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 Some residents were permitted to return Sunday, and authorities hoped more could come back as waters recede in this northern Nevada desert town hard-hit by a West Coast storm system that piled up to 11 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains and toppled nearly 500 miles of power lines in California.
Most were dreading what they would find. Freezing temperatures had left streets and yards covered in ice and homes sat in as much as 8 feet of water.
"We don't know what we're going to do next," said Silvia Cansdales, a 32-year-old mother of three whose family
-- like most in town -- didn't have flood insurance. "I don't even want to think about what we're going to return to."
More than 145,000 homes and businesses in Northern California and the Central Valley were still without power, down from more than 215,000 earlier Sunday.
"The biggest issue is just the sheer magnitude of the storm that hit and the number of individual locations affected," said Jon Tremayne, a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. spokesman.
National Weather Service meteorologist Angus Barkhuff said some parts of Northern California would get a reprieve from the rain and snow on Monday. But in the mountains, "there's a chance of snow and snow showers all the way through Thursday," he said.
A major road through the Sierra Nevada was closed for several hours, and as many as 11 deaths across the West were being blamed on the fierce winds, rain and snow.
A charter bus with about 80 passengers rolled off an icy road in far southeastern Utah on Sunday, killing seven and injuring about 20 others, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The death toll also included a 25-year-old woman who died when she and her boyfriend unwittingly drove onto a flooded road in Chino, Calif. A 57-year-old public worker also died Friday after he was struck by a falling branch while clearing a road north of Sacramento, Calif.
Six snowmobilers and two skiers were reported missing in heavy snow in the mountains of southern Colorado. The snowmobilers were two couples from Farmington, N.M., and their two children, ages 14 and 13, said Betty Groen, the stepmother of one of the missing men. The search was halted as night fell, and was to be resumed Monday.
Donna Oney of the Colorado State Patrol said two skiers were missing 40 miles away in the Wolf Creek ski area. Wolf Creek had reported 39 inches of snow.
In the mountains east of Los Angeles, authorities searched for a 62-year-old man who went hiking Friday just before the storm began. Searchers last had cell phone contact with him early Saturday, before snow began falling in the area.
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 Utility officials warned against using gas-powered portable heating sources inside, saying it was extremely dangerous. A house fire Saturday in Sacramento was thought to be caused by candles being used to light the home during the power outage.
Seven family members were hospitalized after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning from a propane lantern they brought inside their home outside Chico, Calif. A boy in the house woke up when he heard his sister collapse in the bathroom, Sgt. Jim Miranda of the Glenn County Sheriff's Department said. Several were unconscious or nauseous when they arrived at a hospital Saturday.
In the snowy Sierra foothills, workers trying to restore power were being forced to rely on snowshoes, all-terrain vehicles and helicopters to repair equipment in the most remote spots.
The irrigation canal failure at Fernley released a wave of frigid water into the town early Saturday. The canal was temporarily repaired by late in the day, but as much as a square mile of the town was still under water at least 2 feet deep Sunday as ice impeded drainage.
An initial assessment Sunday found 290 homes received varying amounts of flood damage, said Kim Toulouse, spokesman for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management. No injuries were reported in the town of 20,000 people about 30 miles east of Reno.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sunday launched a preliminary damage assessment to determine whether a request for a presidential emergency declaration was justified.
Despite heavy rain Friday, Gov. Jim Gibbons said the canal was not full when the bank failed. "This indicates to me there might have been a structural weakness over the years. Nobody knows and we don't want to speculate at this time," he said.
One possible factor that officials have mentioned was rodents burrowing holes in the earthen bank, which also was involved in a smaller collapse that flooded about 60 Fernley homes in December 1996.
But Ernie Schank, president of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, said Sunday that a geologist had turned up no evidence of burrowing animals near the site of the break. The cause may never be known, he said.
"It'll be hard to pinpoint the cause because the evidence is washed away," said Schank, whose agency operates the 31-mile-long earthen canal.
[Associated
Press; By MARTIN GRIFFITH]
Associated Press Writer Juliet Williams in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this report.
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