SAN FRANCISCO  Residents all across the West Coast struggled on Saturday to dig and dry out from a thumping winter storm system, even as more snow and drenching rain bore down on soaked towns from Puget Sound to San Diego.
In Washington, the high winds and heavy snow and rain had taken a disastrous turn on Friday as a 13-year-old girl was killed in an avalanche while hiking with a group in a popular area of the Cascade Range, law enforcement authorities said. In Colorado, meanwhile, a skier was killed in an avalanche in Vail early Friday while skiing outside boundaries, bringing to 15 the total of avalanche deaths so far this year in the United States.
Nevada authorities were also scrambling to fend off a potential catastrophe in the town of Fernley, about 30 miles east of Reno. There, a 30-foot section of canal wall collapsed early Saturday morning after a day’s rain, unleashing a flood of storm-drainage water into some 500 homes, said Chuck Allen of the Nevada Department of Public Safety. Authorities used Naval helicopters and fire trucks to evacuate some 3,500 people as workers attempted to close off the canal, which had spilled about 3 feet of water into a local subdivision.
Farther west, some 400,000 people were still without power in Northern California as crews struggled to access rural areas, where gale-force winds had downed power lines and uprooted trees as the first of two powerful Pacific storms blew through on Friday. Crews from the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection  including several hundred inmates  were trying to clear roads of debris in six counties, even as rain from the second storm system began to fall Saturday afternoon.
Authorities in the western U.S. state of Nevada say near-freezing waters from a ruptured canal have flooded about 800 homes following a powerful winter storm.

Authorities east of the city of Reno say a nine-meter-long section of the Truckee Canal broke early Saturday, sending a nearly one-meter-high flood into the small town of Fernley. They say more than 3,000 people have been affected by the flooding, with many evacuated to a local school.

There are no reports of any injuries.

In neighboring California, the fierce Pacific storm system brought winds of up to 240 kilometers an hour, leaving more than one million people without power Friday.

One of the hardest hit areas is the Sierra Nevada mountain region, where the storm turned into an arctic blizzard in the upper elevations. Forecasters say the region will get anywhere from two to three meters of snow by Sunday.

Forecasters also say the storm could dump as much as 25 centimeters of rain on parts of southern California.

The heavy rains could trigger flash floods and mudslides in areas burned during last year's massive wildfires. Officials have ordered a mandatory evacuation of thousands of homes near Los Angeles.