We begin this hour with an historic Hurricane Barreling toward the u. S. Hilary is now a category 3 hurricane with top winds of more than 100 miles per hour. This is new video of the storm pummeling mexico as it inches closer to the u. S. The powerful system could bring a years worth of rain in one day to parts of the southwest along with potentially catastrophic and lifethreatening flooding. Right now parts of Southern California are under a Tropical Storm warning for the first time in history. Officials and residents there are preparing with sandbags and the California National guard is standing by ready to help. A State Emergency Official tells cnn its an all hands on deck situation. Weve got a cnn team at this hour tracking hilary. Meteorologist derek van dam is closely following the path Aina Tasha Chen has a look at storm preps in los angeles. Derek, lets start with you at the cnn weather center. I cant believe were talking about a hurricane and preparations for it in los angeles
canceled so a lot of plans are shifting here, especially as people are watching that radar and that track shift as well, which derek just explained. the department of water resources in california talked about how the flood operations state and federal are all working together and people may see dam operations, the spillways open up and release water tomorrow. that is part of normal procedure. here s the director talking about how unique the situation is. we did have a decaying tropical storm kay last september that caused extensive damage particularly in santa barbara county. this storm, hurricane hilary, is anticipated to be stronger than that. you would have to go back to 1939 since southern california last saw a true tropical storm affect populations that dropped almost 8 inches of rain on mount