Storms, tornadoes and floods batter California leaving five dead
23 March 2023, 09:26 | Updated: 23 March 2023, 09:43
A storm in the San Francisco Bay Area has killed five people and two other Californian cities have been hit by rare tornadoes since Tuesday as a freak weather event hit the US state.
The San Francisco Bay Area was hit by an unexpected storm on Tuesday, toppling trees and power lines across the city and killing at least five people.
According to city officials, roughly 700 trees were knocked over during the storm and countless windows were cracked in many of the downtown's high rise buildings.
Mayor London Breed in San Francisco said the Bay Area deaths were a: "grave reminder of how serious and dangerous this storm became.
“The repeated storms have been challenging, but our public workers have been out keeping residents safe, limiting damage as much as possible and quickly cleaning up the City.”
The Bay Area was then hit by a flood after the initial storm.
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Two other cities on the West Coast, Carpinteria and Montebello, were struck by tornadoes in the following 24 hours.
The Montebello tornado, hitting at 11:14am on Wednesday, caused a significant amount of superficial damage to the city despite only lasting between two and three minutes.
The 'intense microcell' damaged at least 17 buildings, 11 of which are now too dangerous for use, according to Michael Chee, a city public information officer.
National weather services assessed the damage caused by the storm, which so far include a collapsed building roof, broken skylights, a snapped power pole and the uprooting of a 1-foot wide pine tree.
Damage in the Carpinteria tornado was less severe, but did cause damage to a number of mobile homes in the area.
Californian storms have increased in frequency in the last few years, however, tornadoes are rarely seen in the Western state, which typically experiences an average of 11 annually across region.
Flood warnings now remain in place across a number of the coastal cities.
