Storm Batters California for a Second Day

The strongest winter storm of the season continued to punish much of California on Saturday, dumping nearly 2 1/2 inches of rain in Los Angeles, triggering traffic accidents that killed three people on Southland roads and leading to an avalanche that buried an Orange County girl in deep snow for 95 minutes before she was rescued.

The storm, which hit the state late Friday, also brought blizzard conditions to the mountains and prompted a large sewage spill into Santa Monica Bay.

Authorities said the snow level in the San Bernardino Mountains dropped to 1,800 feet, prompting two-hour delays at the Cajon Pass on Interstate 15, the major highway linking Southern California with Las Vegas. The snowfall made travel particularly difficult on mountain roads near Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead and Snow Valley.

“If you don’t have to go up (to those mountains) for a specific reason, we’re not recommending you go,” California Highway Patrol dispatcher Ruth Sanchez said.

Forecasters said the storm was a slow-moving, massive front that extended from north of Sacramento San Diego and eastward into Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Although the rain finally began to subside in the Southland Saturday evening, a heavy downpour struck San Diego late in the evening, causing some flooding at Lindbergh Field.

Also, the storm prompted a winter storm warning through tonight for areas above the 5,500-foot level in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Snow was one of the hurdles that searchers had to overcome to rescue an Orange County girl who was hiking near the Esther Christian Conference Center, about a mile from Jackson Lake on the northeastern fringe of the Angeles National Forest.

Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Garnes said 10 students from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana were hiking a hill without permission and triggered the avalanche at 10:30 a.m. He described it as “a sizable one for Southern California.” All of the students managed to dig themselves out except for Carrie Heimann, 15, he said.

When Carrie’s friends could not locate her, a sheriff’s search team joined by 30 members of the National Ski Patrol from the nearby Mountain High and Sunrise ski areas found the girl shortly after noon. She was conscious and was taken to Palmdale Medical Center, where she was treated for possible frostbite to her toes.

Police said Carrie apparently fell face-first with her hands in front, enabling her to dig a small breathing space in the snow. “She’s fortunate that an air pocket was formed when she was buried,” Garnes said.

Saturday’s heavy rains forced the operators of Los Angeles’ Hyperion sewage treatment plant to divert 7.6 million gallons of fully chlorinated, partly treated waste water into Ballona Creek near Santa Monica Bay, officials said. The spill prompted the closing of almost 18 miles of beaches, from Topanga to Palos Verdes.

Three people were killed in weather-related accidents.

One person was killed on the Foothill Freeway in Monrovia when his disabled auto was struck by another car that apparently went out of control in the rain-slick eastbound lanes. The impact of the collision knocked the victim’s car off the freeway shoulder and onto nearby railroad tracks, killing him. His identity was not available Saturday night.

In Orange County, a motorist was killed when he lost control of his car and skidded off the Orange (57) Freeway, going down a 100-foot embankment and landing upside down in the rain-swollen Carbon Creek Flood Control channel. His identity was not released pending the notification of relatives.

And, at about 2 p.m. Saturday, Tamara Louise McCracken, 29, of La Habra, was killed when her car collided with another vehicle in the rain in the 2700 block of North Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton. McCracken’s 9-year-old daughter was treated at St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton for minor injuries.

The storm dumped large amounts of rain throughout the southern region of California, which has been begging for moisture for some time.

By Saturday night, 2.43 inches had fallen at Los Angeles Civic Center, bringing the season’s precipitation total to 5.35 inches, well below the season’s normal for the date of 10.01 inches.

Other cities recording rainfall included Avalon, 1.31 inches; Anaheim, 2.46 inches; Burbank, 3.92 inches; Long Beach, 1.23 inches; Monrovia, 3.40 inches; Montebello, 3.70 inches; Newport Beach, 1.25 inches; Pasadena, 3.10 inches; Santa Barbara, 0.80 of an inch; Santa Monica, 2.03 inches; Torrance, 2.07 inches, and Woodland Hills, 1.92 inches.

The storm created havoc across the state, closing roads and causing power failures and punishing Southern California with mudslides, freeway accidents and flooding.

So strong was the storm that the Weather Service said snow was falling near sea level in some areas, including in the northern Sacramento Valley town of Red Bluff.

More than 200,000 people were left without electricity in Northern California.

Pacific Gas & Electric spokesman Lyle LaFaver said heavy winds and snow damaged the utility’s Northern California transmission system. LaFaver said power remained out Saturday in pockets of Butte, El Dorado, Placer and Nevada counties and that other power failures were reported in the San Joaquin Valley and Salinas.

The storm also held the daytime high Saturday to a chilly 49 degrees in San Francisco, a record low maximum for the day. The previous low maximum mark was 50 degrees set in 1898.

The heavy rains slowed Southland freeway traffic to a crawl and homeowners reported flooding in some residential areas. A mudslide closed Malibu Canyon Road to Mulholland Drive on Friday night. It was reopened at midday Saturday.

Times staff writers Ronald B. Taylor and Ellen Yan contributed to this story.