Wet and Wild Storm Heads for Southland : Storm Slams Northern Calif., Heads for L.A.

One of the wettest and wildest storms of the season rolled ashore today in Northern California with torrential rains, causing flooding and mud slides as it aimed for the Los Angeles area.

“It could be one of the most significant storms we will have seen in Southern California this winter,” meteorologist Peter Wilensky said in Los Angeles. “It’s rather vigorous . . . not all that normal for our area.”

The storm was expected to hit the Southland late this afternoon.

Storm warning flags snapped in the wind along the central California coast, with 40-m.p.h. wind reported between the Golden Gate and Monterey Bay, and gale warnings were posted along much of the rest of California and Oregon.

Up to 2 1/2 inches of rain fell during the night over the coastal mountains south of San Francisco and the heaviest rain was still offshore, the National Weather Service said.

“There’s enough out there to cover at least five days,” said forecaster Thornton Jeffries in San Francisco.

Around San Francisco, U.S. 101, the highway leading to the Golden Gate Bridge, was closed at the Marin-Sonoma county line by about 5 feet of rapidly flowing water. An alternate route also was closed and residents of Sonoma and northern Marin County were stranded.

“It’s unbelievable out there,” said Mike O’Brien of the California Highway Patrol. “The rain is coming down like somebody just turned on a fire hose.”

“We’re advising people to stay home,” Petaluma police spokesman Dennis Dewitt said. “We’ve evacuated several housing areas. Lots of major streets are flooded.”

The rain and wind forced some schools to close for the day.

Several small mud slides were reported in Northern California, threatening more serious slides in areas denuded of vegetation by summer brush fires.

“I think if there were houses there, they already would have come down with the slide,” O’Brien said. “But I think everything that was there came down in the mud slides of 1982.”

Northwest of Los Angeles, Highway 33 near Ojai and Matilija Canyon Road remained closed today by mud slides. Officials said they did not know how many residents of slide-prone areas had left their homes in response to warnings over the last two days.

High wind in the Sierra Nevada forced the Tahoe Donner ski area to close. A midweek storm also dropped 14 inches of new snow on the mid-Sierra.