Storms Hammer North With Flooding, Slides : Hundreds Forced Out of River Areas; 1 Dead, 4 Missing; Damage Put at Millions of Dollars

A wave of wet winter storms continued to pound Northern California on Monday, flooding several counties, unleashing mud slides and avalanches and causing millions of dollars in damage.

The same weather systems also unleashed heavy rains and snows in northern Nevada, where the rain-swollen Truckee River was threatening to flood Reno.

One death was confirmed in the series of weekend storms in Northern California, which arrived Friday. Four other people were missing and feared dead.

Hundreds were evacuated from the paths of rivers swelling as much as 12 feet above their flood stages.

More than 18 inches of rain has drenched some parts of the Bay Area since Friday--6.25 inches on Monday alone in Cazadero, a Sonoma County hamlet.

And National Weather Service forecasters warned that “the most serious storms are yet to come.” Satellite photographs showed a chain of storms backed up across the Pacific all the way to Japan--and all of them targeted at the already saturated northern part of the state.

Forecasters said portions of these same systems could reach Southern California by this afternoon, but not with enough rainfall to cause major problems.

“This constant flow of moisture is spraying us like a garden hose,” said Richard George, a weather service forecaster in San Francisco. He said computer models project rain and showers continuing through Friday.

“The models are calling for a tremendous amount of rain,” he said. “It remains to be seen if they are right.”

Flash-flood warnings--meaning such floods are occurring or imminent--were issued in 30 Northern California counties. Less serious flash-flood watches were issued in virtually every other county in the northern part of the state and in northern Nevada. San Francisco was the only area north of Monterey County exempt from a warning.

Especially hard hit were the three counties just north of San Francisco--Marin, Sonoma and Napa--where many streets and homes were inundated by raging floodwaters, despite desperate efforts to channel the flow with sandbags.

“It is wet, wet, wet--and wet some more,” said Chuck McCoy of the state Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento. “The rivers keep rising and they won’t go down.”

Some disaster officials said damage is worse than the costly rains of 1982, while others said the current storm already compares with the disastrous 1964 floods.

States of Emergency

Local states of emergency were declared in 10 Northern California counties, ranging from Humboldt in the north to Calaveras and Santa Cruz in the south, and inland as far as Marysville. Don Irwin of the state Office of Emergency Services said a gubernatorial proclamation was expected early today.

In some Marin County communities, people claimed they could actually watch houses slowly glide around on puddles of muddy ooze. In one instance, a house slid down a hill and injured four people, including a woman who was seriously hurt when “she was literally blown out of the house and the home impacted,” Dennis Brown of the county’s Emergency Operations Center said.

About 1,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes in the city of Napa and the wine-country town of Yountville. For a time, electricity to the entire city of Napa, with about 50,000 residents, was lost.

At Lake Tahoe, a power blackout left about 25,000 people without electricity Monday evening. Earlier, about 175,000 north state households were without power for varying periods.

National Guard troops were called in to sandbag many different sections of the Napa Valley and to evacuate residents from the ever-rising Napa River and its tributaries. When sandbags ran short, the guardsmen and others turned to filling plastic garbage bags with dirt.

The one confirmed death occurred in the small wine country town of St. Helena, where Kevin Dailey, 17, drowned after being washed out of a rubber raft while riding the swift currents of Sulphur Creek.

Four Others Missing

Four other people were reported missing and feared dead near San Jose, Twin Lakes in Mono County, Concord in Contra Costa County and Boulder Creek in Santa Cruz County.

In some regions, particularly in the steep mountains of Santa Cruz and Mono counties, the search for potential victims was put off because unstable mud or snow and the prospect for even worse weather made rescue too dangerous.

The ferocity of normally placid creeks and rivers was evident by the speed with which they swelled to overflow their banks. The Russian River in Sonoma County rose by as much as a foot an hour, forcing the evacuation of 68 people near the resort town of Guerneville.

By Monday afternoon, these evacuees were being moved again when the evacuation center was threatened by the rising river, which was expected to crest at 46 feet--14 feet over flood stage and one foot short of its 1955 record high-water mark.

Don Loukonen, a volunteer at the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services, said most sandbagging efforts had stopped.

“It ain’t worth it,” he said. “After a certain point, you just give up and leave.”

Amphibious National Guard vehicles were employed for evacuations along the length of the Russian River, from Jenner-by-the-Sea inland to Santa Rosa, McCoy said.

Heavy snows were reported in the Sierra Nevada. Up to nine feet of snow was reported at the Heavenly Valley ski area at Lake Tahoe.

Freeway Blocked

Two huge rock slides buried all lanes of Interstate 80 at Truckee, and Caltrans officials said it could be three to seven days before the highway, the major trans-Sierra route in Northern California, would be reopened. Two cars were knocked part of the way down a 300-foot slope by the falling rock and mud. Four people were rescued unhurt from one car and there were no people in the other. Motorists will have to detour around Lake Tahoe into Nevada to make it out of the mountains, a Caltrans official said.

Amtrak’s westbound California Zephyr passenger train with nearly 500 passengers aboard was stranded by the rock slide. The travelers aboard the Chicago to Oakland train were reported safe and were returned to Reno once the tracks were cleared, an Amtrak spokeswoman said.

Three separate avalanches thundered down the snow-packed eastern Sierra over the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. The latest and biggest one, at 9 a.m. Monday, swept at least 11 homes to disaster in the resort town of Twin Lakes, 13 miles west of Bridgeport in Mono County. One man, last seen seeking safety in his basement, was reported missing.

“This is the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Bill James, who saw three of his neighbors’ houses buried by a wall of snow.

Russ Van Peter, another Twin Lakes resident, watched in horror as an avalanche bore down on his own home, only to stop 100 yards uphill.

“We were all praying and wondering where it would stop,” he said, still shaken.

The storms rode in on a warm tropical track, pushing the snow level above 6,000 feet--and soaking residual snow with rain at lower levels. The combination set the stage for more trouble, and a severe avalanche warning was issued.

Authorities in Napa, Sonoma and several other counties marshaled fleets of small boats to retrieve people stranded on rooftops, which resembled so many tidy little islands in a vast, muddy ocean of flood damage.

Acres and acres of some of the country’s most prized vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties were bathed in several feet of brown water.

Emergency Provisions

Breaks in the weather, when they did occur, sent residents scurrying to stores--some with two to three feet of water inside, but still open--where they stocked up on batteries, bottled water, flashlights, canned food and other staples.

In Nevada, high water problems mounted Monday in the northwest part of the state.

Reno authorities moved to channel through some city streets the rain-swollen Truckee River, which flowed over its banks in spots.

Bob Andrews, state division of emergency management director, said his office’s major concern was the Truckee, which continued rising because of a heavy downpour that was expected to linger at least through today.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the area through Monday evening and a flash-flood watch into today. The advisories covered southern Washoe County, Carson City and Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties.

Don DeCrona, county director of emergency management in Reno, said the Truckee, which meanders through the city, was being watched closely in case evacuations were needed. The Red Cross was standing by to set up emergency shelters at area high schools if evacuations were ordered.

Bob Jackson, Reno public works director, said it was hoped that the anticipated crest of the river overnight could be directed through nearby streets, possibly with the use of sandbags, to avoid evacuations

Evacuation Procedure

Dick Kirkland, assistant police chief, said a few evacuations were taking place on a case-by-case basis but that his department was not urging people to leave their homes.

Portions of some side streets in Carson City were closed by high water and Andrews said his state agency was joining local authorities in passing out sandbags to help stem the flow.

In Southern California, the wind-whipped storm that drenched the land and roiled the ocean through the weekend seemed to have dwindled to occasional showers Monday--but the weather service said gray skies and rain should persist for the next few days.

The storm system currently generating California’s weather now reaches from the crest of the Sierra to south of Hawaii, meteorologists said, and satellite pictures showed a heavy cloud mass streaming from the Equator to the coast, studded with moderate to heavy rain cells.

Forecasters said they expect the system to sag slowly southward into the San Joaquin Valley this morning--while yet another storm approaching from north of Hawaii brings increasing cloudiness to the Southland that can be expected to dominate the remainder of the week. More rain is expected by this afternoon and it is likely to continue showery through Wednesday.

Two more deaths were attributed to the Southland storm Monday:

San Diego lifeguards Monday recovered the body of a man believed to have drowned when a huge wave swept him over the railing of the Ocean Beach pier Sunday morning. Lifeguard Chris Brewster said the body was found Monday afternoon under the pier by people walking on the beach. Although the county coroner’s office has not made a positive identification, Brewster identified the victim as James R. Haines, 21.

Drowning Victims

A Cerritos man drowned Monday after he was hit by a wave while surf fishing at Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach, officials said. Chung Lee, 51, was pronounced dead at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach.

Lee had apparently been hit by a large wave that filled his waders and pulled him into the ocean, Orange County paramedics said.

On Sunday, surfer Jeffrey Trakas, 27, of Redondo Beach drowned in the waves off Hermosa Beach.

Hermosa and Manhattan Beach reopened their piers Monday, but surf was still running nearly eight feet high and the Redondo Beach fishing pier, damaged by Sunday’s 20-foot monster waves, remained closed. A heavy surf advisory remained in effect for beach areas.

Along Pacific Coast Highway in the Malibu area, Caltrans workers finished their removal of mud and rocks from the roadway and the CHP reopened lanes to traffic late in the day.

Rock and mud slides kept both Matilija Canyon Road and Maricopa Highway closed in the hilly area above Ojai in Ventura County that was denuded by last summer’s brush fires.

Travelers advisories were in effect Monday for winds gusting to 70 m.p.h. in the Owens Valley, north of Bishop, and the high desert, making travel hazardous along U.S. 395.

High temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center on Monday was 67 degrees, with relative humidity ranging between 73% and 93%. The forecast called for a high in the mid-60s today, with occasional drizzle this morning increasing to a 40% chance of rain by tonight--and a 70% chance of rainfall in amounts up to 1.5 inches along the coast and 5 inches in the mountains through Wednesday.

Times staff photographer Tom Kelsey, in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and staff writer Ted Thackrey Jr. in Los Angeles, also contributed to this article.