Rain-drenched California faces another storm

LOS ANGELES -- California was trying to dry out this weekend from its biggest storm of the season -- but another weather system is bearing down on the normally Golden State.

Clean up continued Sunday from the big storm, which hit San Francisco on Thursday then swept through the state. The deluge was blamed for a mudslide in Ventura County that buried houses in rocks and mud. A balcony collapsed in Long Beach.

Besides the usual downed trees, power outages and rash of traffic accidents on rain-slickened road, a rare but small tornado touched down in south Los Angeles. The twister ripped tiles off rooftops and blew out windows.

The worst damage in the state occurred near Camarillo in Ventura County where the Associated Press reports that 13 homes were being marked as uninhabitable. Mud and debris covered some homes up to their roofs in an area where the hillside was left denuded by an earlier brush fire. Crews, working with heavy equipment, were trying to dig out the neighborhood.

With other vulnerable areas having pulled through the storm largely unscathed, attention now turns to the next large storm bearing down in the Pacific. It is expected to bring more rain to California on Monday. While unlikely that it will be as ferocious, officials warn it could hang on for a couple of days.

The storms are leading to hopes that California could be turning the corner on its drought. Last week's storm turned the area's rivers from trickles to torrents, as rain water poured in on its way to the ocean.

The storm dumped up to eight inches of rain on parts of northern California. It unleashed 1.5 inches and 3.5 inches on areas of the Los Angeles metro region. Overall, the parched state received a boost from the storm, which will help fill lakes and reservoirs left badly depleted.