The storm moves into the Golden State on Wednesday, with the heaviest rain falling on Thursday and Friday.
Some areas could see as much as 5 to 10 inches of rain while the Sierra Nevada mountain range could see 5 to 8 feet of snow.
A flood watch is in effect from the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles.
The biggest concern for mudslides and landslides will be on the burn scar areas from last month’s devastating Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles. These burn scar spots could see 3 to 5 inches of rain over the next three days.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the city is preparing by clearing catch basins of fire debris; offering residents over 6,500 sandbags; setting up over 7,500 feet of concrete barriers; and having systems in place to capture polluted runoff.
Sheriff’s deputies “are helping residents prepare with sandbags and passing out mud and debris safety tips,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a news conference Wednesday. “Our homeless outreach teams … are actively notifying individuals living in flood-prone areas like the LA River, Coyote Creek and other key waterways, urging them to relocate.”
The sheriff urged residents to prepare now in the event evacuation orders are issued.
“Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed numerous, numerous instances in the past of swift-water rescues where people were caught in dangerous, fast-moving water, and obviously, we want to prevent that,” he said.
“Nothing that you have back home is worth your life. If you decide to stay in your property in an evacuated area, debris from the burn scar areas and storm may impede roads, and we may not be able to reach you,” he warned.
Landslides from burn scars could be a threat in the region for years to come.
Post-wildfire landslides can exert great loads on objects in their paths, strip vegetation, block drainage ways, damage structures and endanger human life, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Additionally, wildfires could destabilize pre-existing, deep-seated landslides over long periods. Flows generated over longer periods could be accompanied by root decay and loss of soil strength, according to the USGS.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.
(NEW ORLEANS) — The man suspected of carrying out the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, had a checkered marital history punctuated by multiple divorces and financial difficulty, according to court records reviewed by ABC News.
The records also show that after his military service, Jabbar worked for two of the nation’s largest professional services firms, Ernst & Young and Deloitte, as he aimed to grow his own fledgling real estate business.
Jabbar has been identified by the FBI as the suspect in the deadly attack on New Year’s revelers. At least 15 people were killed and over two dozen injured after a rented Ford pickup truck was driven through a crowd on Bourbon Street at a high rate of speed early Wednesday, officials said.
Jabbar, who police said was killed during the attack, was a 42-year-old U.S.-born citizen and U.S. Army veteran from Texas, according to the FBI.
As of 2022, while employed by Deloitte, documents show Jabbar was making close to $125,000 a year — a salary which was chipped away at by court-ordered payments for his children from a past marriage and weighed down by credit card and mortgage debt.
In 2012 in Harris County, Texas, ex-wife Nakedra Charrlle Jabbar successfully sued him for child support payments for the couple’s two girls, who were eight and three years old at the time, according to court records.
Four years later, in 2016, Jabbar filed for divorce from another wife, Tiera Symone Jabbar, in Dekalb County, Georgia. The complaint form, filled out in handwriting, says the two married in Sept. 2013 but separated less than two and a half years later in Feb. 2016. Under grounds for divorce, Jabbar checked the box on the form that read “our marriage is irretrievably broken,” adding that the pair “can no longer live together and there is no hope that we will get back together.”
In July 2020, in Fort Bend County, Texas, Jabbar filed for divorce from wife Shaneen Chantil Jabbar, whom he married in Nov. 2017, according to court filings. But the pair jointly sought to dismiss the suit only a month after it was filed, saying they “both no longer desire[d] to prosecute his/her respective suits against the other party” — a request that the court granted.
However, when Jabbar again filed for divorce a year later, his then-wife responded with a counterclaim that sparked a lengthy battle of briefs indicating apparent bad blood between them that may have at least in part stemmed from financial difficulties.
In one filing, Shaneen’s lawyer accused Jabbar of “flagrant disregard” of his financial duties to their household — alleging that during their marriage, Jabbar “was entrusted with the management, control, and disposition of substantially all community estate funds.”
Though Shaneen “trusted and believed” her husband “would faithfully execute” his management, he violated their “fiduciary relationship,” his soon-to-be ex’s lawyer alleged.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar “has intentionally and in flagrant disregard of the duties as manager and trustee of the community funds mismanaged the community estate, all in fraud of” his wife’s financial interest, she said.
Shaneen’s filings also claimed that Jabbar withheld important information from the court about his retirement savings, with one record from July 2022 alleging Jabbar had failed to produce statements showing his participation in the retirement plan at Ernst & Young, where the filing indicates Jabbar worked prior to joining Deloitte.
The acrimonious split from Shaneen also featured Jabbar breaking with his own laywer. Attorney Robert Tsai — who represented Jabbar in his 2012 divorce — withdrew from the case in Sept. 2021, citing an inability to “effectively communicate” with his client “in a manner consistent with good attorney-client relations.” Court records indicate Jabbar represented himself through the remainder of the divorce proceedings.
In court records Jabbar laid out some of his financial difficulties as he explained why he sought a divorce settlement that would have the couple selling their house and splitting the proceeds. The property management firm Jabbar founded, Blue Meadow Properties, was failing to produce any revenue and was in fact losing money, per his submissions to the court.
“Time is of the essence,” he wrote in an email to his wife’s lawyer on Jan 6, 2022. “l can not afford the house payment. It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce. The home was not in default at the time we agreed to the temporary orders. l misunderstood the terms of the loan modification I had applied for at the time.”
Jabbar’s filings in the 2022 divorce from Shaneen show he was already responsible for paying $2,200 in child support per month following his divorce from Nakedra. Ultimately, Jabbar was ordered to pay an additional $1,353 a month in child support to help care for the son he shared with Shaneen, according to the documents.
The court ordered Deloitte to withhold the extra child support from his paychecks.
His ex-wife Shaneen got the house, despite Jabbar’s asking that the asset be sold and the proceeds split, court records show. She received primary custody of their son, though Jabbar got visitation rights, the records said.
During their divorce, court records show both Jabbard and Shaneen took four hours’ instruction on parenting from the “Texas Cooperative Parenting Course,” and each received a certificate indicating they had “successfully completed” the course and were “hereby committed to working with the other parent in the best interest of their child/children.” Jabbar’s is dated Aug. 20, 2021. Shaneen’s is dated Aug. 30, 2021.
ABC News attempted on Wednesday to contact Nakedra, Tiera and Shaneen. Phone calls or text messages were not returned.
(LOS ANGELES) — Less than a week after a massive wildfire shut down California’s Interstate 5, a major freeway between Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley, the traffic artery was closed again due to heavy snow, authorities said.
Both the southbound and northbound lanes of Interstate 5 remained closed Monday morning and the California Highway Patrol said there is no timeline on when it will be reopened.
A CHP spokesperson told ABC News heavy snow caused the closure of I-5 from Castiac, near where the Hughes Fire shut down the freeway on Wednesday. The stretch of I-5 is also known as “The Grapevine.”
The area, as well as other mountainous areas north of Los Angeles, was forecast to get six inches to a foot of snow.
The Hughes Fire, one of a series of major blazes that have devastated the Los Angeles metro region since Jan. 7, erupted on Wednesday near Castaic Lake reservoir, about 45 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. The fire, fanned by strong Santa Ana winds, grew quickly to more than 10,000 acres, prompting the mandatory evacuation of about 30,000 residents and putting another 20,000 on an evacuation watch.
More than 4,000 firefighters responded to the blaze, attacking it from the ground and air and preventing it from damaging any homes, officials said.
The Hughes Fire is one of four active fires still burning across Southern California, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Hughes fire was 95% contained on Monday morning, according to Cal Fire.
A weekend storm brought much-needed rain to Southern California. But the first significant rain in the area since June 1 was also accompanied by threats of a different natural disaster. Overnight, a flash flood warning was issued by the National Weather Service for Malibu, where homes and businesses were destroyed by the Palisades Fire, the largest of the blazes to devastate Los Angeles County this month.
Pacific Coast Highway west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles County was closed around 4:30 p.m. Sunday due to mudflows, officials said. Mudflows in the burn-scarred areas of fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades also caused the shutdown of several main roads in the area, including the northbound lanes of Sunset Boulevard, officials said.
As of Monday morning, parts of Los Angeles County had received 1.2 inches of rain. Downtown Los Angeles had gotten nearly a half-inch of rain and Santa Monica received almost an inch. Meanwhile, Santa Barbara County got 1.75 inches of rain and Ventura County, south of Los Angeles, had received 1.36 inches.
An additional half an inch of rain is possible for parts of Southern California through Tuesday.
The rain was a welcomed sight to firefighters still battling active blazes in the region, including the Hughes Fire.
The Palisades Fire, which started on Jan. 7 and exploded to over 23,000 acres, was 94% contained on Monday. The fire destroyed nearly 7,000 structures, including homes and businesses, and killed 11 people.
The Eaton Fire, which also broke out on Jan. 7 in Pasadena and Altadena, was 98% contained on Monday. The Eaton Fire burned more than 14,000 acres, destroyed more than 9,400 structures, including homes and businesses, and was blamed for the deaths of 17 people.
The fourth active Southern California fire was the Border 2 Fire south of San Diego near the Mexico border. The blaze, which started Thursday afternoon, was 43% contained on Monday after burning more than 6,600 acres of wildland.
“Rainfall overnight and into the morning hours has led to a substantial decrease in fire activity,” Cal Fire said in an update Monday morning. “While not ending the possibility of fires in the long term, the saturation of grass and other light, flashy fuels will lessen the threat of the spread of the Border 2 Fire.”
(NEW YORK) — Rudy Giuliani reached a settlement agreement with two former election workers he was found to have defamed, a joint letter from both parties said Thursday.
The former New York City mayor had been a no-show to his non-jury civil trial that was set to begin Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The proceedings had been adjourned until Tuesday.
“All parties reached a resolution,” Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Cammarata, said outside court.
He read a statement from Giuliani that said the settlement does not include an admission of guilt.
Giuliani’s statement said he gets to keep his New York co-op and Florida condominium along with all his personal belongings. He has agreed not to talk about Freeman and Moss in a defamatory way.
Andrew Giuliani said he will retain possession of the World Series rings, which he has said his father gifted to him.
Giuliani was scheduled to be the first witness in the case, which was to decide whether he must turn over his Florida condo to the two Georgia election workers.
When ABC News asked whether Giuliani was coming to court on Thursday morning, his attorney said “I’m not going to comment on anything right now.” Asked whether Giuliani was OK, the attorney responded “yes.”
A jury found Giuliani liable in 2023 for defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by falsely accusing them of tampering with the 2020 presidential vote in Georgia, and awarded the two election workers a $148 judgment.
The former New York City mayor has already turned over a Mercedes and other assets to the women, but is fighting to keep the condo, which he claims as his permanent residence.
Giuliani has been disbarred in New York and in Washington after his law license was stripped over his efforts aiding former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election.
He has been held in contempt twice this month by two different federal judges, and is also fighting to keep three Yankees World Series rings that he owns.
