Growing up, I had some interests, I was overly fascinated with public transportation, the hospitality & tourism industry, & weather, as all occurred heading out of the house and part of the traveling experience. I like the childrens TV cable channels of the 2000s of Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and especially Disney Channel. However, I also gravitated towards the special interest channels of Travel Channel, Food Network, and even the Weather Channel. Especially, seeing Weather Channel’s meteorologist, Jim Cantore, who would sometimes exaggerate the intensity of the storm when out reporting category 5 hurricanes and tornado touchdowns, I knew they would exaggerate for viewers, but I found the process of the weather was fascinating.
Fast Forward to today when I got my bachelor’s in hospitality management, inspired by my love of the Travel Channel in the early 2000s, working guest services for a large-scale hotel in Anaheim. There is always so much to see and do, in Orange County that I want to keep my coworkers and managers up to date with my blog of what is new in the area so we can inform our guests. However, when Hurricane Hilary was getting ready to hit California, it affected nearly everyone’s travel plans, including guests who were staying at the hotel for a conference, Disneyland guests, parents moving their kids to Chapman University, and regular business guests with their weekly or monthly office visits. It was my duty to help everyone up to date at work & on my blog in AntSol Travel fashion to keep them up to date on the weather, in informed & comical ways
Part 1 Hurricane Preparation
California usually never gets hurricanes due to the cooler water of the Pacific Ocean, however, Hurricane Hilary was able to get enough warmth from the ocean to get evaporated water and form a hurricane. It eventually gained enough rain & wind speeds to be a category 4 hurricane. So I whipped up a minute video to inform my online followers about the incoming hurricane.
Southern California! Are you ready to be rocked by a hurricane? And no, the classic rock band Scorpions is not coming to town. Hurricane Hilary, a rare hurricane, is going to make landfall in Southern California on Sunday, August 20th, with a probable downgrade to a tropical storm. Either way, there will be plenty of wind & rain.
In preparation, a first-ever tropical storm warning was set for the SoCal region on Friday, August 18th, with heavy rainfall that may flood rivers & high winds of 50 MPH.
Wind & rain will affect traffic for planes, trains, & automobiles as it would not be safe to travel in that kind of weather. Along with activities & events in general, if you are going out on Sunday, make sure that plans are not canceled or rescheduled.
The Angels, Dodgers, & Padres all have home games this weekend. Friday & Saturday games will go on as scheduled. However, Sunday’s game will be rescheduled to Saturday as a doubleheader.
I wonder how Disneyland will handle the storm, is it going to be like any other rainy day where just outdoor attractions are going to be closed? I am not going to find out, since I got work that day at the hotel, where guests will be asking to extend their stay to check out from Sunday to Monday.
Saturday: August 19: Day Before Landfall
As Hurricane Hilary moved towards Baja California, everyone in Southern California was unsure how the storm would affect their travel plans. The hotel okayed waving early departure fees if the guest’s travel plans changed since it was better to be safe than sorry than be stranded. For guests that were here for the convention, we gave them the same rate of $189 for Saturday night, then the guest had to make separate reservations via the hotel website or 3rd party site like Expedia since the group rate ended Sunday morning. Many of the guests’ flights were canceled by the airline or even rescheduled to Monday as they would pass by then.
After work, I needed to get groceries & see how the locals were handling the impending storm, so I went to my recommended grocery store for resort guests, Ralph’s in Orange, located five miles from Disneyland. The Target & Vons off of Chapman & Harbor in Garden Grove are packed with a mix of local residents & resort guests, but Ralph’s is far away enough to have locals & Chapman University students mainly, but pick your poison and go with it.
To get to Ralph’s it is a couple miles from my apartment, so I packed my messenger bag and reused grocery store bags and jogged out. Passing by Angel Stadium, at 4:30 pm, the Angels & Tampa Bay Rays were getting ready for game 2 of their doubleheader due to the storm tomorrow.
I got to the store in 20 minutes and it was a good thing I did not drive as the parking lot was packed in thanks to being Saturday & an incoming storaboutwas fairly packed in relation to the packed parking lot. With the storm and a delivery truck unloading, Ralph’s staff was fervently restocking shelves as fast as customers were buying things in a panic, especially since most of the water & bread were out.
Sunday: August 20, Hillary Arrives
When I left for work, it was 7 AM with a start time of 7:30 AM, The rain and winds were moderate enough to be out with a rain jacket, which gave me an idea for my inner child who wanted to be a meteorologist and do field reports. The jacket I had was a light royal & black Columbia jacket that is not meant for heavy rain, I bought it since it was the color combination that most weather field reporters wear while out, so I can look like them. When I got to work, I had some time to run out to the Anaheim Convention Center and do a quick field report on my phone, which I posted to my Instagram Stories & to my work’s Microsoft Teams’s Anaheim Resort Updates chat. At 7:30 am, the rain & winds were moderate and the worst of the rain would be by 6 pm, which is forecasted to be not bad since Hurricane Hilary, was being downgraded since the winds & rains were dying down. When I got back in the hotel and posted it to teams, everyone loved it & I was like a meteorologist, especially with the jacket, and then I swapped back to my regular work jacket.
From 7:30 AM to 12 PM, guests with the convention were either checking out or extending their stay for another night due to a change of travel plans. Flights changed to earlier or a day later, or if they are driving, beat out the worst of the storm.
At noon was lunchtime for me, so I clocked out, changed to my meteorologist jacket, and headed out to the plaza for another video. By noon, Hurricane Hilary was downgraded to a tropical storm, but the wind and rain still persisted. To be funny, I recorded a second clip exaggerating the storm. Then I went to the cafeteria to eat and posted the updates on Instagram. When I got back, one of my coworkers got the idea for me to exaggerate with him holding the camera. It was comedy gold, and all my coworkers & managers loved it as I was fake punching what little wind was actually blowing at the time.
After noon, convention guests continued to extend or end their stay, along with guests coming in for the next convention who started to arrive that day.
At 2:41 PM, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck Ojai in Ventura County, located 110 miles from Anaheim, along with subsequent aftershocks. Everyone on social media calls August 20, 2023, #Hurraquake! One of my managers joked that it was the end time. Depending on how close you were to Ojai & how much the structure shakes in the event of an earthquake. When I posted on Instagram, most of the SoCal followers said that they felt it, I did not feel it since the hotel is a high rise that is built on rollers so it rolls with earthquake events.
At 4 pm, it was the end of my work day, I clocked out, ran to the car to throw my work jacket into the car and put on my Columbia jacket. It was still raining then, so I wrapped up my last report. After I got back to my apartment, I went to Angel Stadium, as the gate was closed for cars but I could still walk through the public-owned stadium parking. In the video, the rain was starting to lighten up a bit but it was still a bit windy. Then I talked about the Angels, Dodgers, and Padres games that were doubleheaders the day before the storm, and then headed back to the apartment. Rainfall continued through the evening and then the storm moved out of Southern California.
Monday: August 21: The Day After
When I left for work at 6:30 AM, there was some light rain but that’s about it. When I got back to the apartment, it was 4 PM the sun was shining, and damage to Southern California was minimal. Out of fear of how things looked, some employers such as my sister’s office were remote for the day, and many school districts closed for the day to make sure there wasn’t any damage.
However, the worst damage in the mountains was mud flows, desert areas of Antelope Valley’s Lancaster & Palmdale and Coachella Valley’s Palm Springs with localized road flooding, due to both areas not being used to getting that much rain at once. OC Register has cited rainfall ranges from 1.63 inches at Newport Beach to 4.65 inches in Upper Harding Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains.
After work, I jogged over to Chick-fil-A, about a block south of Ralph’s in Orange on Main Street, as I got a free Chick-fil-A sandwich since the Angels got seven runs on Saturday, and to see what things were like around the neighborhood. Anaheim received about two inches of rain, so there was a fair amount of standing rainwater in the Santa Ana River. Through the neighborhood, the sun dried the sidewalks & roads out, and the smaller water channels, such as the Bitterbrush Channel got a good amount of water. When I got to Chick-fil-A, many other people got their free chicken sandwich as well. Heading back to the apartment, at Angel Stadium, the Angels vs. Cincinnati Reds game was postponed to Wednesday due to an oversaturated field, announced at 10 AM earlier that day. There were a handful of baseball fans, mainly from Japan, who were not aware of the time change since they did not buy tickets ahead of time and went to the box office to buy it then. At least one young baseball fan is making the most of it by doing some batting practice with one of the Angels staff.
I am glad damage due to Hurricane, then later Tropical Storm Hilary was minimal, and in thanks as well to to public transit & public utility workers to help make sure everything is operational for transit & infrastructure respectively.
Thank you for reading!
AntSol Travel 