Tet, Black History Festivals Undaunted : Churches Open to Homeless in Rain, Cold

Orange County churches opened their doors to the homeless Friday night as a cold front brought raw, wet weather that is expected to continue through the weekend but will not interfere with two major events today.

National Guard armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton, which normally take in the homeless during cold or inclement weather, were scheduled to be used this weekend for drills, so the First Presbyterian churches in Santa Ana and Fullerton filled their recreation halls with cots from the county, according to Bob Griffith, chief deputy director of the Orange County Social Services Agency.

Buses Friday picked up the homeless who were unable to get into private shelters and delivered them to the churches, where they were to be fed Friday night and this morning, he said.

At 9 p.m., 89 people were sheltered at the Santa Ana church and 51 in the Fullerton church. Both shelters will be open through the weekend. The armories will reopen on Monday night if the bad weather continues.

The churches each will hold about 100 people--25 fewer than the armories--but no one will have to sleep outside if they fill up, said Scott Mather, chairman of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force. “What we were able to do last time (in January, during another National Guard drill) was to take excess folks to another church. We won’t put anybody out,” he pledged.

County officials open the shelters when there is a 50% chance of rain, or when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.

Forecasts Friday called for evening lows in the 40s, according to David Beusterien of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to the Times. By 6 p.m., 0.12 of an inch of rain had fallen in Santa Ana.

Today’s forecast calls for rain turning into showers. A high today of 54 degrees is forecast for Laguna Beach. Variable clouds with a chance of showers are forecast for Sunday.

Meanwhile, Friday’s rain during the rush hours caused serious problems for Orange County freeway commuters.

“It just seemed like everybody was crashing,” said Michael Lundquist, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

Between 1 and 8 p.m. Friday, there had been 10 injury and 61 non-injury accidents, he said. Accidents on county freeways had slowed traffic to a crawl Friday afternoon. At the interchange of the northbound Santa Ana Freeway and the San Diego Freeway, an afternoon accident caused a 5-mile backup in all lanes to Alicia Parkway, delaying commuters by 15 to 30 minutes, Lundquist said.

Today, festivities are planned in Westminster for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, which organizers say will be held rain or shine.

Peter Pham, one of the organizers of the Tet Festival, said it is expected to attract more than 35,000 people.

“We plan to be there at the scheduled time and hopefully everything will be fine,” Pham said. Festivities, including a parade, food, folk dances and other activities, will be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today at Centennial Regional Park in Santa Ana.

And the Black History Parade will march through Santa Ana today with the dedication of the U.S. Postal Service, organizers said. “We’ll be out there rain, shine, sleet or snow,” said Carolyn Jackson, a parade organizer. “We’re gonna have the parade.”

The 10 a.m. parade, which Santa Ana officials said attracted about 25,000 spectators last year, will travel from 15th Street down Main Street to Civic Center Drive. It will head west on Civic Center Drive to the Unity Festival, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. in Santa Ana Stadium.

If heavy rain falls, Jackson said, the Unity Festival, which features continuous entertainment, food and craft booths, may be canceled.

Turning to horticulture, if the weekend weather drops to the freezing point, agricultural experts fear that crops may be affected.

Strawberries are the county’s biggest crop and are in all stages of growth, with some fields still in the flowering stage while others are ready to be harvested. The last fields will be picked in late spring. If the plants are hit hard by frost, flowers and fruit alike will be ruined, according to Harry Otto, farm adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Otto said he could not predict if growers would have to take preventive measures this weekend.

When cold temperatures threaten, he said, growers use sprinklers on crops such as strawberries or wind machines in citrus orchards to guard against frost.

Wind machines heat fields by mixing the cold air that settles near the ground with the higher, warmer air. However, he said, the machines are not as effective when the frigid temperatures are caused by cold fronts because there is not enough of the higher, warmer air.

Sprinklers help the plants because when water freezes, the molecular action gives off heat that is absorbed by the plants’ tissues, “even though the plants may be covered with ice,” he said. However, “if the cold spell goes on for several days, you can’t sprinkle night after night or you’ll drown the plants,” he added.