San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria told CNN's Newsroom Monday morning that the city is working to prepare for the effects of the storm as it moves south during the day.
“This is happening after two weeks of repeated storms,” Gloria said. “San Diego, which is used to perfect weather, is not used to this kind of rain, which greatly complicates our response efforts as we try to rescue people who were evacuated by flooding two weeks ago. ”
The mayor added that a second evacuation order had been issued for low-lying areas of the city and areas at risk of flooding.
“Area that traditionally hasn't flooded is now flooded because we've had so much rain in such a short period of time,” he said. “These atmospheric rivers, which many of us probably didn't even know about when we were growing up, are now a constant presence in our lives. And they contain extraordinary amounts of water. That means it could be dumped into the community, in a small, limited part of our city, in a very short amount of time.”
He added that city officials are “doing everything we can to prepare for the storm,” including distributing more than 150,000 sandbags.
Still, he says, “You can take a break from Mother Nature, that's for sure.”
The city is under a flood watch from 4:00 PM local time (7:00 PM ET) on Monday until 1:00 PM local time (1:00 PM ET) on Wednesday. Peak rainfall is expected to begin tonight at around 7pm local time (10pm ET) and continue until around 9pm. 3 a.m. local time Wednesday (6 a.m. ET).
