Another Storm--Maybe Even Bigger--Is on the Way

Orange County is in for an unusually wet weekend, with some places expected to get more than an inch of rainfall today thanks to very humid air moving in from Hawaii.

“It’s not going to be pleasant,” said meteorologist Mike Smith of WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

“It sure looks wet,” added Bob Grebe of the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.

Smith said showers and thunderstorms predicted for today will at least match and likely surpass Thursday’s downpours, the heaviest to hit Southern California so far this season.

The weather service said parts of Los Angeles took 1.6 inches of rain Thursday, a record for the day for the past 46 years.

Record in Santa Ana

In Orange County, Santa Ana recorded .89 inches, breaking a 1957 record of .44 inches. San Juan Capistrano received at least 1.35 inches.

Smith said a low-pressure system off the California coast would likely steer tropical moisture from Hawaii toward the Southland. Satellite pictures Friday evening showed the system’s counterclockwise winds aiming showers directly at Southern California, he said.

That will likely mean “heavier and more widespread” rain for Orange County than the showers that pelted the area Thursday, he said.

And that could create problems, especially in those areas heavily affected by Thursday’s downpours.

“Our concern is that because a lot of rain fell yesterday, there may be more local flooding problems,” Grebe said Friday. “Those areas are already saturated with water. And in Orange County, those areas that were burned by fire a while back would be vulnerable.”

Inch Along the Coast

Grebe said that overall, there could be an inch of rain along the coast and as much as two or three inches inland, in the foothills and mountains.

He said sunny skies should return by Sunday, with only a 20% chance of light rain.

“There are some pluses,” Grebe said. “We won’t have people going to work, so we won’t have the traffic problems we had Thursday. And overall, it’s good. We really do need rain.”

But the rain Thursday seems to have brought more problems than it did benefits to Southern California.

Rain-slick roads accounted for dozens of traffic accidents.

In Brea, Anna Lee Stella, 60, of Chino, died Friday after her car skidded on Carbon Canyon Road, crossed over the center divider and collided with a pickup truck going the other way. The driver and a passenger in the truck suffered minor injuries, police said.

In Lakewood, Miles Rogholt, 56, of South Gate, died Thursday night when his car crashed into a truck on a ramp leading to the San Gabriel River Freeway, police reported.

CHP Officer Escapes

Officials said there were hundreds of fender-benders. CHP Officer Vickie Warren narrowly escaped injury Thursday evening when an embankment on the Golden State Freeway in the San Fernando Valley gave way and buried her patrol car.

All northbound lanes of the road were blocked off by the slide, which caused an estimated $1 million in damage.

Although rain damage was minimal in Orange County, flooding was reported Thursday night in at least four homes in San Clemente.

A spokesman for the city’s engineering division said the problems stemmed from silt accumulating in storm drains, which cast sheets of water against several homes in the Forrester Ranch development in north San Clemente.

San Clemente Fire Chief Tom Dailey said his department received several calls from homeowners in that area, with one house reporting up to a foot of water.

Dailey said crews were working in the area Friday to prevent further damage from the expected torrent this weekend.

Power Outages Triggered

Thursday’s rain also triggered power outages throughout the region.

Southern California Edison Co. officials reported that as many as 100,000 of their customers from Santa Barbara to southern Orange County were left without electricity for brief periods Thursday. And at least 7,000 homes and businesses in the San Fernando Valley and downtown Los Angeles were without power Thursday when lightning strikes hit power poles and lines, Department of Water and Power spokesman Ed Freudenburg said. About 250 DWP customers remained in the dark Friday.

In Hollywood, more than 20 families spent Thursday night in motels after the rain forced them from homes already damaged by the Oct. 1 earthquake, said Peggy McGinley, a spokesman for the American Red Cross. In downtown Los Angeles, about 25 residents of a 7th Street apartment building were driven to Red Cross shelters after water poured through faulty roofs and cracks caused by the quake, McGinley said.

The downpour caused the Hyperion sewage station to overflow, sending 2.7 million gallons of partially treated water into Ballona Creek and the Santa Monica Bay. The storm also created a 30,000-gallon spill of untreated sewage in Pacific Palisades.

Denuded by Brush Fire

In San Diego, where slightly more than half an inch of rain had fallen, authorities said a mud slide on the Rincon Indian reservation--an area denuded by a brush fire earlier this month--destroyed a corrugated metal bungalow that is headquarters to the Yuima Municipal Water District.

Additionally, a 12-car pileup on Interstate 15 within San Diego city limits was blamed on the rain and spilled diesel fuel from an earlier collision. No serious injuries were reported.

With Saturday’s weather system still hundreds of miles offshore, it was still too early to predict with certainity where the brunt of the rain would fall, Smith said, but the amount of rainfall in the area would likely set yet another record high.

“But keep in mind that these records are not tremendously significant,” he said. “It’s heavy for this early in the season, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still not a lot of rain.

The weather service said the system should move in a northeasterly direction, up to Central California and into Nevada by Sunday. Smith said Orange County high temperatures for Saturday should range from the mid to upper 60s.