I told my cousin that if the mud comes down the hill above them that they should go to the top story of their house for safety. He didn't think it was a problem but he does live in Southern California so anything is possible regarding Hurricane Hilary or Tropical Storm Hilary or whatever you want to call it.
But, generally speaking most people haven't studied what is coming and most of the time there are not high mountains or deserts where this much rain hits. So, it's pretty easy for me to see that wherever 10 inches of rain hits in mountains where deserts are right next to these mountains that you could have a severe water and mud slide and rock slide event that could potentially inundate whole towns or businesses or developments various places in Southern California or places near the High Sierras Mountain range both on the Nevada side of them and the California Side of them when water whooshes down with the force of gravity all the way to the ocean potentially at great speed. I have experienced this first hand in the deserts near Los Angeles especially when I was younger.
One time my father and I were driving in his utility truck for electricians out the desert route through Antelope Valley and we were between Lucerne Valley and Yucca Valley on what we used to call "Whoopie" roads because they went up and down and if you went fast you could get the front wheels of the car to leave the ground. Because we were in a utility truck of one or more tons doing this in that would have just broken likely our front axle or broken a wheel off so you would need a car that is lighter to do something like this or a motorcycle.
Well. That particular day it was raining and one guy passed us at about 90 miles an hour and was having fun splashing through the rivers of water at the base of these whoopie dips in the road. Well. We saw him going through several of these with rooster tails of water spraying out from under his car so he kept driving at this speed even though it was really dangerous what he was doing. Later we came upon him and he had hit about 4 feet of water and swamped his car and he must have hit it with such speed that it bent the front fenders and hood so he couldn't see out the front window of his car. This likely was a new car or almost new type of fast car and he had totaled it there in the desert and hopefully he and the car were not washed away in this torrent of water. This amount of water is likely what you are going to see in the deserts or more of 3 to 5 feet of running water especially on dry riverbeds. People who aren't prepared for events like this likely should stay out of the deserts when this thing goes through there. Because if you aren't a local desert Californian who knows how to survive these things you might not.
First rule of survival in Flooding is:
GO TO HIGH GROUND AWAY FROM THE FLOODING
How to die in desert flooding.
Drive through water when you don't know how deep it really is.
This is one way a lot of people drown in their cars.
It's true most of the time you are safe in your car.
But, not if the water is above your head and above the roof of your car or if your car is floating sideways across the desert on a wave of water hitting Joshua trees and cholla Cactus Bushes. So, if your car rolls sideways and turns over you might not have a way to survive this situation.
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