Two San Diego television journalists have been struck by a falling tree and injured while preparing for a live report on the severe storm weather.
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Ferocious wind and intense rain have pummeled Southern California, leaving one driver dead and more than 150,000 in the dark.
The tree also crushed three parked cars, which were fortunately unoccupied.
The driver was passing by a residential street in Pacific Beach when, in a odd precision of coordinated events, an 8-foot diameter oak tree fell across all four traffic lane, crushing his auto.
Massive trees snapped like toothpicks, causing damage from San Diego to north of Los Angeles.
The storm also dropped up to an inch of rain in some places by 4 p.m. Sunday, and forecasters said up to 2 inches of rain was expected in the valleys of Los Angeles County and as many as 3 inches possible for southwest-facing foothills and mountains.
In Escondido, a rescue was under way Sunday night for a vehicle that went into a creek in Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve, authorities said. Wind gusts topped 115 miles per hour at Whitaker Peak (located north of Castaic along Interstate 5), 69 in Porter Ranch, 65 miles per hour in Malibu Canyon, 61 in Beverly Hills and 50 in the Whittier Hills.
They said they had been busy all day Sunday with high-wind-related incidents.
The utility company Southern California Edison has sent 200 crews to help 80,000 customers without power.
Several roads were blocked off by fallen trees, power lines, and large signs.
In contrast to typical storms that develop far from California, this one developed unusually close – just 500 miles west of Santa Barbara, said Swain, the Stanford climate scientist, in his blog post on the California Weather Blog.
The storm is expected to be as strong as the formidable weather system that hit Los Angeles the first week of January, and to carry even stronger winds, National Weather Service meteorologist Rich Thompson said.
Piers at Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach were closed as the storm churned up high surf along west and northwest-facing beaches.
A flash flood warning was also issued for areas in Southern California that were burning not too long ago.
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The National Weather Service said the Interstate 5 highway corridor could receive up to seven inches of snow by Monday morning. Flooding created an ice dam that forced the closure of a mountain road, cutting off several hundred residents of Serene Lakes, a community in the Donner Summit area of the Sierra Nevada, Nevada County officials said.
