As students prepared for the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in nearly a century, a towering tree right off the 101 Highway collapsed in a local residential neighborhood on Sunday night.
Nearby neighborhood Echo Park was just one of many areas to experience weather damage, including a fallen tree and downed power lines.
In one specific instance, a large tree crushed a resident’s car, leaving the vehicle with smashed windows and flattened tires. A car on the other side of the street was also marked with minor scratches.
Daniel, an Echo Park resident and witness to the collapse, told Annenberg Media he had filed a 3-1-1 City of Los Angeles service request for the tree in February. Daniel requested that Annenberg Media not refer to him using his last name. Shortly after he submitted the request, city service workers arrived at the residence.
“A truck came out and said it was not dead enough to be removed,” Daniel said.
Despite the tree posing a safety risk, Daniel said the city ignored it.
The collapse occurred shortly after the magnitude 5.1 earthquake in Ventura County, a neighboring county to L.A.
Many other residential areas are in the process of cleaning up similar weather damage in the aftermath of the first tropical storm to hit the L.A. area in 84 years, per the Associated Press.
The Los Angeles Fire Department advises L.A. residents who see storm damage to call 3-1-1 or (213) 473-3231, or online options like a form and the MyLA311 app to report the damage.
A previous version of this story attributed storm photos to the author. The story has been updated with the correct photo credits.