Early Season Storm Drenches Southland

A winter-style storm crossed up the forecasters and moved south, rather than inland, from Northern California on Wednesday, bringing the Los Angeles area its first significant rain of the season and triggering widespread power outages as well as a rash of traffic accidents that took at least one life.

There wasn’t much rain to speak of until the latter stages of the morning commute hours, but then there was enough to turn several freeways into clogged arteries, flood some streets and register .91 of an inch at the Los Angeles Civic Center by late afternoon.

That brought the rainfall since July 1 to 1.09 inches. The normal total by this time of the year is a mere .36.

Both the Dodgers and Angels were rained out Wednesday evening--only the second time they have had simultaneous washouts. Several events, including the pig races, were canceled at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona.

More than 100 collisions on the freeways of Los Angeles and Orange counties kept California Highway Patrol officers busy and there was extensive flooding of streets, particularly on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley.

More than 18,000 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers lost electricity for varying periods, said DWP spokeswoman Elizabeth Wimmer, but most had service restored by nightfall. The Hilton Hotel at Los Angeles Airport at 5711 W. Century Blvd. was still dark Wednesday evening, however, having been without power since 1:43 p.m. A spokesman said guests were issued flashlights.

Wimmer said the airport area outage affected 23 major customers, including several airline terminals at the airport, a Rockwell International Corp. facility and a large office building at 5743 Century.

Some airport takeoffs reportedly were delayed, but an operations office official said backup generators kept outages from being a major problem.

A Southern California Edison Co. spokesman said 44,000 of its customers throughout Southern California were without power at some time or other during the day, but only about 300 remained blacked out Wednesday evening.

Wimmer said an “intensive” tree-trimming program over the last two years had paid off in the relatively small number of outages experienced Wednesday. “In the past with a storm like this,” she said, “we would have had maybe 50,000 or 100,000 customers out.”

The storm front, born in the Gulf of Alaska, kept the Civic Center temperature from surpassing 61--only four degrees above the overnight low. That tied the record set in 1908 for the lowest maximum reading on a Sept. 24, the National Weather Service said.

Although it is unusually early for a winter-type storm in Southern California, a National Weather Service spokeswoman noted that it is not unheard of. The record rainfall for the date here is 1.62 in 1939.

A travelers advisory was issued for the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert because of strong winds and some blowing sand through Wednesday evening.

Increased swells were expected along west-facing beaches as a result of the North Pacific system.

Although the storm that followed Tuesday night’s small pace-setter front was shuffling off to the east by Wednesday evening, it was trailed by yet another small system that could bring a few showers today, forecasters said. They set the chances at 20%.

Then, however, the building of a weak high-pressure area will bring gradual clearing that could portend fair and warmer weather.

Nine people were injured--one of them fatally--in a chain-reaction series of early afternoon accidents involving a Greyhound bus and 10 other vehicles on a slick Golden State Freeway downgrade near Calgrove Boulevard at Valencia in the Newhall area.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Harry Ingold said the five separate collisions began with a pickup truck that spun out and collided with another one. The freeway was closed for nearly a half hour, backing up traffic for miles.

All the victims were taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital where, a spokeswoman said, one man died after arrival, one remained in serious condition, while seven were expected to be released after treatment. The dead man was identified as Gene Buckman, 40, of Saugus.

During the late afternoon, all southbound lanes and some northbound lanes of the Long Beach Freeway were closed for two hours at Slauson Avenue because of flooding and three northbound lanes of the the San Gabriel River Freeway were closed for two hours after a semi-tractor rig and a moving van collided.

In Ventura County, the CHP said large, rain-caused potholes at the bottom of Conejo Grade on U.S. 101 near Newbury Park resulted in numerous tire blow outs and created heavy traffic congestion. Pacific Coast Highway south of Oxnard was littered with boulders, but passable.

That capped a day in which collisions, overturned trucks and slithering cars tied virtually the entire Los Angeles area freeway system into knots at one time or another.

In addition to the travelers advisory in the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert, a warning remained in effect for the Lake Tahoe area, where heavy rain and snow fell throughout Wednesday morning. Snow levels were about 7,000 feet throughout much of the Sierra by midday and were expected to lower before nightfall.

A twister touched down about 20 miles southeast of Red Bluff in Northern California on Wednesday afternoon, damaging three mobile homes and a barn as well as ripping up numerous orchard trees. One person in a mobile home was reported injured.

Some other official weather service rainfall figures for the 24 hours ending at 4 p.m. Wednesday included .52 at Los Angeles International Airport; .55 at Beaumont; .07 at Big Bear Lake; .48 at Long Beach; .60 at Monrovia; .78 at Montebello; .77 at Pasadena; .95 at San Gabriel; 1.41 at Santa Barbara; .71 at Santa Monica and .67 at Woodland Hills.

Light sprinkles continued at many points into the evening.

Times Staff Writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.