Massive Southern California Storm Leaves 4 Dead, Triggers Mudslides, Downs Trees

A massive storm, one of the strongest to hit the region in a decade, battered Southern California on Friday and into Saturday, leaving at least four people dead, tens of thousands of people without power and downed trees blocking flooded freeways.

In Sherman Oaks, a 55-year-old man died after a falling tree knocked power lines atop a car. In San Bernardino County, a person was found dead inside a fully submerged car that had to be pulled by fire crews. At least two people, suspected of driving too fast in the rain were killed in separate crashes on I-15 in Mira Mesa and City Heights, the San Diego Union Tribune reports.

"In these types of conditions speed plays a huge factor, because if you drive fast it's very easy to lose control," CHP officer Jake Sanchez told the paper.

Flooding closed major freeways on Friday and Saturday, trapping cars. More than a dozen people had to be rescued from their cars due to freeway flooding in Los Angeles County. In Studio City, a massive sinkhole opened up swallowing two cars. Firefighters managed to rescue a woman trapped in the sinkhole moments before a van fell on top of her car.

More than 50,000 LADWP customers remain without power Saturday morning. At the height of the storm Friday, 82,000 customers were without power.

"There are multiple locations with spans of wire down that require extensive repairs to restore power, making restoration efforts take longer," LADWP said in a news release. "Additional crews reported at 6AM this morning and will work through the day and around the clock to get customers power restored as quickly and safely as possible."

LADWP estimates restoration for most customers will take between 12 and 24 hours and might be even longer for some.

The following neighborhood are the most severely impacted by the outages:

• Highland Park- 2,115
• Harvard Heights- 4,089
• El Sereno - 1,637
• Cypress Park - 1,500
• Boyle Heights- 731
• East Hollywood – 6,441
• Palms – 1,252
• Sherman Oaks – 2,600
• Pico / Robertson – 3,355
• Vermont/Slauson- 2,244
• Baldwin Hills / Crenshaw - 2,374
• Harvard Heights- 4,089
• Reseda - 1,960
• Tarzana - 1,603
• Valley Glen - 2,632
• Van Nuys - 2,357
• Palms - 3,400
• Hollywood Hills West- 1,300

LADWP urged customers not to touch a downed power line or to touch anything that may be touching a downed wire, including water.

Due to concerns for mudslide, Duarte officials ordered evacuations for the Fish Fire burn area ahead of the storm. The Sepulveda Basin recreation area in the San Fernando Valley was closed early Friday afternoon due to rising water in the basin, and Caltrans officials reported a rockslide slowed traffic on the southbound Golden State (5) Freeway in the Grapevine.

The storm also disrupted air travel with major flight cancellations reported across the board.

Paige Austin contributed to this report.

Patch will update this breaking news story.

Photos courtesy of the Burbank Police Department and Caltrans