San Francisco, March 15 : More than 360,000 residences and businesses were without electricity in California as another atmospheric river is lashing the storm-ravaged the US state, inundating cities already flooded by the recent rain and forcing residents to flee.

Of the overall number as of Tuesday evening, the Santa Clara county accounted for over 130,000 establishments which had no electricity, CNN reported citing PowerOutage.US.

Earlier in the day, more than 70,000 people were under evacuation warnings and almost 17,000 were under orders to evacuate, California Governor's Office of Emergency Services spokesperson Gustavo Ortiz told CNN.

About 30 million people across the state were under flood alerts as the 11th atmospheric river to hit the West this season slammed Northern California on Monday and lashed the central and southern parts of the state on Tuesday.

The two areas of most concern are along the central California coast between Monterey and Santa Barbara counties, as well as parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills near Fresno to Bakersfield.

The atmospheric river also brought hurricane-force wind gusts to parts of central California on Tuesday, along with widespread rainfall totals of up to 3 inches -- and nearly half a foot in some areas.

A high wind warning was in effect for almost 15 million people in the state.