First of two holiday-week storms packs an unexpected wallop across the Southland

Shortly after 8 a.m., firefighters rescued a homeless man from under a fallen tree that ripped down utility lines and struck a two-story apartment building on Laveta Terrace in Echo Park. The man suffered a minor injury and declined to be taken to a hospital, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The first of two storm systems to hit the West Coast from the Gulf of Alaska arrived in the Central Coast on Sunday afternoon and began pouring rain across Los Angeles and Orange counties and the Inland Empire overnight. The storm was expected to pass over the region relatively quickly but stalled instead, and by Monday evening it had dropped more than 2 inches of rain in Bel-Air, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica, said Kathy Hoxsie of the National Weather Service.