By TY ONEIL and JAIMIE DING Associated Press
WRIGHTWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Powerful winter storms brought the wettest Christmas season to Southern California in years, sending mud and debris sliding and half-filling homes with mud.
There was still a risk of more flash flooding and mudslides Friday despite slackening rain around Los Angeles, the National Weather Service warned.
“Still not quite out of the woods, but for the most part, the worst is over,” said Mike Wofford, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles.
Firefighters rescued over 100 people Thursday in Los Angeles County, with one helicopter pulling 21 people from stranded cars, officials said. LA police also responded to more than 350 traffic collisions, the mayor’s office said.
In Wrightwood, a 5,000-resident mountain town about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, relentless rain this week turned the roads to rivers and buried cars up to their windows in rocks, debris and mud.
Sherry Tocco’s neighborhood was devastated, she said Friday. Several homes were destroyed, but her house was spared from mud and debris.
The river was raging and “then it just came through and destroyed, took everything with it,” she said.
A shed was washed down the road, and several others were strewn about. Firefighters helped her evacuate earlier this week and she slept in her car on Christmas Eve.
Most of the town lost power and many were buying fire starters, logs and propane, said Eric Faulkner, manager of Mountain Hardware.
“My phone’s been nonstop of, ‘do you have this?’ or ‘can you help me with that?’” Faulkner said outside the store while it rained Friday.
Manny Simpson, a Wrightwood resident of 14 years, said the storms were the worst he’s seen. His basement was flooded, but he was still counting himself lucky.
“I’ve seen some other houses and I feel good about what happened to me,” he said.
Fire officials rescued several people from trapped cars earlier this week when mud and debris cascaded down a road into town. There was one injury reported.
In the nearby mountain town of Lytle Creek, raging waters destroyed a bridge Wednesday, cutting off a neighborhood, resident Travis Guenther said. By Friday morning, he said, water subsided enough for people to walk across the debris.
One home had as much as 4 feet (122 centimeters) of debris piled up inside after mud blew through the front door earlier this week, Guenther said.
“The guys are still trying to stay there but they can’t shut their doors,” he said. “They were stuck inside because there was a raging river on either side of them.”
Meanwhile, forecasters say a weekend storm could bring New York City’s biggest snowfall in three years. Freezing rain was falling Friday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and in New York, an emergency was declared for much of the state ahead of widespread snowfall expected Friday night into Saturday morning.
In Connecticut, people were encouraged to avoid travel as a winter storm approached the Northeast on Friday.
The California storms brought the wettest Christmas season to downtown Los Angeles in 54 years, the National Weather Service said. The area recorded 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain in three days, while areas in Ventura County saw up to 17 inches (43 centimeters).
Forecasters expected a dry weekend before more rain around New Year’s Eve.
At Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, a resort southeast of Yosemite National Park, two ski patrollers were injured Friday morning in an avalanche and taken to a hospital, a resort official said. The resort has seen more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow since Tuesday.
High waves were forecast and flood watches in place for parts of Northern California through Friday. Roughly 44% of flights at San Francisco airport were delayed Friday during strong winds, the airport said.
More wind and as much as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snowfall an hour was expected in the Sierra Nevada, making mountain pass travel treacherous. Local officials rescued a backcountry skier who was buried in an avalanche Thursday near the Mount Rose ski resort on the edge of Reno.
A falling tree killed a San Diego man Wednesday, news outlets reported. Farther north, a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy died in what appeared to be a weather-related crash. Heavy rain and flash flooding earlier this week in Northern California also caused at least one death, officials said.
___
Associated Press writers Trân Nguyễn in Sacramento, California, Sophie Austin in Oakland, California, Jessica Hill in Las Vegas, Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, and Michael Sisak in New York contributed.