Reno, Nev. ? Areas of the Sierra Nevada, famous for paralyzing amounts of snowfall, have been hit with a dumping like they haven’t seen in generations, knocking out the Reno airport and shutting down major highways across the mountains.

The string of moisture-laden storms has dropped up to 19 feet of snow at elevations above 7,000 feet since Dec. 28 and 6 1/2 feet at lower elevations in the Reno area. Meteorologists said it was the most snow the Reno-Lake Tahoe area has seen since 1916.

“I’ve lived here for almost 40 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Peter Walenta, 69, said Sunday from his home in Stateline, on the southern end of Lake Tahoe. “This baby just seems to be stretching on forever. Right now I’m looking out the window, and it’s dumping.”

Storms also have caused flooding in Southern California and Arizona and deadly avalanches in Utah.

The weather was blamed for at least eight weekend deaths in Southern California, including a homeless man killed Sunday by a landslide. Along the storms’ eastward track, avalanches killed two people Saturday in Utah, authorities said.

An avalanche Sunday afternoon knocked a 13-year-old boy from a ski lift at the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Dozens of people were looking for the boy Sunday night, said Clark County fire spokesman Bob Leinbach.

A lull in the storm allowed the reopening Sunday of Interstate 80 over Donner Summit and U.S. 50 over Echo Summit after the highways were closed off and on for more than a day. The highways connect Sacramento, Calif., to Reno.

“The snowbanks along Interstate 80 are about 8 to 10 feet high. It’s like you’re going through a maze,” said Jane Dulaney, spokeswoman for the Rainbow Lodge west of Donner Summit.

About 25 motorists were rescued by National Guard members in Humvees after they become stranded overnight on U.S. Highway 395 about 20 miles south of Reno, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Jeff Bowers said. Motorists had to wait up to six hours until rescuers could reach them after daylight Sunday.

Malibu Tow operator Chris Metzler takes cover from storm-driven surf while trying to hook a tow line to a vehicle on Pacific Coast Highway, one mile north of Topanga Canyon, after two people were killed when the SUV veered off the road and tumbled over 50-foot cliff into Pacific Ocean in Malibu, Calif.

“That would have been as scary as it gets to be out there alone in those conditions,” Bowers said.

Reno-Tahoe International Airport was closed for 12 hours overnight for the second time in a week, and only the third time in 40 years, because plows could not keep up with the heavy snowfall, spokeswoman Trish Tucker said.

“It’s nice to know that there are places with more snow than the Dakotas,” Wendy Wollmuth said while waiting for a flight to her home in Moffit, N.D.

When the latest storm hit, the Reno region had still been digging out from a Dec. 30 storm that dumped as much as 4 feet of snow on the city.