WATER WORLD

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

The first storm came barreling in off the Pacific in the early hours of Dec. 26, dumping snow by the foot on the mountains of Washington, Oregon and California and paralyzing Seattle, which rarely sees anything but rain. Then a second storm rolled in, and after that a third. By New Year's Day the Northwest and British Columbia had been pounded by a week of unrelentingly foul and often deadly weather.

By the end of last week, rising temperatures had turned the snow to rain, melting what had already fallen and drowning the entire region in a soup of water and mud. Officials ordered the helicopter evacuation of 2,200 visitors trapped in Yosemite National Park by the rising Merced River. Police in Northern California told some 95,000 people in Yuba City and Marysville to leave their homes as the Feather River overflowed its banks. A sinkhole in Seattle swallowed part of a gas station, while about 90 mud slides struck the area, burying roads, threatening homes and sweeping away the wooden supports of the 66-year-old Magnolia Bridge.

In Reno, Nevada, the Truckee River took a shortcut through town, forcing government offices, the celebrated Mustang Ranch brothel and--for the first time in memory--several casinos to shut down.

When floodwaters finally began to recede, 23 deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage had been blamed on the storms.

--By Michael D. Lemonick. Reported by Ellis E. Conklin/Seattle and Sylvester Monroe/Los Angeles

With reporting by ELLIS E. CONKLIN/SEATTLE AND SYLVESTER MONROE/LOS ANGELES