Tropical Storm Rachel swamps San Diego County with heavier-than-expected rain

Gary Robbins, Karen Kucher and Paul Sisson, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Oct 11, 2026

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Remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit San Diego County harder than expected before dawn Sunday, sending surf crashing into beachside cottages in Oceanside, flooding parts of Highway 101 near Carlsbad, and triggering several water rescues.

The quick-moving system also knocked out power to more than 330 customers in the Otay Mesa-San Ysidro area, and significantly tore into the berm that protects the Del Mar Lifeguard headquarters. The Tijuana River estuary flooded a street in Imperial Beach.

The National Weather Service had forecast that roughly 1 inch of rain would fall in coastal cities and 2 to 3 inches would fall and drench inland mountains and valleys between late Saturday night and early Sunday.

The outer ridge of Rachel surged ashore about 8 p.m.— earlier than anticipated — and let loose. By 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the system had dropped 5.16 inches on Palomar Mountain, 2.69 inches in eastern Oceanside, 2.11 inches in the Bay Ho neighborhood of San Diego, 1.75 inches in Carlsbad, and 1.36 inches at Camp Pendleton.

San Diego International Airport got 0.92 inches.

The weather service reported varying amounts of precipitation around the region: Julian, 3.04 inches; Otay Mountain, 2.99 inches; Poway, 2.69 inches; Ramona, 2.52 inches; Alpine, 2.30 inches; Fallbrook, 2.22 inches; Valley Center, 2.10 inches; Rancho Bernardo, 2.06 inches; San Diego Country Estates, 2.06 inches; Escondido, 1.81 inches; Campo, 1.81 inchesl; Santee, 1.56 inches; National City, 1.52 inches; Borrego Springs, 1.14 inches.

Despite the weather service’s Saturday plea that the public stay away from local beaches because of the possibility of coastal flooding, crowds still flocked to the coast. In Oceanside, motorists lined up to drive on the Strand early Sunday to get a close look at the water. Cars and trucks were soon being hit by waves.

A crowd also gathered south of the pier to watch Bruce Parker, a well-known local who goes by the nickname Trenchcoat Guy, stand on the Strand and repeatedly get hit by big waves.

“Why am I doing this?” said Parker, 79. “Because it’s fun.”

Before long, other people were doing the same, including children.

“We just like watching Mother Nature,” said Collin Smith of Encinitas, who was standing with his son, Cedric. “It doesn’t happen every day.”

Down in South County, the swollen Tijuana River estuary flowed onto Seacrest Drive in Imperial Beach.

By Sunday morning, San Diego Fire-Rescue personnel had responded to more than 50 traffic collisions, five transformer fires and 17 incidents reporting wires being down in the storm, Deputy Fire Chief Dan Eddy said in an Instagram post.

City firefighters and lifeguards also participated in water rescues, including one in the La Mesa area and one in Coronado.

Heartland Fire & Rescue crews worked with San Diego firefighters after a man was swept into a culvert near 70th Street and Alvarado Road, near the border of La Mesa and San Diego, shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday. The man was trapped in rapidly rising stormwater, officials said.

“An extensive rescue operation was undertaken, and the victim was successfully extracted,” Heartland Fire said in an Instagram post. The man was transported to the hospital in stable condition.

A second water rescue occurred near Imperial Avenue and 33rd Street in the Logan Heights area involving a person trapped in a storm drain tunnel, a San Diego spokesperson said.

In that incident, reported shortly after 11:45 p.m. Saturday, a lifeguard rescue team built a rope system to extricate the person. More than 30 personnel, including two lifeguard swift water rescue teams and four fire engines, worked for more than an hour to free the man. He was able to walk away, the spokesperson said.

San Diego lifeguards assisted with a third rescue early Sunday morning after Coast Guard officials received a 911 call around 4 a.m. from a man on a sailboat that ran aground near Coronado and was taking on water.

The Coast Guard sent a small boat crew who located the sailboat near Coronado Beach, but they couldn’t get near it because of the shallow water and hazardous surf conditions, a Coast Guard spokesperson said.

A helicopter crew was then deployed out of Ventura, and they lowered a rescue swimmer down to assist. The man was trapped inside the sailboat cabin and was sticking his head out of a small hatch. The rescue swimmer gave the man a snorkel to help him breathe and worked to rip the top off the boat to free him from the cabin. He was rescued around 7:15 a.m. and transported to receive medical care, the spokesperson said.