LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Intense thunderstorms swept over parts of the Southwest on Tuesday, delaying flights and stranding motorists in the Las Vegas area and flooding two mobile home parks in Southern California.
East of downtown Las Vegas, television news video showed yellow school buses inching slowly along roads after school in some neighbors and muddy brown water up to the lower window sills of stucco homes in others.
A Twitter photo showed dozens of cars swamped by water up to their headlights in a parking lot outside the University of Nevada, Las Vegas sports arena.
But after responding to numerous 911 calls, officials in Clark County, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Las Vegas said Tuesday there were no confirmed reports of serious injuries.
The National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm and flash-flood warnings before and after almost an inch of rain was reported at McCarran International Airport just before 2 p.m. Departures were postponed and arrivals were delayed after the airport ordered a stop on fueling operations during lightning strikes, airport spokeswoman Linda Healey said.
National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Staudenmaier said more than 1.75 inches of rain were reported in downtown Las Vegas.
Firefighters responded to more than 20 calls about people in stalled cars, county spokesman Dan Kulin said. A Las Vegas police helicopter was dispatched during the height of the storm to pluck several people from swamped vehicles on area roadways, Officer Bill Cassell said.
Staudenmaier said the rainfall amounts put the region on pace to exceed the 4.5 inches of rain it normally gets in a year.
National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Sukup said the Nevada showers weren't part of the same storm system that drenched parts of Southern California.
There, a thunderstorm that dropped more than the average annual rainfall on parts of the Coachella Valley in one night alone caused flooding at two mobile home parks, forced road closures and dampened an elementary school, officials said Tuesday.
The early morning thunderstorm stalled for six to eight hours over Mecca and Thermal, two towns at the southern tip of the Coachella Valley 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Thermal is about eight miles from Indio, Calif., where the annual Coachella Music Festival is held.
The storm dropped 5.51 inches of rain near Mecca and 3.23 inches of rain near Thermal, meteorologist Mark Moede said. The average annual rainfall in Thermal is just shy of 3 inches, he said.
"That's an amazing amount of rain," Moede said. "It's unusual anywhere to get a storm that sits stationary for five to eight hours. The fact that it occurred in the southern part of the Coachella Valley is even more unusual because it's typically a very arid part of the country."
In Thermal, the downpour flooded the Desert Mobile Home Park better known as Duroville, causing the park to lose one of its wells and creating concerns about overflow from sewage ponds used to treat waste there, said Ray Smith, a Riverside County spokesman.
County fire crews assessed the water and electrical systems and were providing water to the park. Residents also were advised to boil water, he said.
Several Duroville homes remained without power late Tuesday afternoon. About 1,400 people live in the park, but it wasn't immediately clear if any evacuated due to the flooding. A voluntary evacuation center was established in Mecca.
St. Anthony's Mobile Home Park in Mecca also was affected, Smith said, but fared better than Duroville.
Some flooding also was reported at Saul Martinez Elementary School in Mecca, but students doubled up in some classes and the school remained open, The Desert Sun newspaper reported.
Video clips showed Mecca residents wading through streets with water reaching their knees and cars creeping through flooded residential streets.
A federal judge appointed a receiver to take over Duroville's management in 2008 and gradually close the park after ongoing concerns about sanitary conditions, overcrowding and fire hazards there.
The dilapidated property sits on tribal land and is therefore outside the county's jurisdiction.
At its peak, the park's population was 4,000 people, most of them migrants who work picking crops in the crescent-shaped Coachella Valley breadbasket. Residents were slated to relocate to a newly constructed mobile home park this year, but problems with funding delayed the move until next year.
Meanwhile, southern Utah officials were inspecting whether people could return to about 60 homes and 15 businesses that were evacuated after a dike broke Tuesday and sent floodwaters through the town of Santa Clara.
City Parks and Recreation Director Brad Hays said a retention pond fed by the Tuacahn Wash filled up in the morning after heavy rains. Authorities ordered homes and businesses below the pond to evacuate around noon, and the dike broke about 45 minutes later. No injuries were reported.
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Flaccus reported from Santa Ana, Calif. Associated Press writer Shaya Mohajer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/storms-cause-flooding-nev-southern-calif-011129067.html
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