California coastal storm ravages homes, kills 11
| Los Angeles
An arctic storm rode 80 m.p.h. winds along the length of the California coast , pushing homes into the surf, setting off mud slides and floods, and killing at least 11 people. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power.
In Orange, a storage tank at the Cosden Oil & Chemical Company, overheated by loss of cooling power when the storm knocked out electrical lines, exploded in flames, releasing a chemical, styrene monomer. Thousands of people were evacuated from a four-square-mile area.