Updated 11:30 p.m. with confirmation of the death of the driver.
One person is confirmed dead and one other was rescued in separate incidents during flash flooding in Yucca Valley Saturday evening. About 5:30 p.m., a man attempted to drive through a flooded wash at Barron Drive and Yucca Mesa Road as employees with the Town of Yucca Valley were putting up Road Closed signs. The force of the water pushed the car and flipped it over about 50 feet downstream. Sheriff’s Sergeant Erik Smoot said two people managed to escape from the vehicle, but the driver, identified only as an elderly man, was trapped inside. A Sheriff’s swift water rescue team arrived at the scene about 8 p.m., and the vehicle was towed out about 10 p.m. The driver’s body was found inside the car.
Then about 6:30 p.m., another car tried to drive through a flooded wash at Barron Drive near Paradise Park. County Fire Battalion Chief Scott Tuttle said the car stalled in the middle of the wash with water up to the car’s windows. Although the car’s windows were fogged over, firefighters could tell that someone was inside the car. Before firefighters could attempt a rescue, a Sheriff’s helicopter arrived and made a hoist rescue of the driver and sole occupant of the car. The driver was taken out through the car’s rear window and brought to the bank of the wash; he was then taken by ambulance to Hi-Desert Medical Center.
Tuttle added firefighters were called to another rescue at 5 p.m. at Kickapoo Trail and Benecia where a car got stuck in the water, but the driver had gotten out of the car on his own. Smoot added that deputies also responded to several cars that had been stuck in water or mud, but that the occupants had already gotten out.
The Fire and Sheriff’s Departments remind residents to turn around, don’t drown.
