Tropical Storm Rachel floods San Diego County with heavier rain than expected – San Diego Union-Tribune

The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit San Diego County harder than expected before dawn Sunday, sending waves crashing into beachfront cottages in Oceanside, flooding parts of Highway 101 near Carlsbad and triggering several water rescues.

The fast-moving system also knocked out power to more than 330 customers in the Otay Mesa-San Ysidro area and significantly destroyed the berm that protects Del Mar Lifeguard headquarters. The Tijuana River estuary flooded a street in Imperial Beach.

The National Weather Service had predicted that about 1 inch of rain would fall in coastal cities and 2 to 3 inches would fall and flood inland mountains and valleys between Saturday evening and early Sunday.

Rachel’s outer crest broke onto the shore around 8 p.m. – earlier than expected – and went wild. As of 12:30 a.m. Sunday, the system had dropped 5.16 inches on Palomar Mountain, 2.69 inches in eastern Oceanside, 2.11 inches in San Diego’s Bay Ho neighborhood, 1.75 inches in Carlsbad and 1.36 inches at Camp Pendleton.

San Diego International Airport got 0.92 inches.

The weather service reported varying amounts of precipitation in the area: Julian, 3.04 inches; Otay Mountain, 2.99 inches; Poway, 2.69 inches; Ramona, 2.52 inches; Alpine, 2.30 inches; Fallbrook, 2.22 inches; Center of valley, 2.10 inches; Rancho Bernardo, 2.06 inches; San Diego Country Estates, 2.06 inches; Escondido, 1.81 inches; Field, 1.81 inches; Santee, 1.56 inches; National City, 1.52 inches; Borrego springs, 1.14 inches.

Despite the weather service’s appeal on Saturday for the public to stay away from local beaches due to the possibility of coastal flooding, crowds still flocked to the coast. In Oceanside, motorists lined up to drive onto The Strand early Sunday to get an up-close look at the water. Cars and trucks were soon hit by the waves.

A crowd also gathered south of the pier to watch Bruce Parker, a well-known local nicknamed Trenchcoat Guy, stand on The Strand and get repeatedly hit by large waves.

“Why am I doing this?” said Parker, 79. “Because it’s fun.”

Soon other people did the same, including children.

“We just like to watch Mother Nature,” said Collin Smith of Encinitas, who stood with his son, Cedric. “It doesn’t happen every day.”

In South County, the Tijuana River’s swollen estuary emptied onto Seacrest Drive in Imperial Beach.

As of Sunday morning, San Diego Fire Department personnel had responded to more than 50 traffic collisions, five transformer fires and 17 incidents of downed wires during the storm, Deputy Fire Chief Dan Eddy said in an Instagram post.

City firefighters and rescue workers also participated in water rescues, including one in the La Mesa area and one in Coronado.

Heartland Fire & Rescue crews worked with San Diego firefighters after a man was swept into a culvert near 70th Street and Alvarado Road, near the La Mesa-San Diego border, shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday. The man was stuck in rapidly rising stormwater, authorities said.

“An extensive rescue operation was undertaken and the victim was successfully extricated,” Heartland Fire said in an Instagram post. The man was taken to hospital in stable condition.

A second water rescue took place near Imperial Avenue and 33rd Street in the Logan Heights neighborhood, involving a person trapped in a storm drain tunnel, a San Diego spokesperson said.

In that incident, reported shortly after 11:45 p.m. Saturday, a team of rescuers constructed a rope system to free the person. More than 30 people, including two teams of white water rescuers and four fire trucks, worked for more than an hour to free the man. He was able to leave, the spokesperson said.

San Diego lifeguards participated in a third rescue early Sunday morning after Coast Guard officials received a 911 call around 4 a.m. from a man on a sailboat that ran aground near Coronado and was taking on water.

The Coast Guard dispatched a small crew that located the sailboat near Coronado Beach, but they were unable to approach it due to shallow water and dangerous surf conditions, a Coast Guard spokesperson said.

A helicopter crew sent from Ventura lowered a rescue swimmer to help. The man was trapped inside the cabin of the sailboat and was sticking his head out of a small hatch. The rescue swimmer gave the man a snorkel to help him breathe and ripped the roof off the boat to free him from the cabin. He was rescued around 7:15 a.m. and transported to receive medical treatment, the spokesperson said.