Storm Snarls Freeways; More Rain on the Way

Rain pelted the Southland again on Monday, harassing morning commuters with smashups and traffic jams that snarled freeways for hours, and forecasters said there’s more wet weather on the way today.

Up to another inch of rain could fall in the already sodden foothill areas of the Los Angeles Basin this afternoon and tonight as a new storm system moves in from the Pacific, according to meteorologist Patricia Cooper of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

A third of an inch of rain fell at the Los Angeles Civic Center between 4 p.m. Sunday and 4 p.m. Monday, raising the total for the season to 8.53 inches--well short of the 11.11 inches that would be normal by the end of February.

The rainfall varied widely, with totals Monday ranging from .03 of an inch at El Toro and .11 at Santa Monica to 1.32 inches at Woodland Hills.

The highest total locally, as usual, was atop Mt. Wilson, where 1.72 inches of rain fell.

Some of the heaviest downpours fell near dawn, as the earliest commuters were setting out.

A tanker truck overturned on the rain-slick pavement of the Golden State Freeway in the Pacoima area at about 5:30 a.m., spilling diesel fuel. As a result, most of the southbound lanes were blocked until mid-afternoon. A “gawkers’ block” led to a smashup that temporarily shut down several of the northbound lanes as well. No injuries were reported.

A loaded school bus spun out on the Santa Monica Freeway at Arlington Avenue about three hours later, snarling the city’s major artery from the Westside. But again, there were no injuries.

The Long Beach and Santa Ana freeways were tied up during the morning rush hour by two other non-injury bus crashes. One involved an out-of-service school bus that skidded off the Long Beach Freeway at Alondra Avenue; the other involved a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department bus that was in a minor collision on the Santa Ana Freeway at Indiana Avenue.

Lesser accidents, most of them triggered by the intermittent rain squalls, slowed morning traffic on the Foothill, Harbor, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Gabriel River, Riverside and Ventura freeways.

At 12:25 p.m., another tractor-trailer rig skidded on wet pavement and jackknifed across the southbound lanes of the Golden State Freeway near the State Street overpass, closing northbound freeway lanes and injuring a motorist whose car struck the wreckage. The injured man, who was not identified, was taken to Linda Vista Community Hospital.

In the Malibu area, Malibu Canyon Road was closed just south of the tunnel for about an hour because of a rock and dirt slide.

More than three dozen tenants of a downtown apartment building undergoing renovation from damage in last October’s earthquakes were evacuated to a Red Cross Center set up at Belmont High School on Monday night when rain began leaking through their ceilings, officials said.

About 10 families, including 23 adults and 14 children, were removed from the 50-unit building at 451 S. Bixel St. to the shelter at Belmont High School, Red Cross spokesman Ralph Wright said.

Monday’s high temperature at the Civic Center reached 61 degrees after a low of 56. Similar readings are expected today.

Relative humidity ranged from 70% to 93%.

Cooper said Monday’s rain stemmed from the same weather system that had brought showers to the Los Angeles area over the weekend.

That system, which had stalled off the coast for a couple of days, finally moved ashore Monday afternoon, bringing sporadically heavy rain throughout much of California.

Cooper said the rain should slacken this morning as the weather system moves east, and then intensify again this afternoon as a new storm moves in from the Pacific. She said that up to an inch of rain can be expected this afternoon and tonight in the foothill areas of the Los Angeles Basin, with slightly less at lower elevations.

“After that, it looks pretty good,” Cooper said.