PORTLAND — National Guard troops evacuated residents in a flooded town today and tens of thousands of residents remained without power after back-to-back storms pounded the Pacific Northwest, killing five people.

Troops with the Oregon Air National Guard used inflatable rafts to evacuate flooded residents in Vernonia, a mountain timber town on the Nehalem River, about 35 miles northwest of Portland.

“They’re moving down the streets, and through the backyards,” a spokesman for the National Guard, Major Mike Braibish, said.

Vernonia, which has about 2,200 residents, had been largely cut off by landslides that blocked roads into the community, but Guard trucks with high clearance were able to get in late yesterday and more were being sent, Major Braibish said.

Still, communications were difficult. “There are no phone lines or land lines available in Vernonia,” a spokeswoman for Columbia River Fire and Rescue in nearby St. Helens, Hyla Ridenour, said.

The storm that hit yesterday smacked the region with hurricane-force winds and several inches of rain, and was blamed for five deaths in Oregon and Washington state. It came only a day after another severe system moved through Sunday.

By today, the second system had moved on to the Upper Plains and Midwest, where it was predicted to bring snow. In North Dakota, the National Weather Service said parts of the state could get up to 9 inches.

Towns on the coast were hit hardest by the storms. Red Cross shelters in western Oregon were housing 556 people as of midnight yesterday, spokeswoman Lise Harwin said.

The governors of Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency, which could speed relief efforts in flood-hit areas. The weather service said between 3 and 6 inches of rain had fallen across much of western Washington. The 24-hour rain total for Bremerton, Wash., was 10.78 inches.