Campus Alert Archive
PCC

PCC Closes All Campuses for First Tropical Storm to Hit Southern California in 84 Years

CAhurricaneemergency notificationhigh confidence
Confirmed Threat

On Sunday, August 20, 2023, Pasadena City College announced the closure of all campuses and student services for Monday, August 21, ahead of Tropical Storm Hilary — the first tropical storm to make landfall in Southern California since 1939. The college's official statement, issued in advance of the storm, cited 'an abundance of caution' and explicitly committed to reopening on Tuesday, August 22. Hilary, which had crossed Baja California as a Category 1 hurricane before weakening, delivered record-breaking rainfall across the Los Angeles basin on August 20-21.

Alerts
1
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
Pasadena City College
Community College · CA
~26,000 studentsRavePCC Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

1 message in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

INITIAL ALERTEmail
Verified verbatimPCC official Facebook post and PCC website (pasadena.edu/news-and-events/hurrican-hilary.php), Sunday, August 20, 2023282 chars
Out of an abundance of caution, all Pasadena City College campuses and student services will be closed Monday, August 21. In addition, all college events and gatherings scheduled for Monday are also cancelled. PCC campuses will reopen and operate as scheduled on Tuesday, August 22.
Phrase 'out of an abundance of caution' is the standard PCC and California community-college closure-justification language, used here for a weather event with no historical analog in the region
Notably issued ON THE DAY BEFORE the closure, which is unusually proactive for a Southern California community college — Hilary's unprecedented nature drove early decision-making
Distributed via PCC website, email, PCC Alert SMS (Rave), and PCC official Facebook/X — the same multi-channel cascade PCC uses for any campus-wide announcement
The explicit reopening commitment ('Tuesday, August 22') is a deliberate design choice to reduce alert-anxiety on a commuter campus where uncertain timing causes outsized disruption
Context

Background

Pasadena City College, founded in 1924, is one of the largest community colleges in the United States, serving approximately 26,000 students across its main 53-acre campus in Pasadena and several satellite locations. Tropical Storm Hilary made history when it crossed into Southern California on August 20, 2023 — the first tropical storm to make landfall in the region since 1939 — and triggered the first-ever Tropical Storm Warning issued for Southern California. PCC's decision to close came after the City of Pasadena activated its Emergency Operations Center and the Pasadena Unified School District announced a Monday closure. PCC's closure announcement was issued Sunday, August 20 — proactively, the day before any rain reached campus — and used the standard California community-college framing ('out of an abundance of caution') that has become the dominant template for weather-driven closures statewide. The college was one of dozens of California higher-education institutions to close for Hilary, including the entire nine-college Los Angeles Community College District. Hilary delivered record rainfall to the LA basin but, fortunately for PCC, no significant campus damage occurred and the college reopened on schedule Tuesday morning. The case is a useful documentation of how community colleges handle an entirely novel weather threat: the standard 'out of an abundance of caution' template stretched to cover the first tropical storm in nearly a century without requiring custom-drafted alert language.
Analysis

Key Findings

PCC's 282-character verbatim closure notice is one of the longer single-message campus emergency alerts in the archive — community-college closure notifications typically pack more operational detail (reopening date, event status) into a single message than active-threat alerts
The 'out of an abundance of caution' framing has become a near-universal California community-college template for weather-driven closures, used identically across the LACCD's nine colleges, PCC, and many other districts
Issuing the closure announcement on Sunday, August 20 — a full day before any rain reached the basin — reflects an unusually proactive posture driven by the storm's historic novelty (first tropical storm landfall since 1939)
The explicit reopening commitment ('Tuesday, August 22') in the same message as the closure is a commuter-campus design pattern that reduces planning uncertainty for students working off-campus jobs and arranging childcare
Outcome
All PCC campuses and student services closed for Monday, August 21, 2023. All scheduled college events and gatherings on Monday were canceled. Campuses [reopened and operated as scheduled on Tuesday, August 22](https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/pasadena-city-college-says-all-campuses-open-all-student-services-available-monday). No campus damage or injuries reported.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Official
    PCC Update on Hurricane Hilary — Pasadena City College official
    pasadena.edu
  2. Social
    PCC official Facebook closure post — Out of an abundance of caution
    facebook.com
  3. News
    PCC CLOSES CAMPUSES ON MONDAY — ColoradoBoulevard.net
    coloradoboulevard.net
  4. News
    Pasadena City College Will Close Monday, Reopen Tuesday — Pasadena Now
    pasadenanow.com
  5. News
    Tropical Storm Hilary: List of school districts, colleges closed by severe weather — CBS Los Angeles
    cbsnews.com
  6. Official
    Hilary Storm Update — Los Angeles Community College District
    laccd.edu
Tags
community-collegehurricanetropical-stormweather-emergencypasadena-city-collegecaliforniahilarycampus-closureabundance-of-cautionhistoric-storm
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion