A police vehicle near the scene of a lightning strike death that killed a woman and her two dogs in Pico Rivera, California, on Wednesday morning.
© KNBCA police vehicle near the scene of a lightning strike death that killed a woman and her two dogs in Pico Rivera, California, on Wednesday morning.
A woman and her two dogs were killed in a lightning strike in the Los Angeles area Wednesday morning as thunderstorms rolled through Southern California, officials said.

Antonia Mendoza Chavez, 52, was struck by lightning around 8:50 a.m. in Pico Rivera, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Deputy Miguel Meza said.

There were no witnesses, but paramedics called to the scene determined that her injuries were caused by lightning, he said. The two dogs also did not survive.

A low off the coast of California was bringing monsoonal rain and thunderstorms to Los Angeles and Ventura counties Wednesday, the National Weather Service said in a forecast discussion.


Pico Rivera ordered city crews to work indoors Wednesday due to the weather. The city government said in a statement that 3,700 lightning strikes had been reported in Southern California, NBC Los Angeles reported.

It did not appear that there were any other reports of lightning-related injuries in the Los Angeles area from the storms.

Cerritos College, a community college in Norwalk not far from Pico Rivera, closed its campus Wednesday after a power outage caused by a lightning strike. It said on its website the campus would remain closed Thursday.