A levee break flooded hundreds of homes Saturday as the storm that has hit the U.S. West Coast with high wind and heavy rain dropped a thick blanket of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains, according to AP. Up to 44 inches (112 centimeters) of snow had fallen in some parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the National Weather Service said Saturday morning, keeping a major highway between Nevada and Northern California closed. Forecasters expected the storm to dump as much as 10 feet (3 meters) at higher elevations by Sunday. East of the mountains in Nevada's Lyon County, about 3,500 people were stranded after a levee broke early Saturday along an agricultural canal, authorities said. Water was up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) deep in parts of Fernley, Nevada, east of Reno, resident Mariana Hicks told CNN. The area had heavy rain Friday. About 440,000 customers were without power from central California into Oregon and Washington. Flights in the San Francisco area were grounded Friday and trucks overturned in Northern California as wind gusted to 80 mph (128 kph) during the second wave of the arctic storm that has sent trees crashing onto houses, cars and roads. In the south, residents of Orange County canyons that were stripped by wildfires last fall _ making them susceptible to mudslides _ nervously watched weather reports to learn more about heavy downpours forecast for the area. «There's a little bit of a letup right now in the rain, but there's still a huge band of rain that's going to come in today,» Ted MacKechnie, a National Weather Service forecaster, said Saturday morning. About 3,000 people in four canyons were told to leave their homes by 7 p.m. Friday, Orange County fire Capt. Mike Blawn said, but it was unknown how many obeyed. «We have been hearing that very small percentage of them actually evacuated,» Orange County fire Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion said. Flash flood warnings were in effect Saturday for broad stretches of Southern California, including most of Los Angeles County. Homeowners stacked sandbags and hay bales around their homes. In the Sierra Nevada, the California Department of Transportation said Interstate 80, the main east-west link between Northern California and Nevada, remained closed Saturday. The Red Cross set up a 200-bed shelter for stranded motorists. «It's going to be a mess for travelers,» said Chris Smallcomb, a weather service meteorologist. «We expect the road conditions will be hazardous if not impossible.» Winter storm warnings also were issued for mountain areas in Colorado, where forecasters said several feet of snow is possible this weekend. California opened its emergency operations center Friday to coordinate storm response, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had spoken with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff by phone.
