LOS ANGELES (AP) - A powerful Pacific storm blew into Southern and Central California on Friday with wind-driven heavy rains that downed power lines, electrocuted a man, killed a motorist in a submerged car and disrupted hundreds of flights at airports.
With the storm feeding on an atmospheric river of moisture stretching far out into the Pacific, precautionary evacuations of homes in some neighborhoods were requested due to the potential for mudslides and debris flows.
More than 300 arriving and departing flights were delayed or canceled at Los Angeles International Airport.
In the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles, a falling tree downed power lines and hit a car. A 55-year-old man was electrocuted and pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police and fire officials say that later in the same neighborhood, a sinkhole swallowed two cars, the second on live TV as viewers watched it teeter on the edge before plunging in. Firefighters rescued one person from the first car, and the driver got out of the second before it fell. No one was injured.
Winds gusting to 70 mph or more lashed parts of the region. Heavy rains turned creeks and rivers into brown torrents and released slews of mud from hillsides burned barren by wildfires. Several stretches of freeways and highways were closed by flooding.
UPDATE: As of 8:47 AM ET on 2/19/17, the death toll of the storm has risen to 3. The body of a man who was swept down a rain-swollen gully was found.