Flood Deaths at 10; New Storm Strikes North

Gov. George Deukmejian declared a state of emergency in Humboldt, Napa and Sonoma counties Tuesday as rescuers continued to airlift hundreds of storm refugees to high ground. At least 10 people were reported killed in the worst series of storms to hit California in years.

Officials began assessing the millions of dollars of damage during a much-needed lull in the rain and wind Tuesday morning. But the break was short-lived.

A new storm hit the San Francisco area in late afternoon, by late evening gale warnings were in effect for the entire Northern and Central California coast, and the National Weather Service said still more violent weather systems are heading inland from the Pacific.

“Right now, we don’t see any sun for the next several days,” said weather service forecaster Robert Brown in San Francisco.

The powerful storms began last Wednesday and gathered momentum Friday, with only brief respites. More than 18 inches of rain has fallen since Friday in Napa and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco. Included among the Northern California consequences:

- An estimated 10,000 people were forced from their homes at various times because of flooding, according to authorities in the half-dozen counties most affected.

$30 Million in Damage

- Marin, Solano, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties estimated that their combined property damage from the storm would total at least $30 million. But that estimate--which does not include figures for hard-hit Napa and Sonoma counties--is expected to increase considerably as officials continue their inventory.

- Flooding left the entire towns of Sebastopol, Guerneville and Monte Rio isolated, while mud slides blocked major freeways and cut train service as the main line from the Midwest into Northern California was blocked.

- Power was still out for an estimated 14,500 homes and businesses.

- Interstate 80, the main route between San Francisco and Sacramento, was shut Tuesday morning because of a slide at Fairfield, the first such closure in a decade. Motorists were forced to detour through Stockton.

- U.S 101 remained closed at the Marin-Sonoma county line, as usually sedate San Antonio Creek went on a rampage. Farther north, 101 was blocked at several spots in Humboldt County. “We are working shifts of 12 hours on, 12 hours off,” said Caltrans spokesman Robert Halligan, noting that there is not yet an estimate of the damage to roads. “We can’t really see any end to it. That is the problem.”

- A small, temporary earthen dam on the Sacramento River above Auburn partially collapsed under the pressure of water flows in excess of anything officials had seen since the last great flood in 1964, releasing 60,000 acre-feet of water into already swollen Folsom Lake. Authorities minimized the danger from the spill, however, explaining that the temporary dam--built 12 years ago as a stopgap while the still-uncompleted mammoth Auburn Dam is under construction--was designed for a “safety-plug spill” any time its capacity was exceeded.

Chuck Abrams, Central Valley division chief of the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, said no structures or population centers were endangered.

The American and Sacramento rivers, which flow from Folsom Lake, already are nearing capacity, but by the time of the spill engineers were already releasing water from both Folsom and Oroville dams to accommodate expected storm inflows, and state flood operations chief Don Neudeck said available facilities should be able to handle any additional burden. s

State of Emergency

Deukmejian, meanwhile, proclaimed a state of emergency in Humboldt, Sonoma and Napa counties, a first step toward having those counties declared federal disaster areas--which would make the county and city governments eligible for federal funds and would enable businessmen and homeowners to obtain low-cost reconstruction loans from the Small Business Administration. Later in the day, Marin and Solano counties also asked for emergency status.

The governor toured California’s flood operations center in Sacramento on Tuesday, where he was told that almost all of Northern California’s massive system of reservoirs, rivers and dams is at or near capacity. Officials were hoping that any break in the weather would keep the worst problems under control.

“From all the reports that I’ve been getting,” Deukmejian said, “it appears as though we’re doing everything we possibly can to be of assistance and prevent further damage and, of course, injuries and deaths.”

At a Santa Rosa evacuation center, Don Miner of Monte Rio said he paddled a canoe to safety from the inundated Russian River resort town.

“As we rode out,” Miner said, “we were going right over people’s houses. The power lines were literally inches from our heads. All we could do was push them aside with wet newspapers and hope for the best.”

Miner’s wife, Betty, said she saw a cabin float off its foundation and sink.

“It was like that everywhere, destruction everywhere,” she said.

Family Climbs to Roof

Ed Smith, a 23-year-old Monte Rio man, said his family was forced to flee their single-story home and break into a nearby two-story home, where they climbed to the roof. There, Smith, his wife and year-old son waited until rescuers reached them in a power boat.

“When worse comes to worst, you do anything to survive,” Smith said.

In Sonoma County, the town of Guerneville remained cut off Tuesday as the Russian River stayed several feet above flood stage. Seven National Guard and sheriff’s helicopters met the 350 stranded residents at the town cemetery and airlifted them out.

Five boats, including three from the Navy, were also used to evacuate people down the Russian River.

The city of Napa also was hit hard. The Napa River surpassed its previous record high level set in 1955 and crested at roughly 30 feet, leaving downtown Napa covered by drab olive-colored mud.

Water remained knee-deep in the east end of town, and the river remained fractions of an inch from overflowing Tuesday. More than 11 inches of rain fell from Friday to Sunday--when the rain gauge broke, officials said.

An estimated 600 people spent Monday night at an evacuation center set up at Napa High School. Cots and cribs were set up in the gymnasium, but those who took pets had to sleep in the showers.

“The shock hasn’t set in; they still haven’t realized all of what they have lost,” said Vicki Adams, a Napa resident and Red Cross volunteer who said she witnessed “a good dozen cars floating down the Napa River.”

In a downtown Plaza, Vern Blair, a city worker, said it “looked like we were standing in the middle of the damned Napa River!”

“If it starts raining again, I don’t know what we will do. . . .”

In California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, where the storm dumped eight feet of snow, a rock and mud slide blocked Interstate 80 between Lake Tahoe and Reno. The highway was expected to remain closed there for several days, and another slide covered railroad tracks, forcing an Amtrak passenger train with about 600 people aboard to backtrack to Reno on Monday. Passengers were flown to San Francisco.

A state of emergency was declared in four Nevada counties. The Truckee River overflowed in Reno, forcing 500 to 600 people to evacuate. Sandbags were airlifted from Van Nuys, as well as from Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, to help control the flooding.

The snow level was dropping to 5,500 feet, which was expected to ease flood dangers, said Don Dehne, assistant director of the Nevada Emergency Management System.

Sonoma County authorities Tuesday said they had recovered the bodies of two boys, ages 18 and 14, who drowned in a Monday rafting accident on Sonoma Creek. In Napa, an elderly man drowned Monday when his car skidded into a rain-swollen ditch. And a 14-year-old Napa boy drowned Saturday while rafting on swollen Sulphur Creek.

In the Santa Cruz County town of Boulder Creek, the ground was too unstable to search for a woman who was missing--and presumed dead--after a mud slide destroyed her home, said Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Bonar. Twenty-five homes near the slide were evacuated.

In San Mateo County, the coroner’s office reported the death of a 58-year-old man at the United Airlines maintenance facility at San Francisco Airport. The man was struck in the head Monday by a large piece of equipment that shifted in a gust of wind.

Others were missing, among them a 24-year-old Concord man who disappeared Sunday while rafting in Walnut Creek channel, and a man who reportedly sought safety in the basement of his home, which was buried by an avalanche that swept down on the Mono County town of Twin Lakes on Monday.

The same storm system was causing problems elsewhere throughout the West.

An avalanche warning was issued for parts of Utah and Idaho, and winter storm warnings were in effect for the mountains of Idaho (where Bald Mountain received nearly 50 inches of new snow in the last four days) and in western Wyoming, while travelers were advised to beware of ice-sheeted roadways and blowing snow in Montana, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

High winds were blowing and were expected to continue for the next few days in parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming.

Gusts were clocked at 92 m.p.h. in Jackson, Wyo., and at 70 m.p.h. at Arlington, Wyo., and at Wellsville, Utah--which also reported its streets flooded after receiving 10.56 inches of rain in five days.

In Southern California, Tuesday morning brought an occasional glimpse of sunshine.

No One Fooled

But it fooled almost no one. . . .

Coastal areas in the vicinity of Los Angeles have received more than five inches of rain since the first in the present series of storms struck last Wednesday, while the fire-stripped hills of Ventura County have managed to absorb between nine and 12 inches with considerably less damage than had been feared.

But the weather service said the fringes of the new storm should begin to hit the Southland on Tuesday night, with the bulk of the weather system expected to produce as much as two to five more inches of rain today and Thursday.

Thus far, four canyon houses have been damaged by mud slides in the Wheeler Burn area near Ojai, and Ventura County Sheriff’s Lt. Ernie Rogers said the situation seemed to be stable--for the moment--but ventured no predictions about the effect of the oncoming deluge.

“It’s not over yet,” he said.

Traffic was reported moving “more or less normally” Tuesday in Malibu, where Caltrans crews spent the holiday weekend clearing rocks and mud from Pacific Coast Highway, but California Highway Patrol Officer Sam Hammond said he was not optimistic about prospects for the next few days.

“Those cliffs,” he said, indicating the palisades overlooking parts of the coastal route, “are full of water and ready to move. A good strong mist--and down they come again. . . .”

20-Foot Waves

Waves that had boomed in from the storm-lashed Pacific at a height of 20 feet and more at times over the weekend had subsided to a maximum of five or six feet in most places Tuesday, with most fishing piers and beaches reopened.

But forecasters said the surf could be up to eight feet or more by this morning.

Three of the four Southland deaths attributed to the recent storms were blamed on the surf: Jeffrey Trakas, 28, of Redondo Beach drowned while surfing in high waves Sunday; San Diego lifeguards Monday recovered the body of a man believed to be James R. Haines, 21, who was swept from an Ocean Beach walkway by a large wave Sunday; and Chung Lee, 51, of Cerritos, was swept from a rock and drowned while fishing at Emerald Bay on Monday.

The fourth Southland storm death was Donald Ernest Grazioli, 40, of Carlsbad, the pilot of a single-engine airplane that crashed late Monday night while attempting to land in dense fog at Palomar Airport.

High temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center on Tuesday was 69 degrees, with relative humidity ranging from 61% to 87%, and the forecast called for a high in the mid-60s today, with the possibility of heavy rains pegged at 60%.

In Washington, Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento) warned Tuesday that the federal budget crunch and the constraints of the new Gramm-Rudman deficit-cutting law may make it difficult to raise funds normally available for federal disaster relief.

Fazio, a member of both the House Budget and Appropriations committees, said officials of the federal Emergency Management Administration told him that, even before the flood crisis in California, they had only about $112 million left in their budget to cover disaster demands nationwide through September.

“They’ll need a supplemental budget request of $250 million without any large-scale disaster demands from California,” Fazio said. “Clearly we’re going to have to move for a supplemental appropriation but this runs square in the teeth of Gramm-Rudman.”

Fazio promised to press Congress to approve extra funding for the disaster agency, but warned that his colleagues were reluctant to approve such requests in the face of wide-ranging spending trims required under the Gramm-Rudman law.

“Gramm-Rudman is an impediment and one we cannot let stand in our way,” he said.

Dan Morain reported from San Francisco and Mark A. Stein from Napa County. Times staff writers Ted Thackrey Jr. in Los Angeles, Leo C. Wolinsky in Sacramento, Bob Secter in Washington and Times researcher Norma Kaufman in San Francisco also contributed to this story.