SACRAMENTO – Howling winds, pelting rain and heavy snow pummeled much of California yesterday, flipping trucks, cutting power to more than a million people and forcing the evacuation of 1,000 homes in Orange County.
Flights were delayed or canceled at airports in Los Angeles, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in Reno, Nev., as gusts reached 80 mph during an arctic storm that sent trees crashing onto houses, cars and roads.
“A huge tree, over 100 years old, just fell across the house. It just wrecked the whole thing,” said Faye Reed, whose daughter Teenia owns the damaged home north of Sacramento.
With as much as 5 feet of snow expected at elevations above 7,000 feet by today, a blizzard warning remained in effect for the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe region along the Nevada-California line, where snow and hurricane-force winds reduced visibility to zero and avalanche warnings were raised to the highest level.
A wind gust of 125 mph was recorded in the Sierra yesterday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
Interstate 80, the main link between Northern California and Nevada, was closed in the Sierra.
“The sleet is blowing sideways and the trees are bending in the middle,” said Misty Young, owner of the Squeeze Inn restaurant in the small mountain town of Truckee, where an emergency shelter was set up for motorists.
Up to 10 feet of snow was possible at the highest Sierra elevations by tomorrow before the storm makes its way east.
Freeways from Sacramento to San Francisco were closed because of debris or toppled big rigs blocking lanes, and roads were flooded.
Authorities in Nevada warned truckers as far east as Wyoming not to cross over the Sierra Nevada into California, where blizzardlike conditions forced ski resorts and local businesses to shut down.
In Southern California, authorities in Orange County ordered 3,000 residents to evacuate homes in four canyons scarred by wildfires and therefore prone to mudslides.
Flash-flood warnings were issued in canyon burn areas in Malibu, as well as Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and low-lying areas of the Central Valley. Homeowners in those areas stacked sandbags and hay bales around their homes.
Riverside and San Bernardino counties, east of Los Angeles, deployed swift-water rescue teams as a precaution.
The state opened its emergency operations center yesterday morning to coordinate storm response, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff by phone.
“Preparation is really the heart of this whole thing,” Schwarzenegger said after touring the state emergency operation center at the Los Alamitos Joint Training Base.
In Northern California, more than a million people from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Central Valley were in the dark. Crews worked to restore power, but it would be days before the lights are back on, said Pacific Gas & Electric spokeswoman Darlene Chiu. The huge storm also toppled trees and cut power to thousands of residents in Washington and Oregon.
The California Legislature closed offices and sent employees home early.
As night fell, Madera County Sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stuart said search teams found 64-year-old John Hopper of Clovis and his 15-year-old twins, Matt and Sarah, safe in a popular hiking destination in the Sierra National Forest.
Stuart said rescue crews found the family with three other people who had apparently gotten trapped in the woods after the storm hit. The Fresno Dome was the last known hiking area the rescue crew was scheduled to search last night. The six hikers were in good condition.
