A San Diego man was killed Wednesday morning after a tree fell on him, the third death linked to the storm pummeling Southern California over the holiday, the San Diego Police Department confirmed.

The man, who was 64, was in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego when he was hit by the tree around 10:55 a.m.

Local television news outlets showed the massive 75-foot tree collapsed on the sidewalk at 3805 Marlborough Ave. Family told NBC 7 San Diego that the man was named Roberto Ruiz, and that he had just stepped out of their home to move his car when part of the tree toppled and crushed him.

Ruiz’s death was the third fatality linked to the Pineapple Express storm that has brought debris flows, downpours and evacuations to the Southland.

On Sunday, a person died in rising waters as flooding overwhelmed parts of Redding, according to city officials. Police officers tried to save the person, who was inside a vehicle as the waters rose around them, but they did not make it out in time.

On Monday, a woman in her 70s was knocked off a rock and killed by a large wave during a fierce storm at a beach at MacKerricher State Park, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

A powerful winter storm swept across California on Wednesday, with heavy rain and gusty winds leading to evacuation warnings for mudslides in parts of the southern part of the state, bringing near white-out snow conditions in the mountains and hazardous travel for millions of holiday drivers.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency in several counties, including Los Angeles.

“With atmospheric rivers, intense rainfall, and strong winds ahead, I’m declaring a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Shasta counties to activate emergency authorities and preposition resources to keep our communities safe,” Newsom said in a post on X.

Forecasters said southern California could see its wettest Christmas in years and warned about flash flooding. Areas scorched by January’s wildfires were under evacuation warnings, and Los Angeles county officials said on Tuesday they were going door to door to about 380 especially vulnerable homes, ordering residents to evacuate because of the risk of landslides and debris flows.

The San Bernardino county sheriff’s department also issued an evacuation warning on Wednesday morning for the community of Wrightwood, a mountain resort town in the San Gabriel Mountains about 80 miles (130km) north-east of Los Angeles, due to potential mud and debris flows from the storm.

Debris and mud flow was seen rushing down the road leading into Wrightwood in a social media video posted by county fire officials. Crews were working to evacuate some homes, the post said. County officials didn’t immediately return questions about the evacuation.

Areas along the coast, including Malibu, were under flood warnings on Wednesday, local officials said. Parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties were also preparing for potential flooding. Other parts of southern California were under wind and flood advisories. Farther north, much of the Sacramento valley and the San Francisco Bay Area were under a flood watch and high wind warning.

Early on Wednesday morning, the Los Angeles fire department rescued a man trapped in a drainage tunnel in north-west LA that led to a river.

Firefighters were able to get a ladder down through an opening, allowing the man to climb out, the fire department said. No injuries were reported, but the man is being evaluated.

In Monterey along the central coast, more than 5,000 people lost power on Tuesday night due to a damaged power pole, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

The San Francisco and Los Angeles airports reported some minor flight delays on Wednesday morning.

Conditions could worsen as multiple atmospheric rivers move across the state during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. The storm in Los Angeles was expected to strengthen into Wednesday afternoon before tapering off later in the evening.

James Dangerfield, an 84-year-old Altadena resident, said his family and neighbor helped place sandbags in his back yard earlier this week. His neighborhood was under a flash flood warning as of Wednesday morning, but he wasn’t too worried.

The street he lives on is on a hill, so most rainwater flows away from his home, he said. For now, he and his wife, Stephanie, planned on staying in the house and spending Christmas Eve with their two adult daughters and grandchildren.

“We’re just going to stay put and everybody will have to come to us. We’re not going to go anywhere,” he said.

Southern California typically gets half an inch to an inch (1.3-2.5cm) of rain this time of year, but this week many areas could see 4-8in (10-20cm), National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford said. It could be even more in the mountains. Gusts could reach 60-80mph (97-128km/h) in parts of the central coast.

Forecasters also warned that heavy snow and gusts were expected to create “near white-out conditions” in parts of the Sierra Nevada and make it “nearly impossible” to travel through the mountain passes. As of Wednesday morning, there was also a “considerable” avalanche risk around Lake Tahoe, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center, a non-profit partnering with the US Forest Service.

The National Weather Service said a winter storm warning would be in effect for the greater Tahoe region until Friday morning.

Atmospheric rivers transport moisture from the tropics to northern latitudes in long, narrow bands of water vapor that form over an ocean and flow through the sky.

Officials have taken steps to reduce the risk in and around burn scars, with Los Angeles county installing K-rails, a type of barrier to help catch sliding debris from burned areas, as well as offering free sandbags to residents.

The storm has already caused damage in northern California, where flash flooding led to water rescues and at least one death, authorities said.

The state has deployed emergency resources and first responders to several coastal and southern California counties, and the California national guard remains on standby.

A prominent California farmer was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder in the shooting death of his estranged wife in a remote mountain community in Arizona, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office said.

Michael Abatti, 63, was arrested in El Centro and booked into jail on a first-degree murder charge. He is awaiting extradition to Arizona.

Authorities say they believe he drove to Arizona on Nov. 20 and fatally shot Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, before returning home to California. She was found dead in her family’s tree-shrouded vacation home in Pinetop, Arizona, where she moved after splitting with her husband.

An attorney for Michael Abatti didn’t immediately respond to an email and text message seeking comment.

Authorities searched his home in far Southern California on Dec. 2 as part of the investigation into his wife’s death.

El Centro is a city of 44,000 people just minutes from the Mexican border in the crop-rich Imperial Valley, which is the biggest user of Colorado River water and known for growing leafy greens, melons and forage crops.

Michael Abatti comes from a long line of farmers in the region bordering Arizona, and his grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was among the region’s early settlers. His father, Ben, helped start the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association, and the Abatti name is known throughout the region and tied to farming enterprises, scholarship funds and leadership in local boards and groups.

Michael Abatti has grown onions, broccoli, cantaloupes and other crops in the Imperial Valley and served on the board of the powerful Imperial Irrigation District from 2006 to 2010.

Michael and Kerri Abatti were married in 1992 and had three children.

Kerri Abatti is a descendant of one of the first Latter-day Saints families to settle Pinetop in the 1880s. The community, located 190 miles (305 kilometers) northeast of Phoenix in the White Mountains, was briefly called Penrodville after Kerri’s forbearers before adopting the Pinetop name.

The couple split in 2023 and Kerri Abatti filed for divorce in proceedings that were pending in California at the time of her death.

The Abattis were sparring over finances with Kerri telling the court the couple had lived an upper-class lifestyle during more than three decades of marriage. They owned a large home in California, a vacation home in Pinetop and ranch land in Wyoming and vacationed in Switzerland, Italy and Hawaii while sending their children to private school, she said.

After the split, Kerri was granted $5,000 a month in temporary spousal support but last year asked for an increase to $30,000, saying she couldn’t maintain her standard of living as she quit her job as a bookkeeper and office manager for the family farm in 1999 to stay home with the couple’s three children. Kerri, who previously held a real estate license in Arizona, also asked for an additional $100,000 in attorney’s fees, court filings show.

“I am barely scraping by each month, am handling all of the manual labor on our large property in Arizona and continuing its upkeep,” she wrote in court filings earlier this year, adding she was living near her elderly parents. Kerri said she also needed to buy a newer car because her 2011 vehicle had more than 280,000 miles (450,600 kilometers) on it and sorely needed repairs.

Michael Abatti said in a legal filing that he couldn’t afford the increase after two bad farming years took a toll on his monthly income. He said European shifts in crop-buying to support war-plagued Ukrainian farmers and rising shipping costs were to blame along with an unusually cold and wet winter.

He said in mid-2024 it cost $1,000 to grow an acre of wheat that he could sell for $700, and that he was receiving about $22,000 a month to run the farm as the business struggled to pay its creditors in full.

“The income available at this time does not warrant any increase in the amount to which the parties stipulated, let alone an increase to $30,000 per month,” Lee Hejmanowski, Michael Abatti’s family law attorney, wrote in court papers.

Days later, Michael Abatti agreed to increase temporary spousal support payments to $6,400 a month, court filings show.

He studied in the agricultural business management program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins before returning to California, according to a 2023 book about water issues written by his college friend, Craig Morgan, titled “The Morality of Deceit.”

In 2009, Michael Abatti almost died from an infection caused by a flesh-eating bacteria and was hospitalized and placed in a medically induced coma for treatment, Morgan wrote in the book.