Much of County Is Spared Ravages of Fierce Wind

Fierce winds topping 80 m.p.h. swept through parts of the Southland late Friday and Saturday, causing a 17-car freeway pileup near San Bernardino, knocking out power around the desert and whipping up seas that claimed the life of a 62-year-old yachtsman as he sailed near the Channel Islands.

The southwesterly winds that moved in from the Sierra missed most of South Orange County but caused early morning problems in the the county’s central areas, particularly in Westminster, where thousands of people had flocked to celebrate the Vietnamese Tet festival.

Vendors at many of the festival booths had trouble keeping their signs and tarps from blowing away, police struggled to keep traffic barricades in place and traffic heading for the festival was slowed by swirling dust.

“We’ve had a pretty active wind,” Westminster Police Lt. Andrew Hall said.

But the county’s wind problems were minor in comparison to other parts of the Southland.

The strongest gusts were in the Cajon Pass, which lived up to its reputation as home to one of the state’s most blustery roadways. The windstorm swept up walls of dry desert sand, which were blamed for the zero visibility that caused 17 cars to collide in a chain reaction early Saturday on Interstate 15.

Most of the motorists suffered only minor cuts and bruises, although one person was hospitalized for a heart attack and another for a broken hip, said Sgt. David Hoth of the California Highway Patrol. Officers closed a five-mile stretch of the canyon road, from Devore to Rancho Cucamonga, from about 8:30 a.m. until noon.

“There’s only a few passes in the entire world that get wind this strong,” said Bill Hoffer, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. “It’s a natural phenomenon that’s been going on since time began.”

The boating victim, identified as Stewart Kett, was tossed from his 31-foot yacht as it was headed from its home port of San Francisco to San Diego on Friday night, Coast Guard officials said. After an all-night search hampered by violent swells, his body was found floating about 18 miles south of Santa Rosa Island, still clad in a foul-weather coat with a built-in life jacket.

The hardest-hit areas of Orange County were Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Anaheim, Orange, Fountain Valley and Westminster. One headache for police was that shaking window panes set off burglar alarms, causing police to investigate dozens of false alarms.

“It ties up your manpower real quick,” Fountain Valley Police Sgt. Ronald Manda said.

At the Orange County Swap Meet at the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, some vendors were forced to take down canopies and sunshades and pack up their wares as they waited out high winds. Fairgrounds guard Michael Temple said vendors reported broken vases, pictures and other items that were caught in flapping canopies or blown over by strong gusts.

Santa Ana firefighters and Southern California Edison employees worked through the morning clearing 18th Street of an uprooted tree that downed several power lines and blocked traffic for almost an hour.

Despite the incident, Edison spokesman Bob Goodlow said no wind-related power outages were reported in Orange County.

There were no air traffic disturbances reported at John Wayne Airport, despite reports that winds there reached 50 m.p.h.

Most Orange County beaches, however, escaped the winds that plagued other parts of the county.

“We’re working on an early tan,” said Jennifer Todaro, 17, as she lay on a beach towel on Balboa Peninsula with two classmates from California High School in Whittier.

Laguna Beach lifeguard Kevin Snow said more than 5,000 people packed the sand from Main Beach to the outlying coves that stretch along Coast Highway toward South Laguna.

In Newport Beach, more than 10,000 beach-goers took advantage of the warm weather but kept out of the 57-degree ocean.

At Huntington Beach, higher winds that gusted up to 35 m.p.h. roiled the surf but did not spoil the day for 10,000 beachgoers, some of them spectators for a surfing competition at the pier.

The winds, caused by a high-pressure ridge over Northern California and Nevada, had subsided by Saturday afternoon but were expected to pick up again in the evening. The same pattern will probably be repeated today, with slightly milder gusts, according to WeatherData Inc., a private firm that provides forecasts for The Times.

“It looks like it’s going to be a fairly on-again/off-again thing for the next couple of days,” said Bill Hibbert, a meteorologist for the firm. “The gustiness will continue, but probably not quite as bad as it was today.”

The powerful winds created a special hazard for truckers, with many of them pulling their rigs to the side of roads or spending the morning at truck stops sipping coffee. By noon, Leroy Brown had already spent several hours at the 10-10 Truck Stop in Rialto, waiting for calmer conditions before hauling his load of Phoenix-grown potatoes to Los Angeles.

Staff writer Jerry Hicks contributed to this story.