7 Deaths Tied to Southland Storm’s Fury

A major winter storm battered Southern California Sunday, killing three in an avalanche that buried their car in the Angeles National Forest, and four more in a plane that crashed into a mountain in Newhall during a driving rainstorm.

The storm pelted Los Angeles with more than an inch of rain, causing road closures, highway flooding, setting off mud slides and triggering high surf that tore large amounts of sand from local beaches. The storm damaged oceanfront restaurants and a hotel in Redondo Beach, threatened homes in Malibu and Hermosa Beach and tore off a chunk of the Huntington Beach city pier.

The worst of the storm struck early Sunday, when many Los Angeles-area residents woke up to thunder and lightning storms that blacked out power for brief periods of time to more than 70,000 homes and businesses.

Should Pass by Today

The storm was expected to pass through the area by early today. But behind it were expected to come colder temperatures and huge waves of 10 to 14 feet, with occasional breakers of up to 18 feet that could cause flooding in low-lying coastal areas this morning.

The bodies of the three who died in the Angeles National Forest avalanche were discovered by accident while U.S. Forest Service rangers were rescuing two Boy Scout troops from campgrounds in the mountains, Ranger Dean Weakman said. The rangers had gotten Caltrans to bring a snowblower in order “to clear the road and get the Boy Scouts out of there,” he said. It was then that the snow blower uncovered the car at the intersection of California 30 and Angeles Crest Highway, about 13 miles north of Glendora.

“That’s the first we knew there had been an avalanche,” Weakman said, estimating the snow had swept down from nearby 7,800-foot Mt. Williamson.

The Boy Scout troops, from Culver City and Rancho Palos Verdes, were brought down to safety.

The four people whose single-engine plane crashed into a mountain in Newhall just before 1 a.m. Sunday during a driving rainstorm included two men and two women from the Los Angeles area, officials said. They were not identified pending notification of relatives. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Detta Roberts said the pilot appeared to be following the Antelope Valley Freeway when he drifted off course in the fog and rain and crashed near the Newhall Refining Co.

The plane’s origin and destination were not known, she said.

Apartments Evacuated

As the day wore on, the damage and danger to beachfront businesses and homes became more extreme. In Malibu Sunday night, residents were evacuating from at least two apartment houses--on Malibu Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway--as the surf swept up against building walls. In the posh Malibu Colony, sheriff’s deputies were keeping a close watch as the waves broke windows and threatened, if the surf got higher, to swamp homes completely.

In Redondo Beach’s King Harbor, hotel guests and employees had to evacuate the Portofino Inn as the lower floors became flooded and the hotel itself started to collapse. A news helicopter removed 50 evacuees from the hotel roof.

Two Redondo Beach police officers were swept into the water but received only minor injuries. Several oceanfront restaurants had windows blown out and suffered water damage from the pounding surf.

On Sunday evening in Huntington Beach, a 100-foot section of the pier, which had been battered by high tides and waves most of the day, collapsed into the surf, according to Huntington Beach police. In Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles County lifeguards distributed sandbags to beachfront residents, as water swept across an ocean front walk called The Strand.

At Venice Beach, tents belonging to homeless campers were swept into the ocean.

Sunday had its share of dramatic rescues. Another troop of Whittier-based Boy Scouts was stranded alongside the rain-swollen San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest north of Duarte. But the 13 boys and their three adult leaders were carried one by one across the water by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s San Dimas search-and-rescue team.

One Los Angeles County lifeguard braved 12-foot waves and churning currents to rescue a couple whose sailboat was stranded off Dockweiler Beach south of Marina del Rey. A lifeguard boat was towing the vessel when the towline snapped. The sailboat sank and the two people aboard went into the water, senior ocean lifeguard Nick Steers said.

At that point, lifeguard Rex Goble dove off the lifeguard boat and, after 30 minutes in the storm-tossed water, brought the two victims ashore, Steers said. The lifeguard boat could not reach them through the waves. Both victims suffered from hypothermia and were taken to Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital.

2 Boys Rescued

In Huntington Beach, lifeguards rescued two boys from the rain-swollen Santa Ana River channel, after rising waters trapped them on a sand bar. They held onto weeds in the cold, rushing water, Huntington Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief Bill Cooper said, until lifeguards swam out and, using a rubber hose as a lifeline, took them off the sand bar. A third boy had gotten out and called for help.

During the worst of the storm Sunday morning, several roads and portions of freeways were closed. A mud and rock slide partially closed Topanga Canyon Boulevard for several hours, and the Santa Ana Freeway northbound was closed in East Los Angeles between Garfield Avenue and Washington Boulevard. Portions of the Long Beach Freeway, Pacific Coast Highway, Golden State Freeway, San Diego Freeway and Antelope Valley Freeway were flooded during the day. Snow closed the Grapevine portion of Interstate 5 Sunday night.

Tornado Touches Down

In San Clemente, a small tornado touched down on a baseball field about 9:45 a.m., uprooting a 30-foot-long wooden dugout, carrying it about 150 yards, and dropping it in the middle of Avenida Pico near Interstate 5.

Homes Damaged

Earlier in the day, several homes were damaged in Rowland Heights, and one woman was injured after rains drenched a hillside construction site, causing mud slides that flooded streets, yards and garages near the intersection of Brisa Lane and Windrose Drive.

The storm had deposited 1.87 inches of rain by 9 p.m. Sunday, according to Los Angeles County Flood Control officials. National Weather Service meteorologists put the season total at 6.83 inches, just over the 6.32 norm for this time of year.

Other areas got more. A total of 2.67 inches fell in Monrovia during the 24 hours measured from 4 p.m. Saturday. In Pasadena, 2.2 inches fell, while 1.97 inches pelted Woodland Hills during the same period.

About 70,000 homes and businesses served by Southern California Edison Co. were without power for part of the day, a spokesmen said. Another 3,500 homes and businesses served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also suffered outages, a spokesman said.

Virtually all the blackouts were minor, and power was expected to be restored to most, if not all, customers by today.

The National Weather Service recommended that residents in areas that frequently flood during such storms take precautionary measures. Some residents of Malibu, the South Bay beach areas and Newport Beach were sandbagging the fronts of their homes Sunday afternoon.

The greatest danger of flooding was expected at 7:52 a.m. today, when the high tide will reach 7 feet.

“We lost 20 to 50 feet of sand at Zuma Beach in different places,” said Jim Jacobson, senior ocean lifeguard at Malibu. “There’s a lot less beach to watch.”

Times staff writers Jim Carlton, Jess Bravin, Nieson Himmel and Carla Rivera contributed to this story.