Boy swept away by California floods, death toll climbs to 14
Conrad Hoyt
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A 5-year-old boy was swept away by floodwaters Monday and the death toll from the violent storms rose to 14 as Californians face extreme flooding that has left thousands without power.
Los Angeles and the coastal areas near the city have been ravaged by the storms, with communities like Montecito, home to celebrities like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Ellen DeGeneres, and Oprah Winfrey, under evacuation orders, exactly five years after mudslides in the area left 23 people dead.
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A flash flood warning was issued by the National Weather Service for southwestern Los Angeles County late Monday night. California declared a state of emergency earlier in the day.
A roughly seven-hour search of the 5-year-old boy turned up only his shoe before officials called it off as water levels were too dangerous for divers, officials said. Still, the boy has not been declared dead, said spokesperson Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
There was no evacuation order at the time the boy’s mother was driving a truck when it became stranded in floodwaters Monday morning near Paso Robles, a small city inland from California’s central coast, officials said.
AP News reports bystanders were able to pull the mother out of the truck, but the boy was swept out of the vehicle and downstream, likely into a river.
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The storm is is expected to bring two waves of intense rain to southern California through Tuesday evening, weather experts said. The Los Angeles Times reports the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center warned of marginal risk of isolated strong to severe thunderstorms late Monday into Tuesday and even the possibility of brief tornadoes. Another storm is likely this weekend, forecasters say.
The nonstop barrage of rain storms has been a positive development for the state’s drought, according to officials.