It’s lunchtime at Kesling’s Kitchen in Borrego Springs, and the line is out the door and down the block. It takes about 20 minutes to get inside to order food. The rush isn’t surprising: Borrego Springs is a small town that swells in size when people flock to see wildflowers around Anza-Borrego, California’s largest state park.

Plentiful winter rain and precise conditions have led to a bonanza of spring wildflowers this season. And while that can be a great thing, it also raised fears that Borrego Springs could once again face what locals have dubbed “flowergeddon”, an apocalyptic situation caused by booming visitation.

Visitors walk and explore a wildflower viewing area, Borrego Springs, California. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian

The last time the region experienced a wildflower bloom was March 2017, when some 200,000 visitors flocked to the super bloom. After the years-long statewide drought, “there was a lot of pent-up excitement”, said Betsy Knaak, the executive director of the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association, who has lived in the area for four decades.

Borrego Springs (population 3,000) was unprepared for the avalanche of visitors coming from nearby Los Angeles, San Diego and even farther afield. The town ran out of food, hotel rooms, gas, and money in the ATMs. Traffic backed up for 20 miles; restaurant employees quit on the spot. When bathrooms filled up, visitors began using the fields to relieve themselves.

“It was like being in the Super Bowl of flower blooms,” says Knaak. “We were caught off-guard. We’re a rural, isolated community and everything has to be trucked in.”

This year, the town wanted to be prepared. Knaak and an all-community committee has been meeting regularly for months, since the winter rains foretold a bountiful flower year. They established a website with downloadable maps, manned information booths, and set up port-a-potties in Borrego Springs and near the flower areas. “This year, we are prepared and our restaurants stocked up – as are the gas stations and ATMs,” she says. “We are ready.”

A man bikes in the town of Borrego Springs, California. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian

Wildflower super blooms have become a requisite backdrop for Instagram influencers, who flock to the fields en masse. In just the past few days, some of the top photos tagged in Anza-Borrego State Park have garnered tens of thousands of likes. Meanwhile, #superbloom has more than 92,000 posts.

Other southern California towns, such as Lake Elsinore and the Antelope Valley area outside Los Angeles, are bracing for a tide of visitors this season. Social media popularity is a double-edged sword that national parks are grappling with – more attendance can lead to poor behavior, such as trampling flowers, or off-road driving in protected areas.

Visitors pose for photos among the wildflowers in Borrego Springs, California. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian

This year, however, preparation seems to have paid off. The early rains made it easier to predict that the bloom was coming, and it looks set to last over a longer period, meaning that even busy weekends don’t feel as packed with people. On a recent Sunday cars lined the road but there was no crush of people on the trails or in the flowers. Still, hotel rooms in Borrego Springs and nearby Julian were fully booked for two weekends straight.

In a field outside Borrego Springs on this particular morning, flowers cover the green hillsides, giving the effect of an impressionist painting. The field is busy but not overly crowded – people hug, wander and pose for photos in the flowers. Port-a-potties dot the landscape, and the town has set up information booths near the fields, too. Conversations in numerous languages can be heard on the sandy trails through the flowers.

A street scene in downtown Borrego Springs, California. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian

Jamie DuBose watches her two young daughters, Cara Mia and Ava, romp through fields of vibrant golden desert dandelions, purple sand verbena and delicate white desert lilies. DuBois, who has lived in Chula Vista, near the Mexican border, for five years, hasn’t been to see the flowers before, but has been watching photos on social media closely. “It’s just one of those things you hear about, living here,” she says. “With all the rain, I knew it would be phenomenal. Even the drive over was beautiful.”

This year, an extraordinary proliferation of painted lady butterflies and sphinx moth caterpillars are part of the natural spectacle too. The butterflies are the result of a phenomenon known as an “irruption” – the strong rains brought a population explosion, a billion strong, in northern Mexico. Rain has also brought a boom in sphinx moth caterpillars, some as fat and large as a cigar. The caterpillars can eat the wildflowers, but they also provide food for hawks migrating from Argentina to North America.

The last time the park experienced a wildflower bloom was March 2017, when some 200,000 visitors flocked to the super bloom. Photograph: John Francis Peters/The Guardian

Like the flora and fauna, the small towns can also benefit from the bonanza. “For the most part, everyone is very excited,” says Bri Fordem, the executive director at the Anza-Borrego Foundation. “For a short period of time there are some people who gripe, but it’s a positive feeling because people are here to share the value and see a little slice of what we get all the time.” Despite the headaches in 2017, Borrego Springs business owners said they made as much money in about 45 days as they did the rest of the year.

Back in the line at Kesling’s Kitchen, the soup special is cactus and green chili, and the kitchen is serving up wood-fired pizzas with an optional gluten-free crust. The restaurant has run out of basil, but it’s not a dealbreaker. At the front of the line, a harried employee apologizes for the wait. “We’re a little short-staffed this weekend,” she explains. “It’s wildflower season.”