Storm Damage at $68 Million, Still Climbing

Damage estimates topped $68 million--more than $5 million of that in Orange County--and continued to climb Tuesday as property owners and public officials began the arduous task of cleaning up after the winter storm that ravaged a 250-mile stretch of the coast from Santa Barbara south to the Mexican city of Ensenada.

Wind-driven surf threatened oceanfront structures from Seal Beach to San Clemente again Tuesday as tides peaked above 7 feet at 8:38 a.m., but the waves were considerably smaller than the 25-foot breakers that destroyed part of a pier, damaged homes, restaurants and a hotel, and forced scores of beachfront residents and visitors to flee on Sunday and Monday.

In Orange County, hundreds of county and city workers assisted by crews of county jail inmates labored through Monday night and Tuesday morning shoring up the battered coast.

The sandbag levees, bulldozed berms and rock-pile seawalls they hastily erected during the night did their job on Tuesday, and there were few reports of additional damage.

Tides, Surf Declining

“We worked through the night on it, but in the morning when it might have been needed, it just wasn’t because of the flat surf,” said Carl R. Nelson, Orange County’s director of public works. Forecasters said the tides and surf will drop further today, and no more damage is expected.

The Board of Supervisors proclaimed a state of emergency throughout Orange County, a move that has little practical effect but begins a process that may lead to state and federal intervention on behalf of residents and businesses harmed by the storm.

The supervisors were scheduled today to consider a resolution asking the state and federal governments to declare the county a disaster area.

Up and down the Orange County coast, residents and emergency crews worked to repair the damage caused by the storm.

In hard-hit Huntington Beach on Tuesday night, city councilmen pondered the future of their municipal pier, which saw heavy surf send about 250 feet of the 1,750-foot-long structure into the open ocean.

The City Council declared the pier a local disaster area, a step necessary to apply for state and federal assistance.

The seven council members voted to spend up to $20,000 for studies to assess the damage to the 49-year-old pier, part of which was rebuilt just over two years ago after 1983’s violent winter storms.

Damage to the pier, including destruction of the End Cafe, a restaurant located at the pier’s end, was estimated at $4.2 million by City Administrator Paul Cook.

“Maybe we are tempting Mother Nature with that pier,” Cook said. The administrator has recommended that the pier be stubbed off near where its end plunged into the sea, thereby shortening the structure by about 500 feet.

Coast Highway Still Closed

Huntington City Beach was closed Tuesday, as was a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Warner Avenue and Golden West Street. Cook said the highway might not reopen until Thursday, and predicted that it could take as long as a month to clear the beach of debris.

In South Laguna, where the tempest destroyed one house and damaged 12 others over the weekend, residents scrambled to shore up their imperiled homes.

Two Lagunita Place residents obtained an emergency permit from the City of Laguna Beach to place boulders on the beach in front of their homes to act as a seawall.

They hired a crane operator, at their own expense, to lift the rocks over their expensive houses and onto the beach.

“Don’t ask me how much this is costing,” said Ernest Chapman, one of the homeowners paying for the crane.

As he watched the crane precariously hoist a rock over his house, Chapman said, “We’ve got $1-million houses here--we’ve got to give it a shot.”

Some residents of neighboring Blue Lagoon spent Tuesday sweeping sand and debris out of the bottom floor of their three-story seaside condominiums, which were hit by fierce waves during high tide Sunday and Monday.

“I’ve never seen this much sand!” said Emily Glover, a 22-year Blue Lagoon resident who was helping a neighbor clean her carport after the storm.

“This is a disaster, isn’t it?,” she said. “One guy told me, ‘It really makes you want to spring clean.’ ”

Damage Put at $1.5 Million

Orange County officials estimated damage to the Laguna Beach homes at $1.5 million.

Other coastal cities in Orange County said their cleanup efforts were under way but reported no major damage from the storm.

Insurance companies, however, said that property owners were already filing claims for their losses.

Joann McMahon, claim superintendent for State Farm Insurance Co., said 30 damage claims were reported in Orange County by Monday. She said she expected the number of claims to rise as clients learned that the claims office was open.

“This is the third storm we’ve had back-to-back,” McMahon said, citing the Whittier earthquake of October and the damage caused by high winds in early December.

“Our people are getting awfully tired,” she said.

Los Angeles County supervisors also placed their county in a state of emergency, and asked Gov. George Deukmejian to declare their stricken coastal communities a disaster area.

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) joined Los Angeles County Supervisor Dean Dana on Tuesday morning for a helicopter survey of Redondo Beach--the town hardest hit by the surf--where damage was estimated at more than $16 million.

Boaters plied Redondo’s King Harbor on Tuesday, pulling out debris that included logs, boards, pilings and assorted flotsam. Because undermined foundations in Redondo Beach posed the threat of further collapse, most business owners were prevented from returning to start mucking out the hotel, shops and 13 restaurants there that were heavily damaged by the encroaching sea Sunday and Monday.

Fishing Boats Missing

South of Orange County, Coast Guard officials searched for two San Diego-based fishing vessels believed about 110 miles south of San Diego. The Kitty Lee and the Cathryn--each with two persons aboard--had last been heard from early Monday morning.

Officials in Mexico reported Tuesday that 22 boats in Ensenada Harbor--most of them commercial fishing craft--were hurled against the rocky shore by the storm. Four of the boats sank, and damage to the fleet was estimated at more than $40 million.

Two charter boats off the coast of Baja California--both of them carrying American passengers--foundered in the heavy seas, but all those aboard were rescued by Mexican maritime officials.

The onslaughts from the ocean were the final blows of a winter storm that had swept into Southern California on gale-force winds before dawn Sunday, killing three people who apparently were asphyxiated in their snow-buried car in the Angeles National Forest and four others in a plane that crashed into a hillside in Newhall during a driving downpour.

In addition, police said a transient apparently succumbed to the cold in a Los Angeles Skid Row alcove before dawn on Monday--the eighth death attributed to the inclement weather.

Victims Identified

The three asphyxiation victims were identified by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office Tuesday as William Jimenez, 18, Fred Perous, 24, and Dolores Morales, 17, all of Los Angeles.

The plane crash victims, all identified Monday, were Lt. Harry Parson, 50, his wife, Deputy Theresa Pinocchio, 38, both of Long Beach, and Capt. George E. Reed, 43, and his wife, Rosemarie Reed, 47, both of Glendale. All four were members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The transient remained unidentified Tuesday.

The storm brought up to 2 feet of snow to Southern California’s mountains, temporarily blocking most roads above 4,000 feet, including Interstate 5, the main artery to the north. About 100 vehicles that had been stranded in snow overnight on California 58 in the Tehachapi Mountains were finally dug out Monday afternoon.

The storm--which moved well east Monday afternoon, leaving clear, bright sunny weather in its wake--brought blizzard conditions Tuesday to Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa.

Times staff writers Mariann Hansen, Nancy Wride, Steven R. Churm, Carlos Lozano and Dave Lesher in Orange County, Ralph Frammolino in San Diego, Karen Roebuck in Redondo Beach and Carol McGraw and Victor Merina in Los Angeles contributed to this story.