Hur­ri­cane Hi­lary head­ed for Mex­i­co’s Ba­ja Cal­i­for­nia on Sat­ur­day as the U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter pre­dict­ed “cat­a­stroph­ic and life-threat­en­ing flood­ing” for the penin­su­la and for the south­west­ern Unit­ed States, where it was fore­cast to cross the bor­der as a trop­i­cal storm on Sun­day.

Of­fi­cials as far north as Los An­ge­les scram­bled to get the home­less off the streets, set up shel­ters and pre­pare for evac­u­a­tions.

Hi­lary is ex­pect­ed to plow in­to Mex­i­co’s Ba­ja penin­su­la on Sat­ur­day night and then surge north­ward and en­ter the his­to­ry books as the first trop­i­cal storm to hit South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in 84 years.

The U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter is­sued trop­i­cal storm and po­ten­tial flood warn­ings for a wide swath of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia from the Pa­cif­ic coast to in­te­ri­or moun­tains and deserts. Of­fi­cials talked of evac­u­a­tion plans for Cal­i­for­nia’s Catali­na Is­land.

“I don’t think any of us — I know me par­tic­u­lar­ly — nev­er thought I’d be stand­ing here talk­ing about a hur­ri­cane or a trop­i­cal storm,” said Jan­ice Hahn, chair of the Los An­ge­les Coun­ty Board of Su­per­vi­sors.

Af­ter rapid­ly gain­ing pow­er ear­ly Fri­day, Hi­lary slowed some lat­er in the day but re­mained a ma­jor Cat­e­go­ry 3 hur­ri­cane ear­ly Sat­ur­day with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 125 mph (205 kph), down from 145 mph (230 kph).

Ear­ly on Sat­ur­day, the storm was cen­tered about 235 miles (375 kilo­me­ters) west of the south­ern tip of the Ba­ja penin­su­la. It was mov­ing north-north­west at 16 mph (26 kph) and was ex­pect­ed to turn more to­ward the north and pick up speed.

The lat­est fore­cast track point­ed to Hi­lary mak­ing land­fall along a sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed area of the Ba­ja penin­su­la at a point about 200 miles (330 kilo­me­ters) south of the Pa­cif­ic port city of En­se­na­da.

It is then ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue north­ward up the penin­su­la, rais­ing fears that its heavy rains could cause dan­ger­ous flood­ing in the bor­der city of Ti­jua­na, where many homes in the city of 1.9 mil­lion cling pre­car­i­ous­ly to steep hill­sides.

May­or Montser­rat Ca­ballero Ramirez said the city was set­ting up four shel­ters in high-risk zones and warn­ing peo­ple in risky zones.

“We are a vul­ner­a­ble city be­ing on one of the most vis­it­ed bor­ders in the world and be­cause of our land­scape,” she said.

Con­cern was ris­ing in the U.S., too.

The Na­tion­al Park Ser­vice closed Joshua Tree Na­tion­al Park and Mo­jave Na­tion­al Pre­serve to keep peo­ple from be­com­ing strand­ed amid flood­ing. Cities across the re­gion, in­clud­ing in Ari­zona, were of­fer­ing sand­bags to safe­guard prop­er­ties against flood­wa­ters. Ma­jor League Base­ball resched­uled three Sun­day games in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, mov­ing them to Sat­ur­day as part of split-dou­ble­head­ers.

Deputies with the Los An­ge­les Sher­iff’s De­part­ment took to the road to urge home­less peo­ple liv­ing in riverbeds to seek shel­ter. Au­thor­i­ties in the city were ar­rang­ing food, cots and shel­ters for peo­ple who need­ed them.

SpaceX de­layed the launch of a satel­lite-car­ry­ing rock­et from a base on Cal­i­for­nia’s cen­tral coast un­til at least Mon­day. The com­pa­ny said con­di­tions in the Pa­cif­ic could make it dif­fi­cult for a ship to re­cov­er the rock­et boost­er.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency had pre-po­si­tioned staff and sup­plies in the re­gion.

“I urge every­one, every­one in the path of this storm, to take pre­cau­tions and lis­ten to the guid­ance of state and lo­cal of­fi­cials,” Biden told re­porters Fri­day at Camp David, where he is meet­ing with the lead­ers of Japan and South Ko­rea.

Of­fi­cials in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia were re-en­forc­ing sand berms, built to pro­tect low-ly­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties against win­ter surf, like in Hunt­ing­ton Beach, which dubs it­self as “Surf City USA.”

In near­by New­port Beach, Tan­ner Atkin­son wait­ed in a line of ve­hi­cles for free sand­bags at a city dis­tri­b­u­tion point.

“I mean a lot of peo­ple here are ex­cit­ed be­cause the waves are gonna get pret­ty heavy,” Atkin­son said. “But I mean, it’s gonna be some rain, so usu­al­ly there’s some flood­ing and the land­slides and things like that.”

Some schools in Cabo San Lu­cas were be­ing pre­pared as tem­po­rary shel­ters, and in La Paz, the pic­turesque cap­i­tal of Ba­ja Cal­i­for­nia Sur state on the Sea of Cortez, po­lice pa­trolled closed beach­es to keep swim­mers out of the whipped-up surf. Schools were shut down in five mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties.

It was in­creas­ing­ly like­ly that Hi­lary would reach Cal­i­for­nia on Sun­day while still at trop­i­cal storm strength, though wide­spread rain was ex­pect­ed to be­gin as ear­ly as Sat­ur­day, the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice’s San Diego of­fice said.

Hur­ri­cane of­fi­cials said the storm could bring heavy rain­fall to the south­west­ern Unit­ed States, dump­ing 3 to 6 inch­es (8 to 15 cen­time­ters) in places, with iso­lat­ed amounts of up to 10 inch­es (25 cen­time­ters), in por­tions of south­ern Cal­i­for­nia and south­ern Neva­da.

“Two to three inch­es of rain­fall in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia is un­heard of” for this time of year, said Kris­ten Cor­bosiero, a Uni­ver­si­ty at Al­bany at­mos­pher­ic sci­en­tist who spe­cial­izes in Pa­cif­ic hur­ri­canes. “That’s a whole sum­mer and fall amount of rain com­ing in prob­a­bly 6 to 12 hours.”

The re­gion could face once-in-a-cen­tu­ry rains and there is a good chance Neva­da will break its all-time rain­fall record, said me­te­o­rol­o­gist Jeff Mas­ters of Yale Cli­mate Con­nec­tions and a for­mer gov­ern­ment in-flight hur­ri­cane me­te­o­rol­o­gist.

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Wat­son re­port­ed from San Diego. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Seth Boren­stein in Wash­ing­ton, Maria Verza and Mark Steven­son in Mex­i­co City, John Antczak in Los An­ge­les, and Eu­gene Gar­cia in New­port Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, con­tributed to this re­port.

CABO SAN LU­CAS, Mex­i­co (AP) —