Mudslide sweeps house off hill in California
LOS ANGELES — Waves of heavy rain pounded California on Thursday, flooding streets, triggering a mudslide that destroyed homes and forcing residents to flee communities scorched by wildfires last year.
The powerful system swept in from the Pacific Ocean and unleashed damaging rain, snow and wind across the U.S. West into Wyoming and Colorado after walloping Northern California and southern Oregon a day earlier.
The National Weather Service reported staggering rainfall amounts across California, including more than 9.4 inches (24 centimeters) over 48 hours at one location in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles.
The deluge triggered a mudslide in Sausalito, north of San Francisco, that barreled over cars, uprooted trees and sent a home sliding down a hill and smashing into another house.
A woman was rescued from the splintered wreckage with only cuts and bruises. Susan Gordon was buried under a tree and mud for two hours while fire crews dug her out. Her son wrote on an online fundraising page.
A neighbor down the hill, Lisa Molbert, told KPIX-TV that something that sounded “like a tornado” woke her up. At least 50 properties were evacuated from the hillside neighborhood.
The risk of flooding led officials to order people out of areas burned bare by a summer wildfire in the Santa Ana Mountains, with flash flood warnings blanketing a huge swath east and south of Los Angeles.