Los Angeles ( CNN ) -- Torrential rains moved walls of rock and mud Friday in Southern California , burying homes in one neighborhood , closing a coastal highway and prompting evacuations of foothill communities imperiled by landslides . The damage marked the second day of a fierce storm slamming the Pacific Coast that , in California , served to trade one natural disaster for another , namely the state 's record drought of the past three years . At a minimum , the biggest storm in years slaked the dry earth , but it is coming at a high price for many people . Mudslides swarmed or threatened homes near recent hillside fires . Ten homes in the Camarillo Springs area were damaged and red-tagged as uninhabitable after a mudslide crashed into a subdivision and piled rocks almost as high as roof lines , authorities said . An elderly couple needed to be rescued after they stayed in their home despite a voluntary evacuation order and suddenly found water and earth plowing into their bedroom , according to CNN affiliate KTLA . `` It just came pouring in , so I told my wife just stay in bed , '' the man told the affiliate after he was rescued . `` I could just feel the mud ... there must be 3 or 4 feet of mud in there . '' Firefighters carried the couple to safety , uninjured . `` I 'm OK , '' the man told the station . Later Friday , Jim and Grace Shiraishi 's son called his parents ' survival of the landslide as `` pretty darn amazing . '' `` It gets you by surprise , '' son Jim Shiraishi said . Swift water recovery and rescue . Firefighters in Orange County conducted a rescue in the swift waters of a flood channel in Garden Grove . The man being rescued , however , appeared to be dead and was stuck on a central pillar of a ditch tunnel , said Lt. Ben Stauffer of the Garden Grove Police Department . The victim was identified as 34-year-old Garden Grove resident Mario Alberto Hernandez . Detectives were investigating the circumstances of his death , Stauffer said . A pedestrian discovered Hernandez 's body in the channel , he said . Meanwhile , Los Angeles firefighters rescued two people who were clinging to trees in the Los Angeles River , and they were in fair condition in a local hospital , the fire department said Friday . Evacuations . Residents piled sandbags outside their homes near where the so-called Colby Fire scorched 1,952 acres in Angeles National Forest in January near Glendora and Azusa . Glendora imposed a mandatory evacuation on unspecified homes in the Colby Fire Impact Area . Meanwhile , Azusa issued a voluntary evacuation order for its residents in the burn area , CNN affiliate KABC reported . Flooding , rocks and mud closed parts of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway from Monterey County down to Huntington Beach , the California Department of Transportation said . Northern California recovering . The Bay Area and other pockets of California began returning to normal Friday after the tempest doused exceptionally drought-stricken California with water , causing street and moderate river flooding , and producing blizzard-like conditions in the Sierra Nevada . The storm took a deadly toll further up the coast . Falling trees killed two people in Oregon and left a third seriously injured . At one point , the combination of powerful winds and battering rains knocked power out to 225,000 customers from Northern California to the Canadian border . Inundating rain . The rain intensity in Northern California on Thursday was reminiscent of a tropical shower in some places , a biblical deluge in others . Nearly 2.5 inches doused the San Francisco Bay Area , but north of there , just beyond wine country , 14.6 inches washed down on the Petrified Forest . The rain will put a dent in a historic three-year drought that has sapped reservoirs , threatening farmers and driving up food prices . `` We need it , but I wish it would come more evenly spread out , instead of all in one night , '' said Kim Cheadle , who commuted from Marin County but found her San Francisco office building closed Thursday . An 'atmospheric river ' Much of the moisture , at least along the California coast , comes from an `` atmospheric river , '' a band of heavily moist air that split off from a larger such band in the tropics . It 's as if a river in the sky spilled its banks , sending a new tributary 250 to 400 miles wide northeastward to California . Such atmospheric river drenchings in California are rare but also normal and necessary , the National Weather Service said . They 're how the parched state gets up to 50 % of its annual rainfall . The current `` river '' has been around since late November and already soaked the state last week . CNN 's Greg Botelho , Dave Alsup , Topher Gauk-Roger and Erica Henry contributed to this report . Ben Brumfield wrote and reported from Atlanta , and Michael Martinez from Los Angeles . Dan Simon and Sara Weisfeldt reported from San Francisco .
Firefighters find two people clinging to boats in the Angeles River . Police report an apparent death in rushing waters of a channel . People killed by falling trees in Oregon . Evacuation orders are issued for foothill communities near earlier burned areas .