Storm Hits Southern California After Drenching Bay Area

Californians got a lot of what they wanted and little of what they feared from a major storm that finally blew out of the state Friday.

Up to 5 inches of desperately needed rain fell in some areas of Southern California, where several areas were hit by landslides, some areas saw minor flooding and fire officials rescued two people and pulled two bodies from rivers.

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Avalanches of mud and debris blocked part of the Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County, National Weather Service specialist Stuart Seto said.

He said heavy rain was falling in Ventura County as well as western Los Angeles County, where possible flash flooding was a concern.

As the storm crept down the coast overnight, its powerful winds caused power outages around Santa Barbara, where the National Weather Service said up to 5 inches fell in coastal mountains. Amtrak suspended service between Los Angeles and the central coast city of San Luis Obispo.

In the Ventura County city of Camarillo, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, rain was falling at about an inch an hour over hillsides ravaged by a 2013 wildfire. With few roots to hold the soil in place, and a waxy subsurface layer caused by heat from the flames, the deluge caused part of a hillside to give way.

Debris brushed aside concrete barriers crews had set up on the slope and surrounded about a dozen homes with silt, sticks and rocks – some as large as a couch. The force was so great that two large earthmovers used to set up barriers were swept down to the street, with one nearly buried.

Near downtown Los Angeles, the fire department rescued two people from the storm-swollen Los Angeles River. Orange County fire officials and Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies each pulled a body from smaller waterways, though in both cases the cause of death wasn't clear.

On Thursday, the center of the storm and its torrential rains hit the San Francisco Bay Area and the surrounding region, pushing waterways toward flood stage, toppling trees and cutting power to thousands.

``It's a big storm, as we expected, and it's headed south with very powerful winds and heavy rainfall,'' said National Weather Service meteorologist Will Pi.

In Oregon, the winds proved deadly. A falling tree killed a homeless man who was sleeping on a trail, and a teenage boy died after a large tree fell on the vehicle in which he was riding, causing it to swerve and hit another tree.

Falling trees also injured a man in southwest Washington and a sixth-grader at an elementary school in Santa Cruz, California.

The system's powerful winds temporarily knocked out power to more than 150,000 customers in western Washington.

This Pineapple Express storm carried warm air and vast amounts of water in a powerful current stretching from Hawaii to the West Coast and up into the mountains, where gusts up to 140 mph blew through passes.

The current left San Francisco drenched but balmy, with 60-degree temperatures, about 5 degrees above average for this time of year.

Waves slammed onto waterfronts around the Bay Area, ferries were bound to their docks, airplanes were grounded and many schools and businesses told people to stay home.

The gusts made motorists tightly grip their steering wheels on the Golden Gate Bridge, where managers created a buffer zone to prevent head-on collisions by swerving cars.

The iconic suspension bridge is engineered to swing in cross winds, so ``the concern we have right now is more about vehicles,'' spokeswoman Priya David Clemens said.

Sonoma County authorities recommended that hundreds of people evacuate at least 300 homes in the lowest lying areas near the Russian River, which was expected to start overflowing overnight. Peak flooding in the towns of Guerneville and Monte Rio was anticipated by 10 a.m. Friday, forecasters said.

Authorities warned of minor flooding along the Sacramento River in Tehama County and Cache Creek in Yolo County.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. crews worked to restore power to 110,000 people, down from 166,000 earlier Thursday.

There were multiple accidents on flooded roads, and several trees crunched cars. Interstate 5, California's critical north-south thruway, was closed by flooding in the northern town of Weed. In Marin County, heavy rains washed out a portion of state Route 1.

Disembarking from a ferry in San Francisco, Malcolm Oubre said some people were overreacting.

``I know it's a big storm supposedly, but they're treating it like it's a hurricane,'' he said.

Teenagers drove trucks through a flooded Safeway parking lot to make waves for kayakers in Healdsburg as grocery shoppers trudged through several feet of water to get supplies.

East Coast kids revel in snow days, but closures are rare on the West Coast, so Thursday's canceled classes were a novelty in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Sonoma and Santa Cruz County.

Surfers welcomed big, choppy swells from the same high seas that sent towering sprays of water airborne along breakfronts in San Francisco and Monterey.

Ski resorts in the northern Sierra Nevada – where schools and roads were closed by whiteout conditions and power outages – were hoping for 3 feet of snow once it all settles.

While rains were expected to continue through Friday evening across much of California, farmers will need more storms this size to even begin to recover from a record drought.

Updates: Interactive Radar and Severe Weather Alerts

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