Major storm sweeps through Southern California, triggers mudslides

Strong winds, torrential rain and snow caused widespread blackouts in Northern California as a powerful storm whacked the West Coast Thursday.

The brunt of the storm hit San Francisco, flooding roadways, downing trees and keeping thousands from school and work.

'It's a big storm, as we expected, and it's headed south with very powerful winds and heavy rainfall,' said National Weather Service meteorologist Will Pi.

In Oregon, strong winds felled a tree, killing a homeless man who was sleeping on a trail, and a teenage boy died after a large tree fell on the vehicle in which he was riding, causing it to swerve and hit another tree.

The 'Pineapple Express' storm system carried warm air and moisture in a powerful current stretching from Hawaii to the mainlaind and up into the mountains where winds were recorded as high as 140 mph damaging homes in the Lake Tahoe area.

The current left San Francisco drenched but balmy, with 60-degree temperatures, about 5 degrees above average for this time of year.

Waves slammed onto waterfronts around the Bay Area, ferries were bound to their docks, airplanes were grounded and many schools and businesses told people to stay home.

The storm moved into the Central Valley late Thursday and washed out a portion of the southbound lane of Highway 1 in Marin County, California.

Sections of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles started to receive heavy rains later Thursday night.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. crews worked to restore power to 110,000 people, down from 166,000 earlier Thursday, with the largest concentration of 7,400 customers in San Francisco, the utility said. The utility's online map showed lights out over thousands of square miles, from Humboldt near the Oregon border to Big Sur on the Central Coast.

In San Jose, the roof of a grocery store partially collapsed, exposing a 50-square-foot hole above the produce section. One person suffered a minor injury but details were not immediately available, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

There were multiple accidents on flooded roads, and several trees crunched cars. Interstate 5, California's critical north-south thruway, was closed by flooding in the northern town of Weed. In Marin County, heavy rains washed out a portion of state Route 1, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

'A lot of people took the day off,' CalTrans spokesman Bob Haus said. 'That's a good thing.'

Disembarking from a ferry in San Francisco, Malcolm Oubre said some people were overreacting.

'I know it's a big storm supposedly, but they're treating it like it's a hurricane,' he said.

news3blog.blogspot.com contributed to this report