dates. natasha chen is live for us in los angeles. southern california is facing an exceptionally rare threat. not everyone knows how to prepare for this. what are they doing? >> reporter: a lot of people here are used to dealing with wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides. some of that emergency preparation translates to what's happening here. but we see people with questions too about what to expect exactly from this tropical storm. when i moved from our atlanta bureau to our l.a. bureau, i didn't think i would still be talking about tropical storms here, but that is where we are. you see officials hammering that home that people may not know exactly what to expect here. they're trying to have them prepare as much as possible, sandbags available to all residents who would like those, asking people to stay home instead of driving out if they can for sunday and monday. here is one of the l.a. county supervisors talking about this