8,000 Inland Empire residents remain under evacuation orders, warnings as storm passes through region
OAK GLEN, Calif. (KABC) -- About 8,000 people in Riverside and San Bernardino counties remained under evacuation orders and warnings on Friday as a powerful storm marched across Southern California, raising fears of flash flooding while dumping rain and snow on the region.
In San Bernardino County, residents of the communities of Oak Glen, northeast Yucaipa and Mountain Home Village were warned to be prepared to leave if conditions warranted.
An evacuation order for the Oak Glen area was downgraded to a warning Friday morning.
Although a division chief with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, who lives in Oak Glen, had expressed concerned that a drainage channel that runs underneath a bridge at Oak Glen Road would overflow, conditions in the snow-covered area were calm on Friday morning. K-rails installed alongside the channel on Thursday were still in place.
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"Don't wait, do it now. It's not like a fire -- you can't see it growing," Yucaipa Fire Chief Grant Malinowski warned at a Thursday morning news conference. "That whole hillside can come down at one time. It's not incremental.
In Riverside County, an evacuation order was issued for areas near the Apple Fire burn scar: Noble A, Noble F, Bench A, Mias A, Mias B Zones and Millard Shooting Ranch. A temporary evacuation point was established at Banning's Hemmerling Elementary School, 1928 West Nicolet Street, according to the county's Emergency Management Department.
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