8:17 PM PST, February 21, 2005
Rain Continues to Plague Southern California
By Claudia Zequeria, Nicholas Shields and Eric Malnic, Times Staff Writers
Mudslides trapped residents in their homes and forced others to flee Monday as lethal and destructive storms pounded southern California for the fifth consecutive day, in what could prove to be the wettest rainfall season on record in Los Angeles.
By nightfall Monday, at least five had died. They included a 63-year-old man buried by four feet of mud in the bedroom of his Woodland Hills home, a civil engineer who fell into a massive sinkhole in Sun Valley and a 16-year-old girl who died when a falling rock crushed her family's apartment in rural Orange County.
Two men died in apparently storm-related traffic accidents when their cars skidded on wet pavement in the Inland Empire. Rising floodwaters and sliding mud invaded dozens of homes, toppled others, interrupted commuter rail service and snarled highway traffic. Power outages were reported throughout southern California. Hail pelted several areas, and thunder rumbled across the foothills.
At least 20 homes have been red-tagged -- rendered uninhabitable -- since the storms began Thursday. The National Weather Service said the storms, which began Thursday, could continue through Tuesday and into Wednesday, with a possibility of severe thunderstorms and hailstorms in the coastal valleys and blizzard conditions in the mountains.
Los Angeles Times
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