Hurricane Hilary Soaks SoCal, Shuffles Sunday Schedules

A rare tropical system surged into Southern California Sunday, bringing with it years-worth of rain in some spots, along with high winds and the attendant power outages, traffic headaches and dangerous flooding and mudflows, all combining to force live events into cancellations and on-the-fly re-scheduling.

Oh, and there was an earthquake, too.

Rain began falling in the Los Angeles area early Sunday — when Hilary was still well off-shore in the Pacific west of Baja California — and didn’t taper off for nearly 24 hours as the storm crept into Nevada.

By the time it crossed the Mexican border, Hilary was a tropical storm — the first to strike Southern California since 1997 — and as it moved through the desert, it dumped dangerous amounts of rain. The storm tracked through Nevada Monday, the first tropical storm recorded in the state.

There was “no way in or out of” Palm Springs, California, Monday, the city’s mayor told CNN. The popular getaway destination was the site of the final weekend of the EDM-heavy Splash House August 18-20. The festival’s poolside performances moved inside as the storm churned into the city.

In LA, it was mostly sporting events that had to tap dance through the storm. Both the Angels and Dodgers played doubleheaders Saturday to avoid being rained out Sunday, as they inevitably would have been. Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy and LAFC both cancelled and rescheduled their Sunday fixtures. The Los Angeles Chargers, however, went through with their preseason game against the New Orleans Saints at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

K-Pop festival KCON at the convention center and Crypto.com Arena moved scheduled outdoor performances and meet-and-greets inside but otherwise continued without much delay, according to a Los Angeles Times report.