Winds Down Trees, Poles, Disrupt Power

Arctic winds tore through Southern California over the weekend Tch sticks, fanning fires cking out electricity to thousands of homes, littering streets with tons of debris and raising concerns shelter for the homeless.

In Orange County, winds clocked at 50 m.p.h. uprooted large trees, knocked out power to nearly 60,000 homes and businesses and fanned the flames of at least a half-dozen fires, some started by stray chimney embers. In a few cases, sparks leapfrogged to dry rooftops of nearby homes but were contained by firefighters.

No serious injuries were reported in any of the wind-related destruction throughout Southern California. Winds were clocked at up to 60 m.p.h. in several areas, with gusts of up to 80 m.p.h. reported in parts of the San Bernardino Valley.

However, as the windstorm began to subside Sunday evening, the National Weather Service predicted subfreezing temperatures. The forecast for temperatures in the 20s in sheltered inland valley areas sent area farmers scurrying to protect vulnerable strawberry crops, some of which already had been damaged by the fierce winds and near freezing of the previous night.

“If it doesn’t get too cold, we’ll come out with some ugly fruit, but at least it will be something,” Don F. Wall, owner of Strawberry Farms in Irvine, said Sunday afternoon. “If it . . . (freezes) tonight, there will be a lot of damage.”

Hardest hit was the San Bernardino County city of Rancho Cucamonga, where winds exceeding 60 m.p.h. blew down 80 power poles along a 1 1/2-mile stretch of Baseline Road, officials said. At least two of those poles fell on cars, but no injuries were reported, a sheriff’s official said Sunday.

“They came down just like dominoes,” city maintenance supervisor Bob Zetterberg said of the fallen power poles. “It looks like a war zone out here.”

Carol Bowman, co-manager of the Alta Vista Mobile Home Community, estimated that 80% of the 186 homes in the park were damaged. And, like many areas of the city, the park lost power.

“It’s cold here,” Bowman said. “We are a family park, and there is no heat for the babies and no cooking.”

Bowman said a Southern California Edison Co. spokesman has said it could be two days before the power is restored.

In Orange County, the howling winds and frigid temperatures sent homeless scurrying to shelters.

All Available Beds Filled

At the Orange County Rescue Mission in Santa Ana, all available beds were filled Sunday night, forcing attendants to turn away several men. “We usually have 15 or 20 people stay here at night, but tonight we had almost 30 people,” mission attendant Rich Hartsock said. “They’re going to be sleeping out on the streets,” he said.

Those sent away were given solar blankets, Hartsock said, which are made from reflectorized cloth that helps retain body heat and resist moisture and cold.

Los Angeles’ homeless also were forced to weather more cold than usual. The city invoked a Stage 1 alert for the homeless Sunday because it was predicted temperatures would fall to about 40 degrees overnight. Such alerts, which are triggered automatically when temperatures dip to below 40 degrees in clear weather and 50 degrees in rain, call for housing vouchers to be distributed to the homeless.

This is the sixth time that the alert has been called this winter.

The National Weather Service forecast called for a return of warmer temperatures by tonight, with overnight lows in the 40s to near 50. But forecasters said rain will threaten the Southland by midweek, when a new Pacific storm is expected to reach the California coast.

Orange County Damage

In Orange County, the heaviest damage was caused by a series of wind-whipped fires that gutted a six-store mini-mall, left two families homeless and sent firefighters scurrying from blaze to blaze.

“The hardest thing to fight is the wind,” county Fire Department dispatcher Mike Knutson said. “The wind pushes the fire and adds oxygen to the fire and makes it burn at a much faster rate. Along with that, it picks up the embers and carries (them) to other residences.”

Firefighters were particularly concerned with a 12:22 p.m. blaze Sunday in a house in the 18600 block of Woodwind Lane in an unincorporated section of Anaheim. Embers from a fire apparently started by chimney sparks in the house threatened to spread to the wood-shingle rooftops of other neighborhood homes.

To protect themselves, residents stood atop their rooftops and kept them wet with garden hoses as 56 firemen fought the blaze, which gutted the single-story residence and routed the family. As a precaution, the Fire Department deployed a five-engine strike team to patrol the surrounding area in search of any stray burning embers. None were found.

A similar threat faced residents of the 2600 block of East Carnival Avenue in Anaheim, where flames burned through the wood-shingle roof of a home at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday. That fire, also apparently caused by stray chimney embers, threatened to spread to the wood-shingle rooftops of adjoining homes. But county fire officials contained the blaze before it could spread any further.

‘Avoided a Major Disaster’

“We avoided a major disaster this morning (Sunday), just barely,” said Kennedy Grant of the American Red Cross, which put the displaced family in a hotel for the night Sunday. “We were looking at a good six houses that could have gone up quick in these high winds.”

Another potentially disastrous fire was put out in Fullerton, where embers from a downed power line landed on rooftops of two nearby homes and started small fires shortly before noon Sunday. Residents of the homes used garden hoses to extinguish the roof blazes before firemen arrived.

In Irvine, about 55 firefighters battled a wind-fanned fire at 5 a.m. Sunday that raced through a small shopping center after an outdoor electrical sign shorted and set the roof ablaze.

The fire caused an estimated $105,000 damage at the six-store mall complex located in the 5400 block of Walnut Avenue, county Fire Department officials said. Five of the six stores in the complex were damaged, with a doughnut shop and an Italian restaurant the worst hit, mainly in the roof and ceiling areas, officials said.

It took firefighters about 40 minutes to extinguish the blaze.

Large Tree Uprooted

In other wind-related incidents in Orange County, a large tree uprooted by gusting winds fell on three parked cars in the 400 block of Poinsettia Avenue in Corona del Mar at about 9 p.m. Saturday, causing major damage to the hoods, police reported. No one was injured in the incident.

Sunday morning, an oak tree estimated to be at least 50 years old was uprooted by fierce winds in the 2000 block of Greenleaf Street in Santa Ana. And in Irvine, another tree fell on top of a parked car in a driveway. No one was injured in those incidents, authorities said.

Meanwhile, fire and law enforcement officials across the county reported numerous traffic signals downed by winds, at least a dozen of them in the Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Marguerita areas of southern Orange County.

In Mission Viejo, a wood-frame apartment house under construction collapsed shortly after midnight Saturday as winds swept it from its foundation, county Fire Department officials said.

“The thing just literally slid over and partially out into the street when it collapsed,” said Larry Ford, an off-duty Los Angeles fireman from El Toro who passed by the collapsed complex. “It came down like a deck of cards.”

Utility officials said power was knocked out at many residences when winds hurled tree limbs into electrical lines.

About 53,000 customers of Southern California Edison, which provides electricity to the bulk of Orange County residences and businesses, lost power after the windstorm hit Saturday night. Hardest hit areas were Santa Ana, Fullerton and Garden Grove, Edison spokesman Roger Faubel said.

About half the outages lasted 30 seconds or less, Faubel said. Most of the remaining outages lasted between one and three hours, he said. By mid-afternoon Sunday, 1,000 customers remained without electricity. Faubel said power was to be restored to all those homes by late Sunday.

Without Power 25 Hours

However, at least one irate homeowner said late Sunday that she had been without power for more than 25 hours.

“I have a Coleman in front of me; my family’s in bed, and I am really angry,” said Costa Mesa resident Liz Ray, 32. “I have two small children and a husband, and we are all sleeping in the same bed, and the dog is sleeping with us.”

In Anaheim, the city’s Utilities Department reported that power was lost early Sunday to about 5,000 homes on the city’s west side when high winds caused two major circuits to malfunction. By mid-afternoon, power had been restored to all but 600 customers, said a city utilities dispatcher who was too busy directing trouble trucks to talk further.

An Anaheim police spokesman said Sunday afternoon that the officers were “just overwhelmed” with traffic control problems due to the scattered power outages affecting traffic signals.

In south Orange County, which is served by San Diego Gas & Electric, the utility reported scattered outages that affected fewer than 100 homes.

“The Orange County construction office is open and crews are out,” said Elizabeth Pecsi, spokeswoman for SDG&E.;

Service Area Problems

Pecsi could not pinpoint the outages, but she said they were in the service area of Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, South Laguna, San Clemente and Mission Viejo.

Pat Cooper, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, explained that California was caught between a high-pressure area centered off the Oregon coast and a vigorous low-pressure area over New Mexico.

“Think of a high pressure as a dome of air, and a low pressure as a sinking hole of air,” she said. “And the gradient between these two systems is pretty stiff. That means that the air will fall fast--the wind will blow hard--from the high to the low, just the way water will fall from high to low ground.”

What most Southern California residents saw of the windstorm was litter from literally thousands of tree limbs that damaged cars, roofs, and gardens and made driving through many neighborhoods difficult.

Christmas decorations blew down in Beverly Hills. Freeway signs snapped off poles in Altadena. People running Christmas tree lots vainly tried to keep their trees standing, but most ultimately gave up and laid the trees down to protect them from the powerful gusts.

Storefront windows in Hollywood, Pasadena and elsewhere were shattered by the winds.

Times staff writers Laurie Becklund, Patt Morrison and Nieson Himmel in Los Angeles, and Louis Sahagun in Riverside-San Bernardino, and Carla Rivera and Jess Bravin in Orange County also contributed to this article.