LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Winter storms that have hammered California for nearly a week tapered off on Friday as authorities lifted evacuation orders for most of the 2,000 Los Angeles-area homes in greatest danger of mudslides. With scattered showers and thunderstorms lingering across the state, utility crews worked to restore electricity to 20,000 homes and businesses still without power as of midday, and excavation teams dug out catch basins clogged with mud and debris. The all-clear was given to most of the evacuees from neighborhoods north of Los Angeles where a huge wildfire last summer stripped hillsides and canyons bare, leaving them prone to collapse from five days of drenching rains.

But some residents who live closest to the danger zones were told they would not be permitted to return until geologists and engineers determined it was safe.

Authorities said it was fortunate that the ground held, with relatively minor mud flows washing into streets and damaging just a few houses. ‘’We dodged a bullet,’’ Neal Tyler of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said at a morning news conference. He and others stressed that the risk was far from over.

‘’A 3- or 4-inch (7.6- or 10-cm) storm this week may have been absorbed, barely absorbed, (but) a 1- or 2-inch (2.5- or 5-cm) storm next week may be far more devastating,’’ Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. ‘’We have a whole winter yet to come.’’

The weather service reported another storm, though weaker, could sweep into the region early next week. State Attorney General Jerry Brown, acting in place of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who was traveling, declared a state of emergency for parts of California stretching from the Orange County coast to the Oregon border. Schwarzenegger returned on Friday to survey the rain damage.