Nevada town's floods turning to ice

FERNLEY, Nev. — Hundreds of homes sat in as much as 8 feet of water Sunday after a canal rupture as freezing weather spread sheets of ice over yards and streets, hindering efforts to get the water to drain away.

Nearly 300 homes were damaged when the canal's bank gave way. Heavy rainfall produced by the West Coast storm system had piled snow as much as 11 feet deep in the Sierra Nevada.

Thousands of customers were blacked out across the West, and many of them in California could remain in the dark for days because the storm ripped down nearly 500 miles of power lines, utility officials said Sunday.

More than 215,000 people remained without power in Northern California alone.

Six snowmobilers and two skiers were reported missing in heavy snow in the mountains of southern Colorado, and one hiker was missing in snow-covered mountains in Southern California.

At least three deaths were blamed on the storm.

The irrigation-canal failure at Fernley released a wave of frigid water into the town early Saturday.

"In 10 minutes the entire backyard was completely flooded. It was just nothing but water," said Kristin Watson, whose home backs up to part of the canal.

The canal was temporarily repaired by late in the day, but as much as a square mile of the town still was under water Sunday as ice impeded drainage.

Lyon County Fire Division Chief Scott Huntley estimated 1,500 people had been displaced. No injuries were reported in the town of 20,000 people about 30 miles east of Reno.

An initial assessment Sunday found 290 homes had been damaged, said Kim Toulouse, spokesman for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management.

Despite heavy rain Friday, Gov. Jim Gibbons said the canal was not full when the bank failed. "This indicates to me there might have been a structural weakness over the years," he said.

The cause may never be known, said Ernie Schank, president of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, which operated the 31-mile-long canal. "It'll be hard to pinpoint the cause because the evidence is washed away," he said.

Rescuers in Colorado resumed a search Sunday for six snowmobilers last seen Friday, before the storm dumped 3 to 4 feet of snow near Cumbres Pass, close to the New Mexico line.

The snowmobilers were two couples from Farmington, N.M., and their two children, ages 14 and 13, said Betty Groen, the stepmother of one of the missing men.

Two skiers were missing 40 miles away in the Wolf Creek ski area, the Colorado State Patrol said. Wolf Creek had reported 39 inches of snow overnight.

In the mountains east of Los Angeles, authorities searched Sunday for a 62-year-old man who went hiking Friday just before the storm began, San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire said.

More than 215,000 homes and businesses in Northern California were still without power Sunday, and Pacific Gas and Electric said the storm had downed nearly 500 miles of power lines and more than 500 utility poles. The storm also caused blackouts in parts of Oregon, Washington and Colorado.

In all, more than 2 million customers from Eureka to Los Angeles had lost power since early Friday.