Vicious Winds Flip Big Rigs, Cut Electricity

Fierce winds gusting up to 70 m.p.h. ripped through parts of the Southland early Friday, flipping over big rigs and vans, knocking out electricity to thousands of residents and bowling over hundreds of trees.

High winds, which began shortly after midnight and lasted through the early morning, were felt throughout Orange County and in an area stretching from the Inland Empire to Malibu.

Despite the havoc, there were no reports of serious injuries, authorities said.

Police switchboards around Orange County were flooded during the night with reports of downed trees, toppled power lines and burglar alarms set off by the winds.

In Irvine, two Santa Fe Railroad crossing arms were broken off. In Westminster, overhead power lines lit up the night as the current raced between the wires. One wire snapped, charging a chain link fence. In Tustin, winds felled a large tree about 5 a.m., blocking two lanes of the northbound Santa Ana Freeway south of Redhill Avenue.

Hardest hit was the City of Ontario, where early morning winds exceeding 60 m.p.h. overturned at least a dozen trucks near the junction of Interstates 10 and 15, the California Highway Patrol said. Traffic heading for Los Angeles was backed up for several miles.

Strong, gusty winds are expected to return tonight and continue into Sunday through the canyons and passes. “It shouldn’t be as strong as Friday’s, but it could reach up to 45 and maybe 50 m.p.h.,” said Dan Bowman of WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

Bowman said the source of the winds is a high-pressure system that developed Thursday over Idaho. “As the system moved south, it pushed air out away from it.”

Throughout the Inland Empire on Friday, workers--wearing bandannas and goggles to keep sand out of their eyes--walked in teams along the freeways and city streets picking up debris and trimming broken branches.

“I saw 17 dad-blamed trucks lying flat on their side this morning,” said truck driver Roger Lindsey, 29, of Pell City, Ala. Lindsey was one of many drivers waiting at an Ontario truck stop for the winds to subside and the CHP to lift a travel restriction along Interstates 10 and 15.

“That wind pushed me around pretty good too,” Lindsey said. “I was pullin’ 30,198 pounds of coconut that was rockin’ and rollin’.”

James Lewis, 28, of Las Vegas was one of the unlucky ones. At 11 p.m. Thursday night, a sudden gust lifted his trailer off the pavement and tossed it on its side.

“I watched it fall in the rear-view mirror,” Lewis said, standing beside the disabled trailer. “All I could say was, ‘There she goes.”’

Thick Clouds of Dust

CHP Sgt. Bruce Albini said the high winds raised thick clouds of dust and sand that severely reduced visibility in the Ontario area. “At 9 a.m. you couldn’t see 50 feet in front of the car,” he said.

In Malibu, northeast winds blowing off the canyons tossed a mobile home onto a parked car, destroying the home. Fire Department officials received numerous calls of power outages, overturned cars and parts of roofs being blown off.

“I’ve been knocked off my feet by 80-m.p.h. winds, and these weren’t quite that,” said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Ed Devine in the Malibu substation. “These were gusts of around 60 to 70 m.p.h. They died down as the morning progressed. Most of the damage took place between sunup and 9 a.m.”

About 2,400 homes and businesses were without power most of the morning in the San Fernando Valley communities of Chatsworth, Canoga Park and Granada Hills. A Department of Water & Power employee working in a cherry-picker was struck on the head by a falling branch and hospitalized for minor injuries, a DWP spokesman said.

Billboard Torn Loose

Winds in Chatsworth tore a large billboard from its frame on busy Devonshire Boulevard and toppled trees onto two parked cars. Police reported that numerous traffic lights in the western part of the Valley were not working.

Southern California Edison spokeswoman Sue Noreen said that 85,000 homes and businesses in the San Bernardino area lost power for varying periods. Winds began diminishing Friday afternoon, and Edison work crews had restored power to all but a few hundred homes, Noreen said.

Ontario International Airport spokeswoman Angie Azelton said that a California Air Guard hangar at the southern end of the airport “had some roof damage and broken windows.” Beyond that, there were no problems reported at the airport, although a few airlines had canceled some morning flights as a safety precaution, she said.

Louis Sahagan reported from San Bernardino County and Mark Arax from Los Angeles. A. Dahleen Glanton contributed to this report from Orange County.