Well, the AP reporter is a bit of a ding bat here, because the weather phenomena is called Pineapple Express, not the name of the storm. It is called as such because the system comes in from the warmer Pacific waters i.e. Hawaii, hence the Pineapple reference.
We are here in Northern California north of Sacramento. We are having good rain. The problem is, people do not remember the storms of the 60s and 70 and early 80s we would have. There is no weather memory, so a little big storm like this sends everyone running around in circles and buying milk and bread at the store...
It's also becuase the media stopped doing journalismyears ago and now just hypes news to get ratings - they act like every weather event is the first time it ever happened and everyone is doomed.