Trop­i­cal Storm Hi­lary del­uged arid parts of Mex­i­co and then drenched South­ern Cal­i­for­nia from the coast to in­land moun­tains and deserts, forc­ing res­cuers to pull sev­er­al peo­ple from swollen rivers. Mil­lions ex­pect­ed more flood­ing and mud­slides Mon­day, even as the storm be­gins to weak­en.

The storm first made land­fall in Mex­i­co’s arid Ba­ja Cal­i­for­nia Penin­su­la on Sun­day in a sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed area about 150 miles (250 kilo­me­ters) south of En­se­na­da. One per­son drowned. It then moved through mud­slide-prone Ti­jua­na, threat­en­ing the im­pro­vised homes that cling to hill­sides just south of the U.S. bor­der.

The first trop­i­cal storm to hit South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in 84 years, Hi­lary dropped more than half an av­er­age year’s worth of rain on some ar­eas, in­clud­ing the desert re­sort city of Palm Springs, which saw near­ly 3 inch­es (7.6 cen­time­ters) of rain by Sun­day evening.

The Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter in Mi­a­mi down­grad­ed Hi­lary to a post-trop­i­cal storm in its ear­ly Mon­day ad­vi­so­ry, and warned that “con­tin­ued life-threat­en­ing and lo­cal­ly cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing” was ex­pect­ed over por­tions of the south­west­ern U.S. on Mon­day. All coastal warn­ings were dis­con­tin­ued.

Fore­cast­ers warned of dan­ger­ous flash floods across Los An­ge­les and Ven­tu­ra Coun­ties, and fire of­fi­cials res­cued 13 peo­ple from knee-deep wa­ter in a home­less en­camp­ment along the ris­ing San Diego Riv­er.

Mean­while, rain and de­bris washed out some road­ways and peo­ple left their cars strand­ed in stand­ing wa­ter. Crews pumped flood­wa­ters out of the emer­gency room at Eisen­how­er Med­ical Cen­ter in Ran­cho Mi­rage.

The Los An­ge­les Uni­fied School Dis­trict, the na­tion’s sec­ond largest school sys­tem, said all cam­pus­es would be closed on Mon­day, as did dis­tricts across the re­gion. San Diego schools post­poned the first day of class­es from Mon­day to Tues­day.

The Palm Springs Po­lice De­part­ment said in a state­ment Sun­day that 911 lines were down and that in the event of an emer­gency to text 911 or reach out to the near­est po­lice or fire sta­tion.

The storm was pro­ject­ed to weak­en as it con­tin­ued mov­ing north­ward over Cal­i­for­nia and in­to Neva­da, but Richard Pasch, a hur­ri­cane spe­cial­ist with the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter, said “very heavy” rain and strong winds are still like­ly.

South­ern Cal­i­for­nia got an­oth­er sur­prise Sun­day af­ter­noon as an earth­quake with a pre­lim­i­nary mag­ni­tude of 5.1 hit near Ojai, about 80 miles (130 kilo­me­ters) north­west of down­town Los An­ge­les, ac­cord­ing to the U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey. It was felt wide­ly and was fol­lowed by small­er af­ter­shocks. There were no im­me­di­ate re­ports of ma­jor dam­age or in­jury, ac­cord­ing to a dis­patch­er with the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty Sher­iff’s Of­fice.

Hi­lary is just the lat­est ma­jor cli­mate dis­as­ter to wreak hav­oc across the U.S., Cana­da and Mex­i­co. Hawaii’s is­land of Maui is still reel­ing from a blaze that killed over 100 peo­ple and rav­aged the his­toric town of La­haina, mak­ing it the dead­liest U.S. wild­fire in more than a cen­tu­ry. Fire­fight­ers in Cana­da are bat­tling that na­tion’s worst fire sea­son on record.

As Hi­lary bore down on Mex­i­co, one per­son drowned Sat­ur­day in Mugele, on the east­ern side of the Ba­ja Penin­su­la, when a ve­hi­cle was swept away by an over­flow­ing stream. Res­cue work­ers saved four oth­er peo­ple, said Edith Aguilar Villav­i­cen­cio, the may­or of Mulege.

Mex­i­can army troops fanned out across the area where some of the worst dam­age oc­curred Sat­ur­day. Sol­diers used bull­doz­ers and dump trucks to help clear tons of boul­ders and earth that clogged streets and roads. Pow­er lines were top­pled in many places, and emer­gency per­son­nel worked to re­store elec­tric­i­ty.

On Sun­day morn­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, the warn­ings from of­fi­cials didn’t keep every­one in­doors. In coastal Carls­bad, just north of San Diego, 19-year-old Jack John­son and his friends kept an eye on the huge waves, de­ter­mined to surf them.

“It’s re­al­ly chop­py out there, not re­al­ly sur­fa­ble yet, but I think we can find a good break some­where lat­er,” John­son said. “I can’t re­mem­ber a storm like this.”

Al­so Sun­day, one of sev­er­al bud­ding storm sys­tems in the At­lantic Ocean be­came Trop­i­cal Storm Emi­ly, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter. It was far from land, mov­ing west in the open ocean. Mean­while, Trop­i­cal Storm Franklin formed in the east­ern Caribbean. Trop­i­cal storm watch­es were is­sued for the south­ern coasts of Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

In Sep­tem­ber 1939, a trop­i­cal storm that roared in­to Cal­i­for­nia ripped apart train tracks, tore hous­es from their foun­da­tions and cap­sized many boats, killing near­ly 100 peo­ple on land and at sea.

Le­bri­ja re­port­ed from En­se­na­da, Mex­i­co. As­so­ci­at­ed Press con­trib­u­tors in­clude Curt An­der­son in St. Pe­ters­burg, Flori­da; Igna­cio Mar­tinez in Cabo San Lu­cas, Mex­i­co; Mark Steven­son in Mex­i­co City; Eu­gene Gar­cia in San Diego; Ryan Sun and Christo­pher We­ber in Los An­ge­les; and Wal­ter Berry in Phoenix.

LOS AN­GE­LES (AP) —