LOS ANGELES (AP) — The first wave of a powerful Pacific storm spread rain and snow early Friday through much of California, where communities endangered by a wildfire just weeks ago now faced the threat of mud and debris flows.
Authorities in the foothill cities of Glendora and Azusa east of Los Angeles kept a wary eye on the barren slopes as rains moved through. Small debris flows covered one Glendora street but no property damage occurred, police said. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for about 1,000 homes in the area on Thursday.
Numerous traffic accidents occurred on slick or flooded roads across Southern California, and a 10-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway west of Malibu was closed as a precaution against possible rockslides from a fire-scarred section of the Santa Monica Mountains.
In Los Angeles, rising water forced police to close major roads crossing the Sepulveda Basin. The flood-control area for the Los Angeles River on the San Fernando Valley floor is maintained as a wildlife refuge and recreation center but is otherwise kept clear of development.
Rain was also falling in the central coast counties, in the San Francisco Bay region and in the Central Valley. Winter storm warnings were in effect in the Sierra Nevada for heavy snowfall.
Forecasts called for the storm to last through Saturday in California, bringing some relief amid a long-running drought, and to spread east into similarly parched neighboring states. Phoenix was expecting its first noticeable precipitation in two months.
Around San Francisco Bay, the storm led to an urban and small stream flood warning, as rain in excess of a half-inch an hour moved in, according to the National Weather Service. Wet roadways and crashes slowed the morning commute, and there were isolated power outages.
In San Jose, a driver had to abandon his vehicle after attempting to drive through a flooded street and becoming stranded, police said. The driver was not hurt. Firefighters also pulled a man from swollen Coyote Creek near a homeless encampment. He was treated at a hospital for hypothermia.
Some arriving flights at San Francisco International Airport were delayed by more than four hours, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
South of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay pumpkin farmer Chris Gounalakis worked in a soft drizzle to make sure his plowed fields weren't being eroded by a creek.
"Our land can start funneling into the creek, it's happened before. Then we end up losing our little precious land, and right now we do need every little bit," he said.
The storm's full force was expected to be felt later Friday morning, with possible thunderstorms and rains up to an inch per hour, the National Weather Service said.
On Thursday, mandatory evacuation orders were issued for about 1,000 homes in Glendora and Azusa, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles that sit beneath nearly 2,000 acres of steep mountain slopes stripped by fire in January. People were not forced out, but some residents quickly heeded the call.
"We have an hour to get evacuated," said Dana Waldusky as she hurried to evacuate the family home next to the burn area in Glendora. "We're just boarding up all our doors."
Waldusky, 22, said she, her parents and sister made sure they had important documents, photos, medicines and their toothbrushes packed.
The home survived the fire, which firefighters stopped 15 feet from their back fence.
"This time there's nothing you can do. You can't stop water," she said.
While concern was highest in the Glendora-Azusa area, meteorologists also posted flood watches for many other areas denuded by fires over the past two years.
Cities in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties were handing out sandbags in anticipation of heavy rain.
Even waterspouts offshore and small tornados were possible, the weather service said.
California's rain totals are far below normal and it will take a series of drenching storms to make a dent in a statewide drought that is among the worst in recent history.
The state Department of Water Resources took a new survey of the Sierra Nevada snowpack on Thursday and found the water content at only 24 percent of average for the date. The northern and central Sierra snowpack normally provides about a third of the water used by California's cities and farms.
Farmer Ray Gene Veldhuis, who grows almonds, walnuts and pistachios and runs a 2,300-cow dairy in the Central Valley's Merced County, welcomed the wet weather doubted it will rescue California from drought.
"This is actually getting back to normal rather than being abnormal," Veldhuis said in an interview Thursday. "It's kind of a blessing. Hopefully, they keep coming. If not, we'll deal with the hand we're dealt."
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AP writers Martha Mendoza and Sudhin Thanawala reported from Northern California. Scott Smith reported from Fresno

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The editorial made a malicious Chinese curse at Locke, suggesting Locke's Chinese ancestors would expel him from the family clan should they know his behaviors.
"Let's bid goodbye to the smog, and let's bid goodbye to the plague. Farewell, Gary Locke," ended the article, which was clearly inspired by Mao Zedong's 1949 piece, "Farewell, Leighton Stuart," that scoffed at the last American ambassador under the collapsing Nationalist government in Nanjing.
The piece shocked members of the Chinese public, who denounced the editorial as distasteful and offensive.
"This article by China News Service is the most shameless I have ever seen — not one of them but the most shameless," the popular online commentator Yao Bo said. "Without him, we probably still would not have known what PM2.5 is, and how did he bring the smog? You have played the snake in the Farmer and the Viper."
Another commentator Fastop Liu, known for his sharp tongue, said the piece is ungraceful. "When you call him a plague, you become a national shame as you lack diplomatic etiquette, damage the manner of a great power, and lose the face of all Chinese," Liu wrote.
Locke gave his final news conference as ambassador on Thursday. His replacement, former Montana Sen. Max Baucus, was sworn in last week and is expected to arrive within weeks.

There's no Michael Jordan among retired NFL players, a player who can sell just about anything many years after his playing career is done.
There's no Pele either, with global icon status, or Arnold Palmer, who has a refreshing drink named after him that he can make money off of.
In Forbes' list of highest paid retired athletes, no former NFL player cracked the top 10. Michael Jordan, to the surprise of nobody, was first at $90 million last year.
But who was the top earner among former NFL player according to Forbes? You might guess Jerry Rice, who has stayed in the spotlight after his career. Maybe Steve Young, because Joe Montana really didn't seem interested in publicity after retirement. Michael Strahan seems to be on our televisions all the time. John Elway had a chain of car dealerships in Denver and a pretty nice job with the Broncos, so maybe him?
Nope, none of them was the top earner among retired football players last year. Any guesses?
Well here it is:
Bet not many of you guessed Roger Staubach.
Staubach was a Heisman Trophy winner at Navy, the Super Bowl VI MVP for the Cowboys at quarterback, also won Super Bowl XII with the Cowboys and threw for 22,700 yards and 153 touchdowns in his nine NFL seasons. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. And he was just as successful after he was done playing.
Staubach was 12th on the list at $12 million for 2013. He does some stuff for USAA promoting military awareness but isn't a well known pitchman or anything. So what gives? Staubach hit the jackpot in real estate.
According to Forbes, Staubach started a real estate company in 1977 as his Cowboys career was coming to an end. He owned 12 percent of the company when he sold it to Jones Lang Lasalle in 2008. The multi-year payout totaled $640 million. The 72-year-old put half of his share into a trust for his children, Forbes said, and the last payout from the sale was last year.
For all the current NFL players, Staubach provides quite the lesson: Invest wisely now, it might pay off big later on in life

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Giant crocodile takes to surf, prompting beach closure in Australia

Experts hope to capture and relocate 12-foot reptile, to keep waters safe

February 27, 2014 by Pete Thomas

It’s hard to imagine a creature more menacing than a great white shark swimming in the surf, but a giant crocodile comes close.
An estimated 12-foot crocodile was spotted cruising in the swells this past week at Cable Beach in Broome, Western Australia, prompting officials to close the beach to swimmers and surfers for a day.
It’s unclear what lured the reptile into the surf zone, but the unusual sighting generated quite the spectacle.
Sharon Scoble, a Broome local, captured the images that accompany this report after receiving a call from her son, who spotted the croc while driving to the beach.
Scoble told Perth Now: “It was absolutely awesome. But it wouldn’t have been so awesome if I was swimming and noticed it.”
The croc remained in the surf zone for most of the day, before presumably finding its way back to one of the creeks. (The Broome region’s saltwater crocodiles typically remain in inland waterways.)
“Rangers were making sure no one was going near it,” Scoble said.
Dave Woods, a Parks and Wildlife officer, said this croc might be the same animal that appeared in the surf in December.
Woods added that the croc has been targeted for capture and will be relocated to a remote wilderness park, leaving Cable Beach swimmers with only one genuine worry: sharks.

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Think You Have a Nightmare Commute?

But there’s one thing that I wasn’t prepared for: crappy roads.
Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars that’s been pumped into Afghanistan to help the country rebuild, the roads in the capital are a mess.
Crumbling, dilapidated, and unkempt, in some areas, the potholes are so big they turn into tiny ponds after a rainfall. I swear I saw a duck swimming in one once.
To its credit, the municipality of Kabul has deployed hundreds of traffic police throughout the city. In bright, neon yellow jackets, they stand on guard at intersections and roundabouts, braving the rain and snow, desperately waving handheld signs that resemble ping-pong racquets, ordering driving to stop and go. Sadly, few drivers pay attention.
“Afghanistan’s a new country” one told me, explaining that it will, naturally, take time for people to learn to obey traffic rules.
Speaking of rules, there’s really only one that matters: Whoever has the most guns (i.e. armed guards) is basically allowed to go wherever they want. It’s a common sight when driving through Kabul. NATO convoys, with their massive MRAPs and armored vehicles, generally don’t stop while driving in the city. They go wherever they want.
Next up, the city’s elite – politicians, warlords, and businessmen with government ties. They don’t travel in convoys, but are usually accompanied by a pickup truck filled with armed men carrying AK-47’s. For the most part, they go wherever they want too.
After that, you have the various NGOs and foreign organizations. Their employees don’t travel in convoys, but usually have bulletproof vehicles with drivers who know how to use their vehicle’s size and weight to their advantage. As a result, they can muscle their way to wherever they want.
Then comes the sedans, jingle trucks, taxis, cyclists, motorcyclists, wooden carts, wheel barrow pushers, fruit sellers (yes, they stand on the road), cell phone card hawkers, beggars, walkers and the women in blue burqas who squat in the middle of the road.
It all makes for a frustrating-yet-mesmerizing symphony of movement. Proof that despite decades of war, the city of Kabul moves along at its own pace, in its own inimitable style. The only way to get through it all is to sit back and enjoy the bumper to bumper ride.

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Russia gave all of its gold medalists in the Sochi Games $120,000, plus a brand-new Mercedes GL SUV. This led to a bit of logistical leapfrogging with athletes like Julia Lipnitskaya, who is only 15 and not yet of legal driving age in Russia. (She got a personal driver to go along with the car.) Silver medalists got $76,000 and a Mercedes ML, and bronze medalists got $52,000 and a Mercedes GLK.
A total of 45 cars were distributed to gold medalists. Russia won a Sochi-leading total of 33 medals, including 13 golds. The cars were provided by the Russian Olympians Foundation, a consortium established by Russian businessmen in 2005. Russian athletes who won medals in the 2012 London Games received new Audis with personal drivers.
For comparison's sake, the United States Olympic Committee pays its winners $25,000 for a gold, $15,000 for a silver and $10,000 for a bronze medal. Kazakhstan leads the medal payment rate at $250,000 for a gold, but has not had a gold medalist at the Winter Olympics in 20 years.
Of course, not all athletes benefit quite so handsomely. Dario Cologna of Switzerland won two golds in cross-country skiing. His reward from his hometown? A pig, which he named "Sochi."

My new buddy "Sochi". Thanks for this awesome present!! :))) pic.twitter.com/jmVWWtnf9K
— Dario Cologna (@dariocologna) February 26, 2014

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There is perhaps no living lion of screen acting who inspires as much respect as Gene Hackman, a man of whom it has been said, he never gave a bad performance. For the past decade, however, the screen has had to soldier on without him; it has now been 10 years since the actor made his last film, 2004's "Welcome to Mooseport."
So what's he been doing since we last saw him? Living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife of 23 years, Betsy, and writing novels. His latest publication is  "Pursuit," a taut thriller about a Missouri cop who sets out on a desperate manhunt after serial killer abducts her daughter.
We spoke to Hackman, 84, by phone from his New Mexico home about the book, his new life as a writer, and the big question: when will his fans see him again.

So what made you decide to start writing novels? "Pursuit" is your second solo writing. How did you get into this rat race?Actually, I started with a fellow who I knew in Santa Fe, where we live, a friend who actually was a marine biologist. We were having lunch one day, talking about what we were reading and that kind of thing. Then we said, "Why don't we write a novel?" you know, like a lot of people do. We got together, it was a difficult process writing with somebody else, but we did it. We wrote, I think, three books together.

How's it been writing solo?
I think I probably like it a little better. I feel like it's my responsibility and it's my sense of what's going on and my poor writing or whatever. It seems to work better for me. I've spent my life, actually, with other people trying to create and it's kind of a different process and kind of exciting in a way.

In acting you're so dependent on the director, the editor, the script, so many other things; but in a novel, it's all you, start to finish. Is that liberating?
It is. In a sort of way it is liberating because you don't have a director right there at your elbow giving you a little nudge now and then or telling you how he thinks you should pronounce a certain word or emphasize a certain phrase or whatever. Many times it goes against the grain, you know? You have to have an ego to be an actor, you really do. I think that compared to the writing it's liberating in a strange way. I know that I'll never be the writer as successful as I was as an actor, but in some ways it's maybe more creative.

How does creating a character as a writer compare to creating a character as an actor?
It's kind of a peculiar thing. I have to go back to my early days as an actor when my first or second professional job was in improvisational theater. In improvisation, one of the cardinal rules is not to deny what the other person on stage has given you. So you have that always on your mind; to take what they have said and expand on it. When I began doing television in the early days and feature films, I always had great respect for the author's intent and I never wanted to change that, even though there were times where you would like to expand on what somebody says. But I tried to put that behind me in some ways because the spur of the moment is not always the best way to proceed creatively, I don't think. What is your writing process? Do you do it at a certain time of day?
Yes. Always in the morning. I can't write past two o'clock in the afternoon. If I do, then I'm up all night. I have a little office, you might call it. It's just a writing desk and a pretty comfortable chair. I write longhand and I go back and I go over it I don't know how many times and I hand it to the professor and she types it up. Then we go over it a number of times and get a little bit of a critique from the wife and like that.

How did the germ of "Pursuit" come to you?
Well, in the previous book that I had written on my own, it took place in and around Santa Fe, where I lived, in New Mexico. I just thought I would expand my horizons a little bit and do this one in Missouri. "Payback at Morning Peak" was fun to do because it was oh, I don't know, childhood dreams and that kind of thing, where the next book, "Pursuit," was maybe a little more serious.

Gene Hackman at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, file)

Your book is built around a very memorable, tough as nails female cop who is also the target of the story's villain. How did she come together?
I started with wanting her to be a strong woman, a little unusual if you will, in that she was handy. She was physically handy and kind of mentally sharp and I liked that idea that she was not in an area of a put-upon women or the frail female. She was very capable. There's so many detective stories done and they are almost all male detectives unless they are written by females. I just thought I would kind of try to stretch it a little bit and see if I could do a female. It was great fun because every time I would write something, I would have to really dig down and think about how is this going to work? Is this what a women would really do? In some ways, that was kind of helpful because it kept me on my toes.

Did your wife help with fleshing her out?
Yeah. I batted things around with her a lot. Of course, she's my savior because I write longhand and she's the typist and the wordsmith.

Your heroine seems to get annoyed with pretty much everybody that crosses her path. Is that something you relate to?
Yeah, I do. I like that in this strong woman. I like the idea that she's able to maintain some kind of professionalism and yet still speak her mind.
Did it scare you living with your psychopath character as you were writing this?
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that's exciting about writing, for me at least, is the fact that you can kind of get inside those people and kind of pull up all the stuff that you wouldn't normally be thinking about. It doesn't take you off the hook but you kind of live with them. With me it takes quite a long time, at least a year maybe a little more by the time I go through two or three edits, professional edits, but it's still fun because it's always a challenge.

How did you get inside his head and capture what was driving him?
I felt maybe these kinds of guys are dreamers and we all have dreams of course, but our dreams are usually limited by some kind of reality check and because a guy thinks because he can pluck a guitar a couple of strokes he thinks he's going to be Elvis Presley or whoever. I think that disconnect between a certain reality is kind of good for that kind of psychopath mentality.

You seem to have the details of Missouri down very well. Did you go look around the area? It feels very real.
I did. I'm a big one for trains so I took the train to Kansas City, rented a car and I drove around Missouri for four days. Went down the back roads, the rivers and the lakes. It's kind of an interesting country and I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi river although I didn't do a lot of the Mississippi in this book, but it's an interesting country and one that, not to put Mark Twain behind, but certainly was established by Daniel Boone and a lot of pioneers in American culture.
The final inevitable question: Can we hold on any hope of seeing you on the screen again?
Only in reruns.

That's it?
Yeah, that's it. I'm at a place where I feel very good about not having to work all night.
Follow Richard Rushfield on Twitter, Tumblr and Google Plus.

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