Empire inland torrent

Home owner Sergio Segoviano walks into his home after a tree from his yard was uprooted by high winds and rain in Ontario on Tuesday, Dec.

Vehicles pass heavy machinery as mud is temporarily removed from Lytle Creek Road Tuesday morning Dec. Vehicles pass heavy machinery as mud is temporarily removed from Lytle Creek Road as debris from the South fire flows down the hillside covering the road Tuesday morning Dec.

Vehicles drive through mud on Lytle Creek Road as debris from the South fire flows down the hillside covering the road Tuesday morning Dec.

Drive with extreme caution. Do not stop or you lose traction. Firefighters and public works crews had their work cut out for them in Oak Glen, the apple farming community in the San Bernardino Mountains. County crews had already cleared an estimated , pounds of debris from the creeks in the area. That kept some of the water flowing where it should, but residents still suffered damage to fences, yards and driveways, Martinez said.

But there were no reports of flooding in homes, she said. The evacuation order in the area, which Martinez estimated is affecting about 11, people, will remain in effect. An evacuation order in Lytle Creek was downgraded to a warning at 6 p. Water also flexed its muscle in the Cherry Valley area, where foot-long tree trunks and large rocks washed down Vineland Street in a flash flood in the Apple fire burn scar. The rain turned usually mild-mannered creeks into raging torrents, trapping homeless people who ignored or were unaware of the danger.

In Corona, a man floated three miles in a tent down the Temescal Wash, a man-made drainage channel that parallels Sampson Avenue and usually has about a quarter-inch of water. Finally, around Cota Street, the tent floated close enough to the side to allow firefighters to pull him to safety. Caltrans working to clear mud and debris 4 ft in some locations.

Use alternate routes to Big Bear. Elsewhere, a tree fell on an apartment building on J Street in Ontario, briefly trapping a woman and destroying two units, said Ontario fire Investigator Dan Kloosterman.

Some areas of San Bernardino County had received more than 3 inches of rain in the preceding 24 hours as of 5 p. In January, demand was so high that, when vaccines became available to residents 65 and older and others, appointment webpages froze and people could not get through by phone to schedule shots.

Enthusiasm built as officials fixed appointment-setting problems and eligibility expanded to people ages 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions in March, to everyone 50 and older on April 1 and to those 16 and older in early April. Then enthusiasm waned. By the time California fully reopened its economy June 15, fewer than half of Inland Empire residents had taken the jab. With the arrival of the delta variant in summer, hospitalizations surged again, this time largely among the unvaccinated.

State and federal officials responded by mandating shots — for healthcare workers , educators and school employees , K students , students at major universities , and for workers at large companies and federal contractors. Nurses and other healthcare workers protested in August. Parents of school children and some teachers demonstrated in October. A Temecula Valley school board member quit, citing opposition to the mandate.

Why it mattered: The narrative of the search for a life-saving vaccine was reframed as a battle over choice and constitutional rights. Inland Empire vaccination rates lag below the state as a whole and neighbors to the west. The proportion of the vaccine-eligible population age 5 and up who are fully protected against the coronavirus is But in Los Angeles County, the rate is Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Jan. What happened: After living for more than a year under the threat of the deadly coronavirus and pandemic-driven lifestyle restrictions, Inland Empire residents cheered as California reopened its economy on June It was a day of celebration.

The masks came off in many places. Social distancing no longer was required. Gone were capacity limits at restaurants, gyms and other businesses. Gone, too, were the purple, red, orange and yellow tiers — remember those? It all seemed so promising, especially amid plummeting hospitalization rates through the spring. Inland schools fully reopened in late summer following a school year spent mostly online.

But the return to the classroom occurred as delta swept the region, sparking an explosion of infections that sent hundreds of children home to quarantine.

Why it mattered: The delta surge underscored the unpredictability and danger of the shifting virus, which continues to mutate into new variants. Omicron rapidly spread across the region and nation and is expected to continue to threaten well into What happened: In its final hours, the Afghanistan war claimed three Inland Empire lives.

After almost 20 years, the U. In the chaos of the evacuation, two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a crowd outside a gate at the airport in Kabul on Aug. Lance Cpl.