Good Samaritans dig drivers out of mud in California's Coachella Valley after Hilary

AccuWeather

Massive amounts of water from Tropical Storm Hilary flowed down California's mountains right into low spots in the town of Thousand Palms, trapping a large number of drivers in mud and deep water.

Transcript

00:00 Coachella Valley of California is a muddy mess, unfortunately, all due to

00:04 Hillary, which dumped in some cases almost a year's worth of rain in just a

00:08 matter of hours. Mackey Weathers Bill Waddell is live in 1000 palms and Bill

00:13 traffic seems to have started moving on Interstate 10 again as crews are

00:17 clearing the rocks, but I'm sure there's still a lot of work to come.

00:20 That's right. Hours, if not days of work ahead here along Interstate 10. You

00:26 could see big backups traffic barely moving here. This is the westbound

00:31 lanes crawling through. We haven't seen much traffic on the eastbound lanes

00:35 just because there's so much water and mud still on the highway. Take a closer

00:38 look. You could see just everything the crews here are dealing with.

00:43 Authorities say people if they can to avoid driving through this area, they

00:47 want to be able to focus on the cleanup, not the detours. All of the water from

00:51 Hillary came down off the mountains right into these low spots. A lot of

00:55 drivers got stuck in the mud and the washouts last night. Others waited at

00:59 home and then they tried to get out today. They ended up getting stuck to

01:04 where it's still been flooding in some places more than 24 hours later. Now,

01:09 people are being told the wait for a tow truck can be up to six hours. So good

01:13 Samaritans have been showing up, pushing and towing stuck cars and trucks out

01:18 helping locals like Felipe Mondez was trapped at the height of this storm.

01:25 I had to get out of the window. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Water was all the way to

01:30 here, right there. I wanna say thank you very much because you know, they three

01:35 people, they just help everybody. 1971 deuce and a half military truck. So we

01:41 thought we'd bring it out and help some people out. They've been stuck here for

01:44 hours. You know, some of them since last night.

01:46 Alex Gonzalez says he's glad he has an old military truck and that he's able

01:53 to help out his neighbors in need. Now it has been a very long night for some

01:58 of the people that were stuck here on I 10 for hours, either late last night

02:02 into the overnight hours, traffic started moving at points and there have

02:05 been more backups throughout the day. So again, they are asking people if you

02:09 tend to avoid traveling through this stretch of I 10. We've been speaking

02:14 with people who have lived here in this part of the Coachella Valley and desert

02:17 for decades. They tell us it does flood at times with storms. Many people say

02:20 they have never seen anything like the flooding and the mess left behind from

02:24 Hillary.

02:24 All right, well, there's Bill Waddell on the ground for us there in 1000

02:28 Palms, California. Glad to see traffic back on that interstate, but obviously

02:33 it's gonna take some time to get to where you're going. So we do know that

02:37 the rainfall it did leave some big time impacts and just want to highlight for

02:42 you right now. The radar showing you that interstate 10 as you work it into

02:46 the Los Angeles area is at least dry. So that's some good news. Bill Waddell

02:51 getting those sunny skies back in for us with a couple of clouds. It's not

02:55 quite the same view as what we saw yesterday.

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