Winds Blamed for Road Perils, Boating Death

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 63-year-old yachtsman as he sailed near the Channel Islands.

The man, 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, off the Santa Barbara coast.

The strongest gusts, however, were reserved for 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 National Weather Service meteorologist.

The winds, caused by a high-pressure ridge over Northern California, Nevada and Utah, 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 WeatherData meteorologist.

The powerful winds created a special hazard for truckers, many of whom pulled their rigs to the side of the road or spent 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.

“It’s unbelievable,” Brown said.

The dry winds did not push daytime temperatures appreciably higher. The mercury Saturday reached 74 degrees at Los Angeles Civic Center, with an overnight low of 50.

There were numerous reports of temporary power outages in parts of San Bernardino County on Saturday morning, but Southern California Edison was unable to determine how widespread the problem was. The winds toppled trees in Ojai and Camarillo.