Tragic moment A first responder saves a man from the raging Los Angeles River

A heroic helicopter rescue of a man desperately clinging to a wall has surfaced after the raging Los Angeles River swept through as the state grappled with severe storm conditions.

The chilling footage shows a responder dangling over a rain-soaked river south of Washington Boulevard in the Boyle Heights neighborhood before pulling the man to safety.

The Los Angeles Fire Department’s ground and air crews responded at around 5 p.m. Wednesday as the man, who has not yet been identified, clung for his life against a “pure concrete wall.”

After the man was lifted to safety, he was taken to LAC + USC Medical Center for treatment for hypothermia. No other injuries were reported.

Dramatic stills captured by KTLA’s Sky5 It showed the man desperately trying to stay above the muddy floodwaters while a member of the emergency crew made several attempts to reach him.

High winds and merciless rain seemed to choke off the rescue mission before the first responder could grab the waterlogged man.

After attaching a harness around the man, the two were lifted to safety, and the broadcasters pointed to his hands and red face as he was lifted into the helicopter.

It remains unclear how the man got to the river or how long he had been in the frigid waters before he was rescued.

It comes as tens of thousands are still under evacuation orders as other Californians face power outages, landslides and flooding from a brutal winter deluge.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the extreme shift from drought and wildfires to floods and blizzards “weather spells,” while surveying damage to an agricultural region of the state’s central coast on Wednesday.

Look back [at] In the past few years in this state — it’s turned to ice, Newsom said, and there’s been no warm bath in between.

If anyone had any doubts about Mother Nature and her wrath; If anyone has any doubts about what this is all about in terms of what’s happening to the climate and the changes we’re going through, come to California.

Meanwhile, just days after Orange County officials declared a local emergency, residents of four San Clemente apartment buildings were forced to evacuate after a hillside collapsed at the back of their property.

Orange County Fire Department crews responded to the scene in Buena Vista after receiving a 911 call about the landslide shortly after 8 a.m.

Upon arrival, firefighters searched all three properties to ensure all residents had exited the buildings.

Then they made a safe and a fourth yellow tag.

Drone footage taken after the evacuation showed the ground below the property crumbling and sliding downhill.

Fire brigades said the landslide reached the hill and into the train tracks below.

Buena Vista, Avenida Florencio to Calle Colina and the path below are closed.

A swimming pool can also be seen at the back of one of the properties precariously near the edge of the collapsed hills.

Turns out the patio furniture from the houses had been swept down the hill.

Talk to resident Clayton Robinson KTLA 5. He’s the owner of the multi-unit building that appears to have suffered the most damage.

We had a large retaining wall, and it went down and took half of our yard with it, and we have a pond. It is the pool that holds the rest of the yard, and the fire department is now emptying the pool to take pressure off the hill.

Robinson also told the outlet that they would likely lose everything and that his insurance company said they did not cover hillside collapses.

We may have lost it all. We called our insurance and they said, well, they don’t cover steep hills. So all that remains is our faith in God.

“So we are kind, but this is because of our faith, not because of our home.”

“You don’t know what to think,” said Salvador Olvera, whose house has been vacated.

“We don’t live in this situation all the time, and you would never think it happened to me.”

The mayor of San Clemente, who was at the scene, said landslides were a problem for entire coastal areas of the city.

“The erosion along our coast is really something that affects the entire San Clemente coast,” said Mayor Chris Duncan.

“It’s no surprise,” said Captain Thanh Nguyen of the OCFA. “With the amount of rain we’ve been getting and how much the landscape has been saturated with rain.”

And while the rains subsided by Thursday, meteorologists warned that another storm could arrive next week.

In the Cypress Shore community on the south side of town, we had a ramp failure there, which was held by a tieback system and had no movement there.

“But along this stretch here, along this beautiful beach trail here in San Clemente, if you walk that trail, you can see that there’s been a loss on these slopes over time, so we’re concerned about the whole stretch.”

There were no reports of injuries.

The National Weather Service recorded just under 2 feet of rain in downtown Los Angeles in 2023, making this year, so far, the 14th worst in over 140 years.

Heading into the weekend, the weather service predicted light rain across California, followed by more large storms next week.