3COM Weather News: Soggy California is drenched anew
To the East, snow weighs heavy in W. Virginia
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- (AP) -- Five houses slid down soaked hillsides
Saturday as the latest in a series of storms blew drenching rain through
Northern California.
Cloudbursts dumped up to an inch of rain in some areas, and power
outages blacked out 87,000 customers and shut down Bay Area Rapid
Transit trains.
However, dams and levees were reported in good shape as people worked
to recover from last week's devastating storms.
''It looks like we're going to have a needed 24-to-36-hour break,''
National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Smith said at a briefing at
the state-federal Flood Operations Center.
While California was wet, heavy snow was the problem in the East, where
a supermarket in West Virginia had to be evacuated Saturday after its
roof started to collapse under the weight. As much as four feet of snow
had fallen in southern West Virginia in the past week. Thousands of
people had no electricity in Kentucky.
Saturday's storm in California was expected to be followed by light rain
today and only clouds on Monday. But another storm moving across the
Pacific could strike Tuesday or Wednesday.
In Rio Nido, about 50 miles northwest of San Francisco, an early
morning mudslide destroyed at least three houses and damaged two
others, said Barbara McFarland of the Emergency Operations Center.
The mud flowed so fast that at one point emergency crews and
homeowners had to run from it, witnesses told KCBS radio.
Nobody was injured, but officials evacuated the residents of 300 other
houses in the area for fear that they could be isolated by washouts or
mudslides, she said.
Wind gusts of 125 mph were measured atop Mount Diablo in the east
San Francisco Bay area, with gusts to 65 mph on the San Mateo coast.
Bridges in the region were closed to trucks, trailers and tall vehicles
because of the wind.
Flooding also closed major roads, including Interstate 80 in Contra
Costa County and California Highway 29 through the Napa County wine
country.
In snow-weary West Virginia, the roof of a Kroger's store in Sophia
sagged about a foot Saturday, forcing the evacuation of that and six other
stores in a shopping plaza, said Bob Smith, a dispatcher at Raleigh
County emergency services.
On Friday, another Kroger's store roof caved in, injuring four people in
Beckley.
Forty-five emergency shelters remained in operation in Kentucky.
''We didn't have any electric and that's what we heat with, so we came to
the shelter. We knew we couldn't stay covered up like we were with the
quilts,'' said Shirley Crowe of the rural community of Possum Run.
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