Storms Pound Owens Valley for Third Day

Powerful thunderstorms battered the Owens Valley for the third straight day Thursday, undermining the Los Angeles Aqueduct--already buried under more than 100,000 cubic yards of flash-flood debris--cutting U.S. 395 and flooding a town in Mono County.

The downpours were spawned by a massive subtropical weather system that has been lashing the deserts of California, Arizona and Nevada since Tuesday with torrential, wind-whipped rains.

Forecasters said the rains are expected to continue today, especially in Imperial and Riverside counties, bringing the threat of additional flooding.

Communities Flooded

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the storms flooded riverfront residential and business communities in the Yuma, Ariz., area, generated gusts of close to 100 m.p.h. that caused about $14 million in damage in Las Vegas and buried a two-mile stretch of the Los Angeles Aqueduct--which provides 75% of Los Angeles’ water--under an avalanche of sand, mud and rock.

At noon Thursday, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews had to abandon their aqueduct cleanup efforts near Olancha as a vast mass of thunderclouds stalled over the area, dumping rain along a 120-mile stretch of the eastern High Sierra. The cloudbursts continued unabated throughout the afternoon.

The downpours triggered new flash floods that raced through the small community of Chalfant Valley, about 15 miles north of Bishop on California 6. The floodwaters invaded at least 29 homes, forcing evacuation of most of the town’s residents. California 6 and California 120 remained closed by water and debris for the second day.

About 100 miles to the south, cloudbursts driven by 60 m.p.h. winds gouged out the underpinnings of the aqueduct near Cartago and cut U.S. 395 for the second time in three days, closing a 63-mile stretch of the road between Lone Pine and the junction of California 14, near Inyokern. U.S. 395 is the principal route between Southern California and the eastern Sierra resort areas.

The Inyo County sheriff’s office said its officers were evacuating motorists who were stranded by the floodwaters, and additional officers were standing by in case the towns of Olancha and Cartago--about five miles apart on U.S. 395, on the shores of usually dry Owens Lake--began to flood.

A deputy sheriff burst in the door of the Hitching Post cafe in Olancha about 4:30 p.m. and warned the patrons to get moving.

‘Aqueduct Could Break’

“The aqueduct could break and a wall of water could come down right here,” he said. “Get in your cars and head south.”

The rains stopped, at least temporarily, about 5 p.m. Portions of U.S. 395 were reopened and Department of Water and Power crews moved back in to survey the new damage to the aqueduct. However, the National Weather Service said additional thunderstorms were expected to hit the area during the night.

Terry Hampton, who has lived in Olancha 17 years, said she came into town Thursday afternoon to buy gas “and found a river flowing down the highway. I just about got swept away. I was lucky to get out of here. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

At Vicky’s Mobil station at the south end of town, Bob Smith, 15, said he spent the day helping a neighbor shovel mud piled up around her home and helped evacuate her 10 horses.

“At one time the sheriff told us we might have to get out of here,” said Mary Lou Smith, Bob’s mother. “Up there by (California) 190 it was knee deep and moving real fast.”

The flooding had a silver lining for the service station where the Smiths work: “The store was super, super busy,” Mary Lou Smith said.

People whose cars were lined up on the highway “came in to buy goodies while they were waiting,” she said.

Although the aqueduct cleanup is expected to take another two weeks or more, the DWP said Los Angeles will continue to receive an adequate supply of water from down-channel reservoirs and through purchases from the Metropolitan Water District, which draws on other sources. None of the DWP’s major power-generating facilities were shut down by the flooding.

In Yuma, Mayor Jim Buster said Thursday that 500 to 1,000 homes had been damaged by floodwaters that raced through the Colorado River community during a three-hour downpour that dropped 4.8 inches of rain--almost twice the normal annual total--late Wednesday night.

“We’ve got several main roads closed, water pipes busted, you name it,” he said. “The south side of town has no water pressure in case of a fire. . . . The storm drains are maxed out. There’s no place to pump the water.”

Buster said that with floodwaters as deep as four feet in some residential areas, “some of the people had to swim out.”

“The magnitude of the storm was so great that we could not get our people in to evacuate people,” said Roger Gingrich, Yuma’s assistant director of public services. “I ended up almost flipping my four-wheel-drive vehicle and having to abandon it on my way to help a pregnant lady. They were finally able to get to her with fire apparatus.”

Bobbie O’Neill, a Yuma resident, said thrill seekers in four-wheel-drive vehicles caused some hard feelings at the height of the storm.

“What happened was that a lot of idiots went wheeling up and down the streets . . . and caused waves that got into people’s homes,” O’Neill said. “Well, the homeowners didn’t like that and they were out there with baseball bats hitting windshields before the police arrived.”

Mayor Buster said officers were ticketing four-wheelers who were causing the trouble.

With floodwaters still standing in some low-lying areas Thursday night, a number of residents were being housed at local schools and a National Guard armory.

Across the river, in the Imperial County community of Winterhaven, residents said water was still standing “neck deep” in some areas Thursday night.

In Indio, hit by flash-flooding Wednesday night, one of the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 remained closed by debris Thursday evening.

Officials said a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy and a California Highway Patrol officer waded into a flooded wash near Indio on Wednesday night to pull two girls to safety after their car overturned while fording the stream.