Southland Battered by 80-M.P.H. Wind Gusts : Widespread Damage Reported to Buildings; Trucks Overturned; Power to 287,000 Lost

Hurricane-force Santa Ana winds from a massive inland weather system slashed through Southern California on Saturday, overturning trucks, shattering windows, uprooting trees, knocking out power to at least 287,000 customers and forcing law enforcement agencies to call out extra personnel.

Gusts of up to 80 m.p.h. were reported in some areas--strong enough to rip siding from buildings, tear half the roof from a house, topple pedestrians from sidewalks and whip coastal waters into a froth that sent small craft scuttling for port.

The were no reports of serious injuries, but damage was reported throughout the coastal, Central Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and San Bernardino Valley areas. Most of the problems were concentrated in the foothill communities at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.

‘A Minor Disaster’ The winds are not expected to abate until this afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

“We’ve got a minor disaster out here,” Deputy Jim Saporito of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Crescenta Valley station said Saturday.

“We had to tie our doors shut to keep the wind from tearing them off,” Lt. Jack Miller, the station’s watch commander, added.

The station was deluged with calls for help from the public as the full fury of the winds slammed into Crescenta Valley shortly before dawn, clawing away at roofing, billboards and power poles, hurling a maelstrom of torn shingles, broken tree limbs and shattered glass through the streets.

Miller called out reinforcements to respond to mounting inquiries and calls for assistance.

Glenda Fowler, a resident of the Montecito Heights area of Los Angeles, said she called the Fire Department at about 10 a.m., when she noticed that strong gusts were beginning to lift a corner of the gabled roof of her two-story home on Evadale Drive.

A few minutes later, as she and two firefighters watched helplessly, half the roof tore away.

“It was absolutely terrifying,” she said. “There was a sort of suction that lifted all the furniture off the floor and dropped it . . . Every glass, vase and lamp broke . . . The firemen just stood there and said, ‘Jesus Christ . . . ‘ “

In Glendale, dozens of automobiles were crushed by trees that fell along a mile-wide front in the exclusive Kenneth Road area.

Tom Dean, who lives on Alameda Avenue, said he awoke about 4 a.m. to the sound of winds shrieking around his home.

“It was blowing so hard, you knew something was going to break,” he recalled.

Dean was right.

Shortly before 5 a.m., a massive pine tree toppled onto his year-old sports coupe, demolishing the front end of the car.

Tree Penetrates Roof In Orange, Chuck Plumber said he was reading his newspaper at about 9 a.m. when he heard a loud roar.

“A big tree, about 75 feet tall, busted through the roof,” he said. “It’s sort of in the attic. It was my neighbor’s tree, but I guess it’s mine, now.”

A wind-caused power outage at Santa Anita forced the racetrack to stage the $114,600 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes as a non-wagering event. The no-bet rule was announced to the 37,000 people in the stands via battery-powered bullhorn. The ninth race was cancelled, track officials said.

Foster’s Old Fashion Ice Cream parlors in Glendale and Burbank--built along similar lines, with decorative mansard roofs--met similar fates when the roofs collapsed. Dozens of other structures were damaged in Burbank, and reserve officers were called out there to help clear up tangles of mangled siding, fallen sign posts and overturned garbage cans that collected against firmer structures exposed to the winds.

Tumbleweeds spun through the intersection of the Golden State and Ventura freeways above Griffith Park, creating “extremely hazardous conditions” that contributed to at least one traffic accident, the California Highway Patrol said. Gusts knifing over mountaintop ridges forced the closure of Angeles Crest Highway from Mt. Waterman to Kratka Ridge.

Winds toppled seven or eight tractor-trailer rigs in the western San Bernardino County area between the Cajon Pass and Chino, leaving one of them protruding over the edge of a transition road overpass on Interstate 15 near Devore.

Robert Pester, a Caltrans employee, said the winds hurled gravel “the size of peas” across Interstate 15, whipping up immense clouds of dust that cut visibility to 15 yards near Ontario International Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration officials at the airport said winds gusting to about 65 m.p.h.--cutting almost directly across the runways--prompted the pilots of eight or nine incoming commercial flights to divert their flights from Ontario to Los Angeles International Airport.

A light plane parked on the apron at Ontario sustained minor damage when it was overturned by a sudden gust.

A few miles to the west, in San Dimas, a double roof being added to a mobile home “peeled off” the existing roof “just like the skin off a banana,” Jene Samuelson, owner of the structure, said.

She said eight neighbors--all senior citizens--grabbed the departing roof and pinned it to the ground before it could smash into adjacent homes.

Sheriff’s deputies eventually anchored it down with patrol cars.

At Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island, three small craft were lost in heavy seas. Mary Salisbury, who works in the harbor master’s office, said two of the boats were smashed when they were driven onto the beach and the third was torn apart at its mooring.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that by Saturday night, about 37,000 customers had suffered wind-related power outages, primarily in the Highland Park, Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Montecito Heights and Hollywood areas.

Southern California Edison Co. said power failures that began about 4 a.m. had affected about 200,000 customers in La Crescenta, La Canada-Flintridge, Tujunga, Sierra Madre, Arcadia, Azusa, Monrovia, Montebello, Upland, Ontario, Chino, San Bernardino and parts of Orange County.

Spokespersons for both utilities said service had been restored to most of the customers affected, but the continuing winds made it impossible to predict when full power would be restored.

Scott Mentzer, a meteorologist with the weather service in Los Angeles, said the winds--which were expected to continue throughout the night, abating sometime after noon today--were the product of a “classic” Santa Ana condition.

“A big high-pressure area has settled over the Rockies,” he explained. “Winds flow from high pressure to low, so it’s pushing the winds southwest, toward the ocean (off Southern California), where the pressure is low. It funnels the winds through the passes and down the mountains, increasing their speed.”

Although there is some debate as to why the winds are called Santa Anas, most students of local lore attribute the name to Santa Ana Canyon, through which the gusts funneled down on the early farmers in the Orange County area.

The temperature reached a high of 68 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center on Saturday. Highs in the low 70s are expected today, forecasters said.

Times staff writers Julia Fortier, Patricia Hurtado, Myron Levin, Doug Smith and John Kendall contributed to this article.