east
02:17 where they're more prepared for this.
02:19 There's only so much drainage and so much that you can do
02:21 in the desert communities that aren't built
02:24 to withstand these kind of rainfall rates that we saw.
02:27 And it just goes to show that even though
02:29 it's only a tropical storm,
02:30 it doesn't take a major hurricane
02:32 to have major effects on these areas.
02:34 - All right, thank you, Aaron,
02:36 for joining us from Kettleman City, California.
02:39 He had a busy day yesterday
02:41 and likely to be on the move again today.