January 26, 2008

AP

LOS ANGELES — Swaths of California braced for another bout of heavy weather Saturday as a fresh series of storms swirled toward the state.

Photo: City workers retrieve debris from around a couple of partially submerged cars abandoned by their drivers in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles. (AP)

Wintry conditions over the past week have already claimed at least two lives, when two died in an avalanche, and authorities were on full alert for mudslides and flash floods in areas denuded by last year's wildfires.

National Weather Service meteorologist Richard Thompson said up to 8 inches of rain would fall in the hills outside Los Angeles starting Saturday evening and area ski resorts could be pounded by as much as 3 feet of powder.

"There's going to be very significant impacts," Thompson said. "Debris and mudflows will be a great concern."

Several storms have been squeezing rain onto Southern California since Monday. Some areas have received more moisture in that time than during the entire rainy season last year.

One man was killed, another critically injured and two were missing after three avalanches swept backcountry slopes in the San Gabriel Mountains outside Los Angeles on Friday, authorities said.

Photo: Heavy snow is piled on the side of the road in the community of Mount Baldy, Calif., north of Claremont. (AP)

Michael McKay, 23, of Wrightwood, was an off-duty ski patroller from the Mountain High resort. He was killed in the first of the three slides. Searchers found another skier, Darren Coffee, in a second avalanche late Friday officials said.

He was declared dead at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center early Saturday, a few hours after rescuers pulled him from a slide in the San Gabriel Mountains, Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputy Cory Kennedy said. The cause of death was not immediately known, nor were Coffee's age and hometown.

A snowboarder was found safe Saturday morning in the San Gabriel Mountains, but the search continued for a second person who went missing in the avalanche.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says the snowboarder walked out of the avalanche area after spending the night in the Wrightwood area.

Angeles National Forest spokesman Stanton Florea said an avalanche advisory was issued for the ski area at nearby Mount Baldy, a 10,000-foot peak about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, and the lifts were closed.

Photo: Los Angeles County Fire Department Urban Search and Rescue team members prepare to head out to search for missing snowboarders at Mountain Hight East Resort after an avalanche occurred between Mountain High East and West in Wrightwood, Calif. (AP)

Elsewhere, residents of four Orange County canyons were urged to follow a voluntary evacuation order.

County officials said the order would take effect noon Saturday for residents of Modjeska, Harding, Silverado and Williams canyons, scarred by wildfires last fall.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Orange County between midnight Saturday through Sunday morning.

In Los Angeles, two cars were submerged almost to the door handles on a flooded street in Hancock Park on Friday and a Metrolink train on a morning commute into the city hit a slide of mud and rocks on the tracks. The stranded train was pulled free by another train and 2,000 passengers were delayed by 2 1/2 hours, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said.

Steady rain soaked much of Northern California as well.

Rain caused delays of up to two hours Friday morning at San Francisco International Airport, and officials expected such delays to continue throughout the day.

Residents in the Marin County towns of San Anselmo and Fairfax are were asked to leave their homes and businesses because of flooding from a nearby creek.

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