The violent second wave of a massive Pacific storm lashed San Diego County on Tuesday, bringing enough rain to flood the San Diego River and thunderstorms that led to a brief — and rare — tornado warning.
Since flowing into the region Monday, the system has dropped 3 to 6.6 inches of rain on parts of North County and about 2 inches in some South County areas. And on Tuesday, the storm apparently claimed its first life.
Border Patrol agents near the Tijuana River Channel west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry saw someone showing signs of distress and then going underwater while trying to cross the rapidly flowing river about 2 a.m. The agents called San Diego firefighters and lifeguards for assistance, but by the time a lifeguard raft reached the area, the person was floating in the water. Lifeguards retrieved the body.
The Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death and whether the fatality was storm-related.
Although the brunt of the storm hit farther north, Tuesday’s weather kept emergency crews busy in San Diego County and Tijuana.
San Diego city officials said about 1 p.m. that more than 500 storm-related calls had come in over the last 24 hours, and nearly 70 were considered emergencies. Across the city, almost 60 roads were closed due to flooding.
Early Tuesday, San Diego lifeguards used a rescue boat to pluck two people from the south bank of the San Diego River in Mission Valley, just east of Qualcomm Way. The two were checked out by medical personnel but did not require treatment.
Farther north, Caltrans crews worked through the night to repair a sinkhole that developed Monday on state Route 78.
In the Artesanal neighborhood of Tijuana, a landslide on a hill damaged two houses. As of Tuesday afternoon, city firefighters had responded to 15 rain-related incidents in the last day, including a Red Cross ambulance that became stuck in mud with a patient on board, authorities said.
By 10 a.m., heavy rain prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning for northwestern parts of San Diego County — particularly in Oceanside — as well as Riverside County and Orange County. The San Diego river swelled past its 10-foot flood stage around 2 p.m.
A much more rare advisory went out about 11:45 a.m. — a tornado warning.
The National Weather Service issued a notification to a wide swath of South and East County after radar detected a rotation in a thunderstorm.
“When you get real strong thunderstorms they start to rotate. The radar can pick that up, and if the circulation is strong enough it can indicate that a tornado is either forming in the cloud or potentially developing on the ground,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Tardy. “So it is literally a circulation within the thunderstorm itself.”
Alerts rang out on cellphones starting at 11:44 a.m., when the weather service reported a severe thunderstorm was over Paradise Hills and near Chula Vista.
There were 164 schools in the tornado warning area, and several districts had their schools temporarily shelter in place until the warning expired, including South Bay Union, Chula Vista Elementary, Grossmont Union High, Sweetwater Union High and La Mesa-Spring Valley, as well as several San Diego Unified campuses.
Residents took action, as well.
When Chula Vista resident Wendi Leon got the warning, she went outside and recorded the ominous black clouds forming on the horizon. She called her mom, who was on a walk but took shelter in her car.
“When the alarm went off we didn’t know where to hide,” Leon said. “They said basement. We don’t have basements here. They said stay away from windows, both sides of my house are head-to-toe windows. I grabbed my daughter and dog and went into the garage in a corner.”
The alert was lifted around 12:15 p.m., and no damage from a tornado was reported, officials said.
The last tornado warning issued in San Diego was Aug. 20 when Tropical Storm Hilary hit the region. Before that, one was issued in March 2023 in North County.
On Wednesday, an entirely new storm will move ashore, periodically dropping light to heavy rain that will extend into Thursday. Precipitation totals were hard to predict, but even if the region gets less rain, the ground is so saturated, it may lead to flooding anyway, meteorologists said.
Scattered rain will continue into the weekend.
In-person classes have been canceled Wednesday for schools in Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, Tecate and San Quintín, Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila announced on social media. In some cities, such as Tijuana, classes have been suspended since Feb.1 due to weather.
The city of San Diego lifted its evacuation warning later Tuesday to people living in low-lying areas in Southcrest, Mountain View, Encanto, San Ysidro, Sorrento Valley and Mission Valley. A shelter for flood victims and those still concerned about flooding remained open at the Balboa Park Municipal Gym.
San Diego officials said Tuesday the city’s stormwater system held up well against the rain.
“I’m happy to report that all of our channels and our pump stations are functioning appropriately,” said Todd Snyder, director of the city’s stormwater department. “They’re containing the floodwaters. And our storm water pump stations are all up and functional.”
He said crews were paying particularly close attention to communities that flooded during Jan. 22’s historic storm.
Angela Hampton, who lives on Beta Street in Southcrest, was one of the many in her neighborhood whose home was destroyed in last month’s flooding.
Over the past week, however, the street has been largely spared from any new rising waters, she said.
“When it started raining, we were really nervous,” Hampton said. “But (the canal) did really well after the city cleared out a lot of the vegetation.”
Hampton said the neighborhood could keep that confidence in the future if the channels remain clear.
If San Diego receives 3 inches of rain by Sunday, that would push the city’s seasonal rainfall total to more than 8 inches. San Diego only averages 9.79 inches of rain annually, a year that runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
The weather service said that 2.88 inches of rain fell in Oceanside Harbor on Monday alone, breaking the previous record for Feb. 5 by 1.29 inches. The older record was set in 1948. Vista recorded 1.87 inches, breaking the day’s record by 1.13 inches. The previous record was set in 1976.
Staff writers Alexandra Mendoza, Kristen Taketa, Emily Alvarenga, Tammy Murga and Caleb Lunetta contributed to this report.
