At least nine killed in West Coast storms

Tuesday December 17, 2002

By COLLEEN VALLES
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A deadly weather system lashing the Pacific Coast with record rainfall, flooding and wind up to 100 mph knocking out electricity to 1.9 million Californians may be just the beginning of a stormy holiday period.

``We're in a seriously unstable pattern through the first of the year,'' said National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin.

Rain is expected for the next couple of weeks, with occasional breaks, the weather service said.

At least nine deaths have been blamed on the rough weather that started during the weekend six in California, two people killed in their bed by a falling tree in Oregon and a snowboarder killed by an avalanche at a Nevada ski resort.

The latest to die were three women whose car was swept down a flooded creek Monday evening at Carlsbad, south of Los Angeles, said Fire Battalion Chief Tom Dana. Two other women with them were rescued.

Authorities in Mountain View, south of San Francisco, were trying to decide whether a woman whose body was found in her car in thick brush along Highway 85 was a victim of the storms. A worker trimming trees and clearing debris found the woman dead in her car.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokeswoman Christy Dennis said power has been knocked out at some point since Friday for about 1.9 million customers from Bakersfield to Eureka, along the Oregon state line.

More than half of those customers, about 962,000, have been in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mountain dwellers in coastal Santa Cruz have been warned of possible mudslides because of soil saturation. Raymond Wilson, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said there's so much moisture in the soil that rainfall is pouring straight down hills and into creeks, a condition that can trigger mudslides.

``After the weekend, I can pretty confidently say we are at the (saturation) point,'' Wilson said. ``Instead of edging into it the way we did last year, we are getting into the kind of weather we normally get in January or February. We are about a month ahead of schedule.''

A Santa Cruz County mudslide 20 years ago buried 12 houses in the early morning, killing 10 people. And in 1998, storms led to slides, road closures and flooding throughout the county.

Elsewhere in Northern California, two people had to be rescued Monday from high water on the Guadalupe River in San Jose. The Napa River overflowed its banks in places and residents were evacuated from RiverPointe, a time-share resort in Napa.

The Northern California towns of Yountville and Los Gatos got 6 inches of rain late Sunday and early Monday. The National Weather Service reported record rainfall, including 2.32 inches measured Monday at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The rain was accompanied by wind up to 50 mph, with higher gusts. At the summit of Mount Diablo, east of San Francisco Bay, gusts reached 100 mph on Monday.

``It was amazing,'' said David Prokop of the coastal mountain town of Cazedero, where wind reached 80 mph. ``It's a mess. There's wires everywhere.''

Some 88,828 PG&E customers from Eureka to Bakersfield were left without power Tuesday morning, including 20,059 in the San Francisco Bay area. Southern California Edison said 1,072 customers were without power Tuesday morning, down from more than 66,000 on Monday.

From late Saturday through Monday, the Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Tahoe collected 44 inches of snow at the lodge and 62 inches above 7,500 feet. Another foot was expected Tuesday.

``It's always nice for ski resorts when they measure snow in feet instead of inches, especially this time of the year,'' said Katja Dahl, spokeswoman for Squaw Valley, which got 2{ feet of snow during the weekend.

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