Los Angeles fire officials say one person has been electrocuted after a tree downed power lines and fell on a car.
The tree went down around noon Friday in Sherman Oaks as a powerful storm lashed the region.
Authorities say a 55-year-old man may have touched the line or contacted electrified water. He died at a hospital.
With the storm feeding on an atmospheric river of moisture stretching far out into the Pacific, precautionary evacuations of homes in some neighborhoods were requested due to the potential for mudslides and debris flows.
“The storm looks to be the strongest storm to hit southwest California this season,” the National Weather Service office for the Los Angeles region wrote, CBS Los Angeles reports. “It is likely the strongest within the last six years and possibly even as far back as December 2004 or January 1995.”
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued on Thursday for 180 homes in the city of Duarte before any rain appeared. The evacuation orders were went into effect at 7 a.m. Friday, when the alert level for neighborhoods below the Fish Fire burn area will be raised to red, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Numerous arriving and departing flights were delayed or canceled at the state’s airports, including more than 300 alone at Los Angeles International Airport.
“It’s crazy,” said Robin Johnson, an academic adviser at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s just pouring down rain. The wind is just going nuts.”
“At one point the wind was so strong I’m surprised it didn’t blow my windows out,” retiree Phoenix Hocking said in a Facebook message from Carpinteria. “I now have a pond in my patio. And my dog is starting to grow flippers so he can go out and do his business.”
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 bring significant rain in the far north where damage to spillways of the Lake Oroville dam forced evacuation of 188,000 people last weekend.
With the storm feeding on an atmospheric river of moisture stretching far out into the Pacific, precautionary evacuations of homes in some neighborhoods were requested due to the potential for mudslides and debris flows.
“The storm looks to be the strongest storm to hit southwest California this season,” the National Weather Service office for the Los Angeles region wrote, CBS Los Angeles reports. “It is likely the strongest within the last six years and possibly even as far back as December 2004 or January 1995.”
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued on Thursday for 180 homes in the city of Duarte before any rain appeared. The evacuation orders were went into effect at 7 a.m. Friday, when the alert level for neighborhoods below the Fish Fire burn area will be raised to red, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Numerous arriving and departing flights were delayed or canceled at the state’s airports, including more than 300 alone at Los Angeles International Airport.
“It’s crazy,” said Robin Johnson, an academic adviser at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s just pouring down rain. The wind is just going nuts.”
“At one point the wind was so strong I’m surprised it didn’t blow my windows out,” retiree Phoenix Hocking said in a Facebook message from Carpinteria. “I now have a pond in my patio. And my dog is starting to grow flippers so he can go out and do his business.”
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 bring significant rain in the far north where damage to spillways of the Lake Oroville dam forced evacuation of 188,000 people last weekend.(CBS News)
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/severe-deadly-storm-slams-southern-california/
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