Nevada levee breaks, thousands evacuated, in US storms (Roundup)

Jan 5, 2008, 22:25 GMT

Washington - Rain and snow pummelled the California region Saturday, dumping nearly two metres of snow in the Sierra Nevada and bursting a levee in Nevada that forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

The levee broke along the Truckee Canal in Fernley, Nevada, trapping about 3,500 people who were being rescued by US military helicopters and school busses, according to Chuck Allen of the Nevada Department of Public Safety in a broadcast interview.

The flooding was about 55 kilometres east of Reno, near the California border, Bloomberg news service reported.

The storm system hit northern California on Friday and was expected to keep pounding the West Coast from Washington state to southern California through Sunday. San Francisco was bracing for flooding later Saturday from high waves up to 7.5 metres high.

In southern California, more than 4,000 people vacated their homes because of the threat of mud slides, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The avalanche danger escalated after searing, fierce wildfires in November 2007 denuded the region of stabilizing vegetation.

Officials in Orange County outside Los Angeles ordered evacuations due to the mud slide danger.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mobilized emergency rescue teams.

Hurricane-level winds of 100-kilometres-an-hour plus sliced down trees and utility poles in the San Francisco region on Friday, causing the closure of some bridges after trucks were tipped over by the wind. Traffic came to a standstill in the region. Trucks and busses were forbidden to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and hundreds of flights were cancelled.

Mountain top stations measured winds of more than 260 kph, and residents were warned to stay inside until Monday.

'It's an exceptional storm,' Rhett Milne, a Reno meteorologist with the Weather Service, was quoted as saying in the New York Times. 'If you do get stranded, it's a life-threatening situation.'

An estimated 400,000 people were still without electricity in California after 1.6 million lost power on Friday, according to the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.