Washington - Rain and snow pummelled the California region
Saturday, dumping nearly two metres of snow in the Sierra Nevada and
bursting a levee in Nevada that forced the evacuation of thousands of
people.
The levee broke along the Truckee Canal in Fernley, Nevada,
trapping about 3,500 people who were being rescued by US military
helicopters and school busses, according to Chuck Allen of the Nevada
Department of Public Safety in a broadcast interview.
The flooding was about 55 kilometres east of Reno, near the
California border, Bloomberg news service reported.
The storm system hit northern California on Friday and was
expected to keep pounding the West Coast from Washington state to
southern California through Sunday. San Francisco was bracing for
flooding later Saturday from high waves up to 7.5 metres high.
In southern California, more than 4,000 people vacated their homes
because of the threat of mud slides, the Los Angeles Times reported
Saturday. The avalanche danger escalated after searing, fierce
wildfires in November 2007 denuded the region of stabilizing
vegetation.
Officials in Orange County outside Los Angeles ordered evacuations
due to the mud slide danger.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mobilized emergency
rescue teams.
Hurricane-level winds of 100-kilometres-an-hour plus sliced down
trees and utility poles in the San Francisco region on Friday,
causing the closure of some bridges after trucks were tipped over by
the wind. Traffic came to a standstill in the region. Trucks and
busses were forbidden to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and hundreds
of flights were cancelled.
Mountain top stations measured winds of more than 260 kph, and
residents were warned to stay inside until Monday.
'It's an exceptional storm,' Rhett Milne, a Reno meteorologist
with the Weather Service, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.
'If you do get stranded, it's a life-threatening situation.'
An estimated 400,000 people were still without electricity in
California after 1.6 million lost power on Friday, according to the
Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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