Heavy rains and winds and even a tornado leave deaths and damage in California

The heavy rains and winds that have hit California, especially in the Bay Area, during the first days of early spring, have left at least five people dead, injured, trees downed, and hundreds thousands of homes in the dark as power went out.

While in the city of Montebello, in Los Angeles County, reported a tornado that damaged several buildings, but fortunately no injuries were reported.

Mily Olivares, who has lived in Montebello for 22 years, says it was around noon that she learned there was a tornado.

“I was working at home on the computer when the power went out for about 5 minutes, but already during the morning we had hail, and then rain with a lot of air.”

He says it was one of his relatives who called him to tell him there was a small tornado in Montebello. “Well, I was surprised because in the more than two decades that I have lived here, we had never had one. Some air eddies do during the Santa Ana Winds, but not a tornado. I think it's climate change,” he says.

And he comments that luckily there was no damage in his neighborhood, but he knew there were problems eight blocks from your house.

The Verdugo Fire Communications Center reported that a few minutes before 11:30 in the morning they responded to a meteorological phenomenon caused by bad weather in the 1200 block south of Vail Street in Montebello.

KTLA 5 published the testimony of a recycling company driver who said he was driving when the weather event occurred on he smashed the roof of a building next to him.

“All the car windows were smashed…it was chaos,” he said.

He added that he saw cars spinning down the streets and it was the craziest thing he's ever seen. “I was only inches away, I had to back out.”

In a statement, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis called the weather event such as an “earthspout.”

“The County Office of Emergency Management is aware and monitoring and will assist when necessary. If you need emergency assistance, please call 911,” the statement said.

On Twitter, the National Weather Service specified that a landspout is a tornado that causes less damage than a normal one.

According to information published by the Los Angeles Times, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District announced that a large tree fell on a car killing one person and leaving another wounded in the Rossmoor community.

Another person was killed when a tree fell on a sewer vehicle in Portola, a community in San Mateo County, northern California.

In Oakland a person was killed on Tuesday March 21 when a tree fell on the tent where he was near Lake Merritt. The authorities believe that the man could have died from a strong blow or from suffocation.

In San Francisco, authorities reported that two people died at San Francisco General Hospital after being taken away from injuries sustained in storm-related incidents.< /p>

The San Francisco Fire Department posted on Twitter that a window fell out of the Millennium Towers and that windows were damaged in Salesforce Tower. “There were no injuries,” they reported.

According to ABC News, one person was injured and five buildings were damaged in Los Angeles County, when some roofs were blown off.

The National Weather Service reported that the chances for more storms were weakening, but the risk remains for Californians as temperatures begin to rise and snowpack begins to melt.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 114,200 homes and businesses were estimated to remain without power while many mountainside homes were buried in snow, and Residents displaced by coastal and Central Valley flooding waited for the floodwaters to subside.

The National Weather Service has warned that flood watches remain in effect, even as storms subside in California, as rain and snowmelt can cause flooding in southern Arizona and central Arizona.