The most intense rain to hit Southern California in over a year unleashed flooding, debris flows and mudslides that trapped cars and covered roadways, but spared areas burned in devastating wildfires from the catastrophe that was feared.

A storm that's been flooding Southern California streets with historic rainfall, disrupting travel and prompting water rescues and evacuations is expanding into the Southwest on Friday.

The big picture: The slow-moving storm on Thursday morning dumped a month's worth of rain in one hour on Oxnard, a Ventura County city west of Los Angeles. As of Friday morning, more than 26 million people were under flood watches from Southern California to Central Arizona.

Torrential rain caused flooding that forced rescues, closed roads, disrupted subway service and overwhelmed basements in the New York City area as “dangerous and life-threatening” rainfall surged across the concrete expanse on Friday.

A month’s worth of rain – more than 4 inches – fell over parts of Brooklyn in just three hours. Intense rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour were falling across the region, and the National Weather Service warned totals exceeding 8 inches “are increasingly likely” in parts of the tri-state area.

The floods that ravaged eastern Libya destroyed nearly a quarter of the coastal city of Derna, leaving thousands of people without shelter and bodies “everywhere,” under collapsed buildings and lying in the streets, an aid official said Wednesday as the government raised the death toll to at least 5,300.

More than 5,000 people were killed in Libya after torrential rains caused two dams to burst near the coastal city of Derna, destroying much of the city and carrying entire neighborhoods into the sea, local authorities said on Tuesday.

Libyan authorities scrambled to reach survivors and provide food, water and shelter to tens of thousands of people after a lethal storm that officials say likely killed thousands of people in the North African country’s east.

Bodies shrouded in blankets piled on the sidewalk outside a hospital in the city of Derna in eastern Libya, illustrating how the storm quickly overwhelmed Libya’s infrastructure and state institutions which have been eroded by years of war and political infighting.

Thousands of attendees of the Burning Man counterculture music festival are beginning to leave the northern Nevada desert after floods left concertgoers stranded for days.

Officials announced that the virtual lockdown was lifted on Monday afternoon local time after a weekend of rain and mud prevented attendees from leaving the concert venue. Storms rolled in, resulting in impassable roads and over a 5-mile hike to leave the area.

CLAIM: Officials confirmed an Ebola outbreak at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, where a national emergency was declared.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Federal health officials told The Associated Press they have not received any reports of Ebola cases at the event. A screenshot of a supposed post from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirming such cases was fabricated. And while flooding prompted road closures and left attendees stranded, there is no record of a national emergency being declared.

After the Burning Man festival was hit by freak flooding that left attendees stranded at the Nevada desert campsite, wild conspiracy theories have emerged online claiming that the site was now subject to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assistance due to a virus outbreak.

Some have claimed that festivalgoers had contracted Ebola—a disease that emerged in central Africa—despite one local nurse who attended the festival denying it was the case.

Rescuers have evacuated more than 100,000 people from flood-hit areas of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province in the past three weeks, officials said Wednesday.

The rescue operations were expanded last week when the Sutlej River started overflowing, inundating several districts. Most of the evacuations were reported in the districts of Bahawalpur and Kasur in Punjab province.