California cleans up as after torrential rains

CAMARILLO, Calif. - Californians cleaned up Saturday from a major storm that soaked the drought-stricken state.

Perhaps the biggest job was in Camarillo, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, where a mudslide Friday besieged houses, leaving 13 uninhabitable. The debris flowed down a hillside burned by wildfire last year.

"It's quite an earth-moving operation," said Elton Gallegly, whose wife's family owns one of the damaged houses.

Gallegly, a former congressman, said crews told him they hoped to clear the road in front of the houses by dark.

Cleanup also was underway in South Los Angeles, where a small - and rare - tornado briefly touched down, ripping parts off several roofs and knocking down trees.

On Saturday, crews restored power to nearly everyone who lost it, though roads including a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County remained closed. In the mountains east of Los Angeles, ski resorts had up to a foot of fresh snow.

The storm was so powerful that in Northern California, which was hit Thursday with up to eight inches of rain, residents of two trailer parks in Redwood City were still bailing out on Saturday.

North of San Francisco, Sonoma County residents said they were relieved the Russian River didn't flood; it reached just above flood stage but quickly receded.

The National Weather Service forecast more rain for California starting Sunday in the north and Monday in the south - and another storm for later in the week, but it said there likely wouldn't be the same amount of damage as this storm wrought.

Experts say many more storms are needed to end the water crisis in California, which has been plagued by drought for three years.