Weather victims calculate a chilling toll

Southern California’s cold snap may be over, but homeowners and businesses are still struggling with broken water pipes while farmers continue tallying their crop losses, already estimated at more than $500 million statewide.

In Sun Valley, a 90-year-old water main ruptured, opening a hole 60 feet wide and 70 feet long early Friday along Cantara Street, flooding the neighborhood. About 40 homes were left without water and one school was forced to close.

Residents Hina and Syed Ali spent their morning using brooms and buckets to get the water out of their flooded kitchen.

“My feet were frozen,” Hina Ali said. “I was standing all night with water up to here,” she said, pointing to her mid-calf.

About 260 water leaks, primarily in West Los Angeles and the western San Fernando Valley, were reported this week after pipes cracked from cold temperatures. Usually, the city records about 30 leaks a week.

“This has been an extreme situation,” said Carol Tucker, a representative for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “We never had this many leaks.”

In Palm Springs, the city’s famed Aerial Tramway, which ferries about 1,000 people a day to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, was forced to close after water pipes used for fire prevention froze. Temperatures at the top of the tramway dropped into the teens overnight this week and fell to 8 degrees one night.

“This is Alaska weather,” said Lena Zimmerschied, a spokeswoman for the tramway.

Meanwhile, the region’s agricultural industry is still reeling from the heavy toll wrought by the week’s icy temperatures.

Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail put early estimates of crop damage at $105 million.

“These are very preliminary numbers,” he said. “They will go up, because we’re finding out about commodities that were hit as we speak.”

Lemons were the hardest-hit crop, with $46.6 million in losses, followed by avocados at $28.5 million and oranges at $13.8 million.

Gus Gunderson, director of operations in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for Limoneira Co., said the grower took a $3-million to $5-million loss due to the cold weather. Avocado and citrus groves in Santa Paula and Fillmore were among the hardest hit, he said.

Also on Friday, California Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura inspected crop damage at the Redlands Foothill Groves Packing House and predicted that San Bernardino County would soon be added to the state’s recent disaster proclamation. The county estimates $11 million in crop damage, with more than half of that in orange losses.

“Our hearts go out to all of our growers and farm families who have had many sleepless nights,” Kawamura said.

Meanwhile, California’s farm belt endured more subfreezing temperatures Thursday morning, with parts of the San Joaquin Valley down as low as 22 degrees despite a slight warming trend.

Citrus farmers, the hardest hit by the cold wave, were out warming their orchards for the eighth consecutive night, and some said exhaustion and depression were beginning to set in.

In Bakersfield, the cold killed a homeless woman, but there have been no other reports of cold-related deaths in Los Angeles or elsewhere in the state. Officials in counties hardest hit by the freeze, including Tulare and Fresno, said they were preparing relief efforts for the region’s 12,500 farm workers, many of whom will be laid off after the initial damage has been assessed and the trees have been picked.

As farmers struggled to assess the damage, California’s representatives in Washington and Sacramento prepared to ask the federal government to declare an agricultural disaster in the state.

In the nation’s capital, legislators were gathering signatures on a letter to be sent to Mike Johanns, U.S. secretary of Agriculture, to declare the freeze a disaster.

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greg.griggs@latimes.com

angie.green@latimes.com

Times staff writers Jonathan Abrams, Sharon Bernstein and Amanda Covarrubias contributed to this report.