Southern California storm kills 2, opens sinkhole in Los Angeles
Updated
A huge storm has torn through Southern California, opening a sinkhole and causing the deaths of two people, in what authorities say may have been the wildest weather to hit the region in decades.
In the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, a man was electrocuted when a tree falling in heavy rain downed power lines that hit his car.
Later in the same neighbourhood, a sinkhole filled with rushing water swallowed two cars — the second on live TV as viewers watched it teeter on the edge before plunging in.
Firefighters rescued a 48-year-old woman from the first car, and the driver got out of the second before it fell.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said the rescued woman told emergency workers she "thought she was going to die" until she heard firefighters yell down to her.
Firefighters lowered a ladder down to the woman, allowing her to climb out of the hole which was about 3 metres below street level. She was taken to hospital in a "fair" condition, LAFD spokesman Erik Scott said.
In the desert town of Victorville, north-east of Los Angeles, several cars were washed down a flooded street.
One man was found dead in a submerged vehicle after others were rescued, San Bernardino County fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said.
Several traffic deaths were also reported on slick and flooded roads, but it was difficult to say which were a direct result of the storm.
Inland at the Cajon Pass, near San Bernardino, a highway shoulder crumbled and sent a truck and a parked firetruck spilling over the side, but no-one was hurt.
Hundreds of trees and dozens of power lines had toppled in the Los Angeles area and about 150,000 customers were without electricity across the region.
The National Weather Service said it could end up being the strongest storm to hit Southern California since January 1995.
In LA's Sun Valley, 10 cars were trapped in swift-moving water on a roadway and 15 people had to be rescued, the firefighters reported.
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.
The storm system 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.
AP
Topics: storm-disaster, united-states
First posted
