Two women were pulled from the ocean over the weekend. Image: Fox5
In case you’ve been living in a dark cave underground with no lights, no internet, and no way of communicating with the outside world for the last few days, the west coast of the United States is being absolutely battered by weather. Winter Storm Leo has officially stripped off his good clothes, smeared mud on his face, dropped a few tabs of acid, and started beating his chest.
Two women are dead in California, and hundreds were evacuated over the weekend. In the Ukiah Valley, a 36-old-woman was killed when an oak tree, 125-feet in height, smashed into her home in the early hours of the morning. According to to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the woman’s boyfriend was next to her in bed when the tree broke through the ceiling. He escaped, but just barely.
On Saturday, in San Diego, a 23-year-old woman died after being swept out to sea. Adriana Toro and a friend were on the rocks at Ocean Beach when a massive wave broke over them. After a frantic 40-minute rescue attempt by lifeguards–made extraordinarily difficult by thick sea foam, Toro died in the hospital. A witness on scene rescued her friend, and she is expected to be recover.
To the north, in San Bernardino County, a couple in a pickup were trapped in Cajon Pass by rushing water, prompting firefighters to tie a raft to the firetruck and pull the victims from the vehicle. Also on Saturday, a woman near San Francisco drove off the road into a swollen creek. She hasn’t been found yet, and rescuers are facing very dangerous conditions.
“You can’t put a diver in the water when you have logs and tree branches and debris coming down rapidly. It’s just too dangerous,” Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Ray Kelly told SFGate. “You couldn’t pick a worse time to have to do a recovery than right now, with all of the conditions going on.”
