The Burning Man Festival. The famous dj and music performer diplo managed to escape after walking miles through the muck. Donald trump widening his already huge lead over his gop rivals in a new poll. And it shows that an overwhelming majority of Republican Voters think that his actions after the 2020 election were legitimate. And 385 people are still unaccounted for after the catastrophic wildfires on maui. This hour of cnn this morning starts right now. You know, it was a bit of an odd moment yesterday when betsey klein, our white house producer sent a pool note, shes in pool with President Biden and it was about the president getting an update on burning man, which was not something i ever expected to get from our white house team. And yet thats where we were. Especially since it was about rain in the desert. Rain in the desert. Again, a lot of unexpected events, but just hours from now, maybe the end is near. Roads are about to reopen or could reopen at the Burning Man Festival whe
deep rushing flood waters. the driver was not injured but the california highway patrol closed the road to prevent others from crossing. throws flood waters so powerful a refrigerator was seen rushing away. the flood has nearly covered an entire golf course. one homeowner says he s never seen anything like it in the coachella valley. within 24 hours it s turned into a torrential storm. between home number 13 and home number 16 it s virtually six feet thick. the conditions there creating a dangerous situation for drivers including a fire truck forced to turn around due to rising waters. ahead of the storm the palm springs mayor says the city prepared and distributed 60,000 sand bags as well as cleared storm drains. even an inch or two of rain in the desert can cause damage. all right. take a look at this. the road totally covered up but
where they are. we don t have any reason to evacuate at this time. we have closed down preemptively three of our roads that are regularly flooded. we do know that there s going to be flooding because, like i said, even an inch or two of rain in the desert can cause damage. . yeah. i can t stress how bizarre it is to have rain in august in southern california. this is one of the major roads that the mayor has was talking about that they closed down here. they get yets on these roads already without rain. just to be safe, because of potential flooding they ve shut it down. out in the distance there, there s interstate 10 and people have been coming down here trying to get on the highway and the police officers here, that s where you would find joshua tree national park and that s also supposed to see a lot of flooding. they re worried about the mud flow flows and worried about how much flooding there will be and they want people to stay safe, stay
evacuate at this time. we have closed down preemptively three of our roads that are regularly flooded. we do know there s going to be flooding. even an inch or two of rain in the desert can cause damage. and it s just not used to that so we re going to see mud slides and mud flows. this is the danger here. and it s just worth noting that in los angeles county we are getting flood warnings very targeted to exact streets where people live. that s how much they re targeting where they re expecting some of this danger since that s where most of our team lives. that s why we re watching the different situations because that s what the issue could be is the flooding. stephanie elam, thanks very much. and sections of mission viejo
dangerous conditions out here. stephanie, is southern california prepared for this? this is definitely weird but we ve heard from the mayor here in palm springs, we ve heard from the mayor of los angeles saying they are prepared for this. i checked in to see what los angeles department of weather and power is doing. they re saying their reservoirs are ready to take some of that extra water that may come. they re making sure drains have been cleared. they ve been doing a lot of prep. i ve seen sandbags making their way. people have sandbagging out where they need them. it seems that the messaging has gotten out there. however, this amount of rain, getting more than a year s worth of rain in the desert in just one storm, this is where we could see some catastrophe here and is why people need to stay home. stephanie elam, thank you. and what happened to rudy giuliani? how the former new york prosecutor went from fighting mob bosses to being a criminal defendant.