LOS ANGELES, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Scientists warned that California may be due for a mega-storm which could cause three times as much damage as a major earthquake ripping along the San Andreas Fault, local media reported Monday.
This rare mega-storm, or an ARkStorm, would last for weeks and send more than 1.5 million people fleeing as floodwaters inundate cities and form lakes in the Central Valley and Mojave Desert, the U.S. Geological Survey was quoted by media as saying.
Officials estimated that the structural and economic damage from such an ARkStorm would amount to more than 725 billion U.S. dollars statewide.
In heavily populated areas of the Los Angeles Basin, epic runoff from the San Gabriel Mountains could quickly overwhelm a flood control dam on the San Gabriel river and unleash floodwaters from Pico Rivera to Long Beach, according to an analysis by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
California has received about 18 trillion gallons of water thanks to a series of storms this month, said the National Weather Service.
