In San Diego, It's Raining Cars and Trucks

Flash floods inundated homes and overturned cars in San Diego on Monday as torrential rain swept through a large swath of California. The weather system unleashed a severe punch on the south end of the state in the second major rain event of the winter. Several feet of water inundated the Mountain View, Shelltown, and Southcrest neighborhoods, and multiple highways, including Interstate 15. Eddie Ochoa, a resident of San Diego, said it was just sprinkling when he and his sister went out for breakfast Monday morning. When they returned to their family-owned auto body shop, the entire block was flooded and his sister's parked car had been washed away.

"All that happened within an hour," Ochoa said, guessing that the sewers had backed up. They later found his sister's car about 3 miles down the street. "It's never been that bad, ever. It's crazy," he said. Over a three-hour period, a whopping 3 inches of rain fell in nearby National City, while 2 inches fell at San Diego International Airport. During the winter, the region typically averages around 2 inches of rain per month, reports the AP. "The cars and a dumpster looked like they were flowing down the street," Michael Rios tells the San Diego Union-Tribune. He woke up to 3 feet of water in his apartment Monday morning. "It was like a river."

Deputies pulled people to safety after water rushed into homes in the Spring Valley and Casa de Oro neighborhoods, said San Diego County Sheriff's Office rep Lt. Zee Sanchez. Other residents escaped by wading through waist-high water carrying their cats and dogs. "Flooding is pretty widespread out there," Sanchez said. The department aided in a swift-water rescue near Santee, he said. The San Diego River was flooding, the National Weather Service said, warning that crossing roads would be unsafe. The city's fire department said it had rescued at least 24 people from the rushing San Diego and Tijuana rivers. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria declared a state of emergency and the city set up shelters to house displaced residents.

(More severe weather stories.)