The storm from the Pacific Northwest, strengthened and bent southward by the El Nino warm water condition, hit Orange County with particular force, although it also caused minor flooding in four other counties, numerous power outages and temporarily shut down major highways.
No serious injuries were reported in flood areas, but elsewhere two people died in car crashes.
More rain and mountain snowfall was expected late Saturday from a trailing band of the storm system which triggered afternoon gale warnings off northern Santa Barbara County.
Rain began falling Friday, but the tempest saved its strongest punch for later. While the Santa Barbara area had 9 inches of rain over 24 hours, the National Weather Service said Laguna Beach, on the south Orange County coast, had 6.34 inches Saturday morning alone.
Flooding hit Huntington Beach about 6:30 a.m. Water knee- to waist-high ran through streets of two mobile homes parks in a low-lying area, prompting evacuations of elderly residents.
Firefighters used inflatable boats to carry people through surging brown water at the two parks and at a third mobile home park inland at Lake Forest. The total number of evacuees was not immediately known.
"The water was coming down the main street of the park like a river," said Jack Wolven, 69, at Del Mar Community Estates, one of the Huntington Beach parks. Twenty-three of 143 units there were evacuated.
At the Brookfield Manor Mobile Home Park, resident Rosemarie Fallacaro awoke to see water rising up to the edge of her mobile unit.
"I'm a New Yorker," she said. "We don't have these kinds of things back there. Snowstorms, yes. No floods."
She found a dinghy and floated among her neighbors' homes.
"We just sailed out there yelling, 'Who needs help? Who needs help?"' she said.
At Lake Forest, rescue crews were sent out about 5:30 a.m. to check on several cars floating in a storm channel. Nobody was found in them, said Capt. Scott Brown of the Orange County Fire Authority.
The flooding closed down Pacific Coast Highway through Huntington Beach. In Irvine, a few streets flooded as a manmade lake overflowed, Brown said.
Amtrak service from Los Angeles to San Diego was canceled due to flooding and other trains going through Los Angeles were delayed up to 90 minutes, the rail company said.
Orange County officials received about 250 assistance calls, ranging from collapsed roofs to homes with a couple of inches of water inside, said Fire Authority spokesman Dennis Shell.
In the Laguna Hills, a number of people in a convalescent home had to be moved out of part of the building because of minor flooding, Shell said.
In Laguna Beach, flooded streets prompted police to close the city to all but residents and business owners Saturday. The water receded by nightfall, but debris littered the streets. The fire department rescued several people from flooded homes and stranded cars, but no one was seriously injured, said city fire Battalion Chief Mark Baker.
The showers and thunderstorms continued east across the interior of Southern California. In Riverside County, flooding damaged 18 homes, some heavily, in El Cerrito near Corona, and four homes in Wildomar near Lake Elsinore. Some residents had to go to a Red Cross shelter, said fire Capt. Pixie Evans.
The storm complicated a search for a missing hiker in northern Los Angeles County. Karen Tellez, 40, failed to return from a Friday hike after she got separated from friends near Lake Hughes. About 50 searchers and three dogs searched for the woman as the storm dumped 6 feet of snow, said county sheriff's Lt. Larry Gump.
In West Los Angeles, a lightning bolt hit a palm tree at 3:30 a.m. and shattered two dozen windows of an apartment building, residents said. No one was injured. "I thought it was a bomb. We were very scared," said Bobby Kohanbasher, 15.
Heavy winds and rain cut power in many areas. In Los Angeles, about 10,000 customers had outages lasting from minutes to hours, said Ed Freudenburg of the city Department of Water and Power. Elsewhere, about 1,000 Southern California Edison customers had interruptions.
The intensity of the bad weather was expected to slowly decrease, remaining showery through Tuesday, said meteorologist Bruce Rockwell at the Oxnard NWS office.
"The worst part's over with," he said.
Traffic accidents killed two people on Los Angeles County roads. The California Highway Patrol reported nearly 800 accidents in the region between midnight and 10 a.m.
Interstate 5 through Tejon Pass high in the mountains north of Los Angeles was closed for three hours early Saturday because of storm conditions.
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