A heavy storm hit the West Coast overnight, leaving thousands of people without power in three states and forcing thousands more to leave their homes in mudslide-prone areas in California.
In Nevada, a canal levee ruptured early Saturday, releasing water as much as 3 feet deep into the agricultural dessert town of Fernley and stranding about 3,500 people, authorities said. Residents have been evacuated to schools, but no injuries were reported.
Up to 44 inches of snow had fallen in some parts of the Sierra Nevada, the National Weather Service said. Forecasters expected the storm to dump as much as 10 feet at higher elevations of the mountain range by Sunday.
In California, the storm grounded flights and overturned trucks as wind gusted to 80 mph during the second wave of the arctic storm that has sent trees crashing onto houses, cars and roads.
Hundreds of thousands of customers lost power from central California into Oregon and Washington.
In the Los Angeles County, about one to three inches of rain fell in most areas, with as much as six to seven inches of rain in the mountains and foothills.
About 15,000 households in the Los Angeles area were without power Saturday as crews worked around the clock to restore service. Most of the outages were due to downed power lines affected by 40 to 60 mph wind gusts.
Storm-related problems on Friday night and early Saturday included transformer fires and wires knocked down by falling trees or high winds, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said.
But the biggest problems so far have occurred in Northern California, where 40 miles (about 64 kilometers) of power lines and 105 power poles were damaged Friday, leaving 1.6 million homes without electricity.
About 430,000 Northern California homes still had no power Saturday. Utility companies said some could be without power into next week.
Flash flood warnings were in effect Saturday for broad swaths of Southern California, including most of Los Angeles County and southeastern Santa Barbara County.
The state opened its emergency operations center Friday to coordinate storm response, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff byphone.
Forecasters said the first wave of the storm would bring scattered showers through Saturday evening, when the next wave is expected to hit the region. The heaviest rains, however, were expected to the southeast in San Diego County.
"We're seeing a little bit of a break right now," said Steve Vanderburg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He said showers should increase overnight and Sunday but would not be as heavy as the first wave Friday night.
Source:Xinhua
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