Tropical Punch : Surprise Storm Lashes Southland With Downpours and Lightning

A tropical storm pummeled Southern California with downpours, lightning and gusty winds on Wednesday, triggering traffic accidents, knocking out electrical power to more than 80,000 customers and prompting a flash-flood watch in the mountains and deserts.

The hot, humid storm system, which invaded Southern California from Mexico, brought the first measurable rain to Los Angeles ever recorded on an Aug. 24, along with the promise of more muggy weather for the next few days.

A total of .05 of an inch of rain had fallen at the Civic Center by nightfall. It was the first rain of the weather season, which begins on July 1.

It rained more elsewhere, including .48 atop Mt. Wilson; .40 in Palm Springs, where the temperature reached 104 degrees; .30 at Big Bear Lake; .29 in Lancaster, .17 in Barstow and .06 in Pasadena.

Traces were recorded in Santa Monica, Torrance and other coastal areas.

Rain is relatively rare at this time of year--the average total rainfall at this point in the season is only .05 of an inch--and a number of Southern Californians were caught unprepared. These included a collection of homeless people who were forced to retreat to the tunnels under the Music Center and some apartment dwellers who had to seek shelter elsewhere because their roof had been removed for earthquake repairs.

Limited visibility and wind-whipped rain squalls caused more than 30 traffic accidents--most of them minor--on Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass area of San Bernardino County on Wednesday morning. Portions of the roadway were blocked for more than an hour to clear away the wreckage, according to the California Highway Patrol. There were no fatalities, but several people were hospitalized with moderate to serious injuries, officers said.

“You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” Officer Ron Kauffman of the CHP’s San Bernardino office said of the downpour.

L.A. Boy Injured

In Los Angeles, an 11-year-old boy was injured when a truck and trailer jackknifed on a wet street and the trailer slammed into a bus bench on which the boy was sitting at 1st and Soto streets. The boy, who was not immediately identified, was hospitalized.

Other accidents were reported on rain-slick thoroughfares throughout the Los Angeles area, including tractor-trailer rigs that jackknifed on the Harbor Freeway at Martin Luther King Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway at the Pomona Freeway.

Southern California Edison Co. spokesman Gene Carter said lightning knocked out power to about 70,000 customers in the Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Westminster, Garden Grove and Santa Ana areas of Orange County during the morning. But he said most of the outages were of the “flickering light” variety and in most cases service was restored quickly.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. reported outages affecting about 8,000 customers in Vista, Oceanside and Carlsbad. Again, power was restored quickly in most instances.

In Los Angeles, about 4,000 users lost power for several hours in the south-central and eastern parts of the city, according to the Department of Water and Power. Spokeswoman Mindy Berman said service was disrupted when lightning knocked out five main circuits, each of which serves about 500 customers.

About 75 residents of an apartment complex at 118 N. Westmoreland Ave. in the Los Feliz area turned to the American Red Cross and other agencies for help finding shelter when rainwater began pouring through ceilings over which the roof had been removed for repairs. Fire officials said the three-story building was being renovated to meet earthquake standards.

A dozen or so of the city’s homeless took refuge in the tunnels beneath the upper end of the Civic Center Mall near the Music Center.

“We’re just trying to stay out of the rain,” said Ted Hayes, a spokesman for the group.

A flash-flood bulletin was issued by the National Weather Service at 11 a.m. for all mountain and desert areas of Southern California and the southern half of the Owens Valley.

The service warned that the flood danger was greatest in canyons, stream beds and runoff areas where culverts are clogged and drainage is poor.

The rain, wind and lightning strikes are the result of a tropical weather system that moved north from the equatorial Pacific across western Mexico and into Southern California, according to Janice Roth, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“It’s a rather uncommon event in your area,” she said.

Roth said that when this warm, moist air finally reached Southern California, it was carried aloft by a combination of rising air currents, low pressure above it and updrafts along the mountains. She said that when the tropical air reached upper levels--some clouds were reported peaking at above 41,000 feet--it condensed and fell as rain.

Intermittent rain showers should continue today, finally tapering off on Friday, Roth said.

Because of the high humidity, temperatures should remain on the uncomfortable side today, with a high near 80 at the Civic Center and top readings in the upper 90s in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

The high temperature at the Civic Center on Wednesday was 80, following an overnight low of 71. Humidity ranged from a low of 52% to a high of 88%.