I'm well aware of what happened in the desert areas that were hard hit, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of misguided media hype, more outside SoCal than inside it. On the scale of SoCal disasters, it wasn't a regional disaster. Even in normal winter rains there are areas that get hit by mudslides (usually recent burn areas). The eastern slopes of the mountains don't usually see that kind of rain, but they're also not heavily populated. The southern slopes don't see that kind of rain in summer, but regularly do in winter. Airports remained open, the transportation systems kept working, heavily impacted areas were small enough that emergency services weren't close to overwhelmed.

Even the article kind of says it was hype:


I got a number of contacts from people outside LA asking how bad things were (people don't do that when there are winter storms that are worse). I didn't see a lot of concern or hype inside SoCal - rain forecasts have been remarkably accurate for a while, even at very local levels, and just about everybody I know just shrugged and did their winter storm prep and went about their business.