LOS ANGELES — Californians got a lot of what they wanted and not too much of what they didn’t from a major storm that finally blew out of the state Friday.
LOS ANGELES — Californians got a lot of what they wanted and not too much of what they didn’t from a major storm that finally blew out of the state Friday.
After drenching Northern California the previous day, the storm dumped up to 5 inches of desperately needed rain in Southern California. A landslide left 10 homes uninhabitable and fire officials executed a dramatic rescue of two people from the Los Angeles River.
There was street flooding, traffic tie-ups and wind gusts up to 60 mph in some areas. At its height, about 50,000 customers lost power, though most had it back quickly.
Still, with few exceptions, damage across the region was minor and the soaking was welcome in a state withered by three years of drought. No serious injuries were reported.
Adriana Fletcher, 39, of Huntington Beach, said her 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds were happy to see the rain after learning about the drought in school.
“When it started raining, my kids were like, ‘This is so cool,’” Fletcher said.
As the storm crept down the coast overnight, its powerful winds caused power outages around Santa Barbara, where the National Weather Service said up to 5 inches fell in coastal mountains. Amtrak suspended service between Los Angeles and the Central Coast city of San Luis Obispo.
In Camarillo, a Ventura County city about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, rain was falling at about an inch an hour over hillsides ravaged by a 2013 wildfire. With few roots to hold the soil in place, and a waxy subsurface layer caused by heat from the flames, the deluge caused part of a hillside to give way.