Seniors in an assisted living facility were trapped after the tropical storm turned desert sands into mud.
Tropical storm Hilary turned Cathedral City in California into a muddy scene, after a year’s worth of rain poured down within a day.
The storm turned desert sands into knee-deep mud in some areas and trapped residents at an assisted living facility in Cathedral City. First responders had to turn to a front-loader to help evacuate those trapped.
Seniors from the facility were placed into the bucket of the front-loader and then were held by firefighters as they were removed and brought to safety.
The mud has been drying but pockets of the sludge still persist around the area as residents try to recover from the mess.
“I haven't been able to open the door of my garage. I’m afraid when I open it what will be inside,’ one homeowner tells Inside Edition.
Cathedral City wasn’t the only one to suffer as desert cities all across the area impacted by Hilary have seen mud taking over.
In San Bernadino, mud spurted out of the ground in what appeared to be a “mud volcano” and in other areas, a thick layer of mud could be seen covering the highway.
Hilary recently knocked out the power in a Los Angeles hospital and forced 30 critical patients, including 14 infants, to be evacuated to a different hospital after its emergency generators failed.
“At the height of hurricane Hillary, we experienced an outage. We have 3 generators that immediately kicked in, those generators were supposed to last for 3 days. However, this morning we experienced an outage of our emergency generators as well,” John Raffoul from Adventist Health White Memorial says.
Despite the mud floods, loss of power and dangerous plane landings that happened during the tropical storm, there have been no deaths attributed to Hilary.
