Image taken from screen capture of Long Beach Fire Department video.

3:16pm | Three homeless people were rescued from quickly-rising flood waters in the Los Angeles River today near Willow Street, when the Long Beach Fire Department secured them to a line and walked them to safety.

Firefighters responded to a call around 8:15am today and found three homeless people who had made camp in a grassy area of the Los Angeles River bed and woke to find rains had left them stranded on an island. The Urban Search & Rescue team was deployed and crossed the water to reach the victims, then secured them with helmets and vests and walked them across the river to safety. There were no injuries and no one was taken to the hospital.

“The water was about ankle high when they started [the rescue] and mid-thigh when they made the rescue and brought them across,” said Captain Rich Brandt, who said that the water was probably moving between 10-15 mph. “The water kind of accumulates there and rises pretty quickly in that area.”

The Fire Department has posted an excellent video of the incident on their blog, firechannel.org/blog/.