Video of entertainment park ride attraction shared as flooding at metro station after tropical storm Hilary

Context

On August 20, 2023, tropical storm Hilary struck southern California, causing flash floods, mudslides, and high winds throughout the state and prompting the declaration of a state of emergency. Tropical storm warnings were also issued in LA and San Diego.

Amid this, social media users have been sharing a video showing a flood-like scene with a claim that the visuals are from LA's Wilshire/Vermont metro station. The widely-shared video shows an earthquake in a subway station resulting in floods, where water gushes out of the building. One user on X (formerly Twitter) shared the video (archive here) with the caption, "The LA Metro Station on Wilshire/Vermont is flooding from the storm." This post had more than 1 million views and 1,751 reposts. Despite the user describing the video as a "joke" in the post's comments section, the video has been extensively shared and misconstrued as real. 

Another X user shared the same viral video with a caption, "WTF After The #TropicalStormHilary LA Metro Station on Wilshire/ Vermont is #flooding from the storm." This post had gathered more than 27,000 views when writing this story.

Source: X/@Ratnesh_speaks Altered by Logically Facts

However, this video is not from the storm but shows an entertainment ride at Universal Studios. 

In fact

Logically Facts ran a reverse image search using the keyframes from the viral video and discovered similar videos on YouTube with the description "Universal Studios." On April 15, 2021, a user shared the clip titled "Studio Tour EARTHQUAKE Scene 2021 | Universal Studios Hollywood." It had the same visuals as seen in the viral video. The video shows an attraction at Universal Studios called Earthquake Section 50, which features a shaking tram, a burning gasoline truck that collapses through the roof, fire and spark effects, a derailing subway train, and a flood of water.

At the timestamp of 2:18 minutes, a blue map and two steel cabinets can be seen next to the gushing water space. These visuals match scenes in the viral video. Furthermore, better clarity photographs published on the website The Studio Tour, on the page titled "Earthquake: The Big One," the Stage 50 set aligns with the scenes portrayed in the viral video. 

A comparison of screengrabs from the Universal Studios video and the viral video
(Source: The Studio Tour, X/@DealinRugs)

The footage is a mini attraction recreated at the Universal Studio that includes scenes from a 1974 film, Earthquake, released by Universal Pictures. According to the Studio Tour website, it is an attraction ride at Universal Studios Hollywood on a set named Stage 50. According to Theme Parks and Entertainment, this attraction comprises a set designed to resemble a subway station, in which the effects of an earthquake are recreated.

The Metro station of Wilshire/Vermont is not experiencing any floods due to the current tropical storm. The Los Angeles Times reported that an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 struck Ojai, a city located northwest of Los Angeles, on August 20, 2023. The report added that the earthquake specialists also pointed out that tropical storm Hilary's arrival had nothing to do with the earthquake.

The verdict

A video allegedly depicting the aftermath of Hurricane Hilary, in fact, depicts a ride in Universal Studios that has been artificially created to simulate the look and feel of an earthquake. It is not the Vermont Beverly Metro Station in Los Angeles. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.