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Storms pummel West Coast

3 people are killed as blizzards, rain and high winds whip the region.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A dangerous layer of heavy snow covered the Northern California mountains as rain and wind from the third storm in as many days hit the West Coast on Saturday.

The storms have been blamed for at least three deaths, and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in California, Oregon and Washington were without power.

Avalanche warnings were posted for the central Sierra Nevada and flash-flood warnings were in effect for many areas of Southern California, where large swaths of hillsides had been denuded by wildfires in the fall.

Remote sensors and ski areas in the high Sierra Nevada had recorded up to 5 feet of snow since Friday morning, and the west side of the Lake Tahoe Basin already had 4 to 5 feet by Friday night, the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nev., said Saturday.

As much as 9 feet of snow was possible in the Sierra by today.

The weather service recorded wind gusts up to 165 mph on mountaintops northwest of Lake Tahoe on Friday.

"If you take the wind gusts, the snowfall and all of it together, it's definitely one of the biggest storms we've experienced in a number of years," said meteorologist Scott McGuire.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski declared a state of emergency for Umatilla County because of wind damage.

East of Los Angeles, a 25-year-old woman died after her pickup truck was swept into a flood channel. Her 36-year-old boyfriend was found clinging to a tree. Other deaths included a woman killed by a falling tree in Oregon and a transportation worker killed by a falling branch in Northern California.

More than 450,000 homes and businesses from the Bay Area to the Central Valley were in the dark Saturday, down from more than 1.6-million the day before.

[Last modified January 6, 2008, 01:08:59]