Winter Storm Heads South; Rainfall May Ease the Chill

A winter storm that dropped snow over much of the northern half of the state began moving into Southern California on Tuesday night, bringing the promise of a few rain showers in Orange County and more snow in Southland mountains.

And although it won’t feel much warmer, forecasters said, the cloudy skies will bring a slight easing of the chill that caused some damage to sensitive crops and made life even harder for Southern California’s homeless over the Christmas weekend.

The cold, clear weather Sunday and Monday prompted a record number of homeless people to seek shelter provided by the city of Los Angeles.

But in Orange County, National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana were closed Monday night after county officials mistakenly believed that the weather would turn warm.

The two armories had sheltered about 200 people each night over the Christmas weekend. But they were closed during Monday night’s cold spell after “we ran out of food and volunteers,” said Robert A. Griffith, chief deputy director of Orange County’s Social Services Agency. Private social services agencies that help the county with meals and bedding at the armory also were closed on Monday, Griffith said.

Griffith said the agency decided Friday against opening the armories on Monday after studying long-term weather forecasts, but “it turned out to be colder than we thought.” He said the armories’ usual clients--transient men and a handful of women--most likely spent the chilly night in cars, parks or all-night restaurants.

Orange County officials reopened the two armories Tuesday night and were expecting at least 200 people to seek shelter.

Many who arrived at the armory in Santa Ana on Tuesday night said they had been surprised to find the armories closed Monday. Some added that they should be kept open for the homeless throughout the winter and not just in extremely cold weather.

“It was cold, I was close to pneumonia,” said Andy Anderson, 37, a former cook in the Marine Corps who said he has been homeless for 4 months since the breakup of his marriage. “I knew early in the day the temperatures would be going down into the 30s. Many of us had to go to our regular sleeping place on the street and we froze. The (armories) should be kept open all the time because the places where we can stay are so limited. In Orange County, there are no options.”

Another man said he found refuge Monday night in the unlocked storage shed of a church.

“You’re gonna do what you have to do and you’re not gonna freeze,” said Tom Byrne, 37. “I’ll crawl into somebody’s garage if I have to. There are not enough facilities in Orange County for the numbers of homeless here. Even if it’s not freezing, many people get colds or flu and they have no place to go.”

Scott Mather, chairman of the county’s task force on the homeless, said he was “concerned” that the armories were closed on one of the coldest days of the year so far.

But Mather said he and county staff decided Thursday to close the armories because “the best projections that we had were that the weather was supposed to have warmed up on Monday.” Because of the long holiday weekend, there was no way to reverse the decision, he said.

Mather said a similar situation occurred last year on Christmas Eve when temperatures also dipped below 40 degrees, but there were no plans for the armories to stay open.

Mather said he talked to county staff on Tuesday “about a better way of making a decision. . . . If anything they’ll lean toward opening the armories rather than closing” them.

Under criteria for using the National Guard armories, Mather said, counties may use them when the temperature falls below 40 degrees, or below 50 degrees if it is also raining. “But there’s nothing that says you have to have it open,” he said.

The National Weather Service said Tuesday that snow had fallen over “almost all of Northern California” and was spreading into the central part of the state. The thermometer dropped to 27 in San Francisco, 13 in Alturas and 14 below zero at South Lake Tahoe.

More than 30 cars tangled on icy Interstate 80 near Donner Pass Tuesday morning, injuring a number of motorists. Temperatures there dropped to 22 below at dawn.

It wasn’t quite that cold in the Southland on Tuesday morning, but thermometer readings did dip below freezing in many areas, threatening citrus, avocado and strawberry crops in Orange, Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties and causing minor damage in the coldest areas.

As the mercury dipped into the 20s Monday night and early Tuesday, strawberry growers in the canyons near Irvine and Brea turned on sprinklers and wind machines to protect their crops, Deputy Agriculture Commissioner John Ellis said. But no losses were reported.

“It was cold. The temperature dropped, but it didn’t stay down that long to do any damage,” Ellis said.

Snow at 2,000-3,000 Feet

Rick Dittmann, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, said the main body of the storm was expected to arrive in Southern California before dawn today, with showers and thundershowers over the coastal and foothill communities and snow expected above 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

“There will be very unstable air, so accumulations will be spotty,” he said.

Temperatures will dip into the low 40s in the metropolitan area this morning, rising to the mid-50s by midday as breezes pick up and the storm moves out to the east, Dittmann said.

He said that with clearing skies and diminishing winds, temperatures early Thursday should dip back close to 30 in the coldest wind-protected areas of the Southland.

Temperatures dipped to 27 degrees in San Juan Capistrano, one degree shy of the Orange County record low of 25 degrees set in Santa Ana in 1950, according to the National Weather Service. San Clemente recorded a low of 29 degrees, warming to a high of 59 degrees, while Santa Ana posted an overnight low of 35 degrees.

Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Jones from Orange County. Times staff writers Carla Rivera in Orange County, Amy Stevens in San Francisco and Stephanie Chavez in Los Angeles contributed to this story.