Storm Covers Wide Swath of West Coast
SAN FRANCISCO — Residents across the West Coast struggled Saturday to dig out and dry out after a thumping storm system, even as more snow and rain bore down on towns from the Puget Sound to the California border with Mexico.
In Washington State, the high winds and heavy snow and rain took a fatal turn on Friday as a 13-year-old girl was killed in an avalanche in the Cascade Range, the authorities said. In Colorado, a skier was killed in an avalanche in Vail early Friday, bringing to 15 the total of avalanche deaths so far this year in the United States.
In Nevada, the authorities were scrambling to fend off a potential catastrophe in Fernley, about 30 miles east of Reno. A 30-foot section of levee on an irrigation canal there collapsed early Saturday after a day of rain and light snow, unleashing a flood of storm-drainage water into some 500 homes, said Chuck Allen of the Nevada Department of Public Safety. The authorities were trying to evacuate about 3,500 people as workers tried to close off the canal.
Farther west, about 450,000 people were still without power in Northern California as crews struggled to gain access to rural areas, where gale-force winds had downed power lines and uprooted trees as the first of two powerful Pacific storms blew through on Friday.
A second storm Saturday afternoon caused new power failures, particularly along the northern coast of California, Pacific Gas and Electric said.
Snow was the concern in the Sierra Nevada, where a 54-mile stretch of Interstate 80 from east of Sacramento to the Nevada state line was closed for 15 hours.
There was good news in Southern California, however, where residents braced for major storm damage that did not come. Winds blew down palm fronds, and thousands of customers around Los Angeles lost power temporarily, but there was no real damage.
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