Powerful storm drenches Southern California with heavy rain

LOS ANGELES – A powerful storm charged south through California on Tuesday, drenching the drought-stricken state with desperately needed rain but also triggering rescue efforts on a swollen river and mandatory evacuations due to the threat of mudslides in some areas scarred by wildfires.

The National Weather Service reported remarkable rainfall in several parts of the state.

North of the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Tamalpais accumulated more than 11 inches over 72 hours. By early Tuesday, nearly 7 inches of rain had fallen in one area of Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles firefighters searched the surging Los Angeles River on Tuesday after discovering two submerged vehicles wedged against a bridge pillar south of downtown and learning that a third vehicle had been swept past the bridge. No victims, if any, were immediately located and firefighters were waiting for the water level to fall.

“The circumstances surrounding these three separate vehicles and their journey down the LA River remain unclear,” a Fire Department statement said.

Earlier, a man was rescued after being swept into a covered stream channel in the San Fernando Valley. The man called for help on his cellphone and firefighters reached him through a maintenance hole on the street above. He suffered bruises and hypothermia, fire officials said.

“It’s kind of scary out there,” said Dean Heller, while filling up his car’s gas tank in northeast Los Angeles. Heller said he’d seen a few minor auto accidents and traffic on the Arroyo Seco Parkway had slowed to a crawl because of flooding in lanes.

The powerful system is a so-called atmospheric river that sucks up moisture from Pacific Ocean and dumps it at lower elevations as rain and in the mountains as snow.

The storm began over the weekend in Northern California and has brought heavy precipitation as far inland as Nevada, where more than 6 feet of snow fell since Sunday night at the Mt. Rose ski resort just southwest of Reno and more than 4 feet fell at Heavenly on Lake Tahoe’s south shore. Mammoth Mountain in the eastern Sierra also got about 4 feet.