Storm in California brings high winds, mudslides, flooding

Umbrellas were put to use as a group of students walk to the Sacramento Convention Center to attend the YMCA Model Legislature & Court, Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, in Sacramento, Calif. Storms continued to batter California as the saturated state faces another round of wet weather that could trigger flooding.
Umbrellas were put to use as a group of students walk to the Sacramento Convention Center to attend the YMCA Model Legislature & Court, Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, in Sacramento, Calif. Storms continued to batter California as the saturated state faces another round of wet weather that could trigger flooding.

LOS ANGELES -- A storm feeding on atmospheric moisture stretching from far out into the Pacific blew into southern and central California on Friday, unleashing wind and heavy rain.

Precautionary evacuations were recommended in some neighborhoods because of the potential for mudslides and debris flows.

At the state's airports, numerous arriving and departing flights were delayed or canceled, including more than 300 at Los Angeles International Airport.

Using ropes and inflatable boats, firefighters rescued seven people and two dogs from the Sepulveda basin, a recreation and flood-control area along the Los Angeles River. One person was taken to a hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

Mudslides and flooding partially closed a section of freeway and the Pacific Coast Highway in beach areas.

The storm took aim at Southern California but also spread precipitation north into the San Joaquin Valley and up to San Francisco. It was not expected to produce significant rainfall in the far north where damage to spillways of the Lake Oroville dam forced the evacuation of 188,000 people last weekend.

The National Weather Service said the storm could end up being the strongest to hit Southern California since January 1995.

By midafternoon Friday, hundreds of trees and dozens of power lines had toppled in the Los Angeles area.

A 75-foot tree fell on an apartment building near the University of California, Los Angeles, narrowly missing a person in bed, fire officials said. Four of the six apartments were declared unsafe to enter, leaving 16 college students unable to return home.

Rain fell in some areas at rates up to three-quarters of an inch per hour, and wind gusts hit 55 mph in the Malibu hills, the weather service said.

A Section on 02/18/2017

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