San Diego got soaked on Sunday as tropical storm Hilary raced through the county.
The storm had wind speeds over 100 miles per hour at its peak when it was in the tropical Pacific, but the system was significantly weaker when it arrived in Imperial Beach shortly after 2 p.m.
Light rain began overnight in parts of the county as the tropical storm covered the county under a huge cloud cover.
It was only the second time in the last 100 years that a tropical storm made landfall in San Diego.
“We don’t get a system like this, no matter how warm the ocean is, no matter how much is going on with El Nino or not,” said Alex Tardy, a National Weather Service Meteorologist in San Diego. “We haven’t got a tropical storm to come right at us like this. I mean 1939 is a long time ago. And we don’t even know exactly where that hit.”
Most people heeded warnings to hunker down.
There were cars on the freeway, but traffic was light, in part because it was Sunday afternoon and people were heading warnings to stay off the roads.
The National Weather Service said it also helped that the storm moved through the region pretty quickly.
“You don’t want any system no matter how weakened it is, with tropical origins, a warm core system to be slow moving. It just doubles your wind and rain, ah, literally,” Tardy said.
But when the front edge of the tropical disturbance first touched the county just after 2 p.m., the rain got heavy and the wind picked up near the spirit of Imperial Beach statue. That is where Palm Avenue meets the Ocean.
And there were people on hand to greet the storm.
“When I first started to hear about it I thought people were going a little bit crazy, for maybe something that might not be too crazy,” said Mari Sala of Lemon Grove. “I hadn’t really heard of a hurricane coming around San Diego, especially in San Diego. That’s why you live in San Diego — so that none of that stuff happens.”
It only took a couple of minutes for Sala and her family to be completely soaked, their small umbrella offered little help.
Marcos Vasquez was visiting from Huntington Park, California. He was walking along the beach completely drenched with shoes in hand.
“Yeah ...” Vasquez laughed while flashing a broad smile. “I’m enjoying myself so ... I don’t see it as much as a storm, but it’s nice.”
Water wasn’t only falling from the sky in Imperial Beach — it was also coming out of the ground. City crews have installed pumps to help clear standing water off nearby roads. At one point the stormwater pumps created a geyser on the beach more than six feet high.
That was just the kind of show local Dominic Perez was hoping to see.
He was happy to trade dry clothes for a peek at the unusual.
“I know no one else is really going to be out here so … how many times do you get to see a hurricane just storm, flow over everything?” Perez said.
It was business as usual at Imperial Beach’s Ye Olde Plank Inn bar where patrons mostly ignored the storm. Jeri from Imperial Beach was enjoying a cool beverage and wondering what all the fuss was about.
“Well, being from the Midwest, this is really nothing. This is just a typical rainy day. Nothing stops. Nothing is closed up. Nothing is boarded up. This is very mild to what I’m used to,” Jeri said.
