Rare Rain Tangles Traffic, Disrupts Power : Weather: One man was killed, another jailed on suspicion of drunken driving in one of more than 70 accidents resulting from a storm that dumped more than half an inch of rain on the parched county.

San Diego County’s first rainstorm since June subsided early Tuesday afternoon, leaving in its wake widespread electrical outages and more than 70 traffic accidents that killed one person and injured several others.

Authorities said no lightning strikes or significant wind damage were reported, although high winds forced six boats loose from their moorings in San Diego Bay, and the light rain played havoc with electrical transformers and speeding motorists unaccustomed to driving on wet roads.

“This is reasonably typical for the first time it rains after a long dry period,” California Highway Patrol spokesman Phil Konstantin said. “The first time it rains, it raises the oil on the roads, which makes it extra slick.

“But, generally speaking, many people on the freeway are traveling much faster than they are properly able to react to in these conditions.”

The storm dropped 0.53 of an inch of rain at Lindbergh Field, about the same amount recorded at various sites across the county, leaving the area 0.78 of an inch below the normal rainfall for this time of year, said a National Weather Service forecaster. The rainfall deficit last year in late November was 0.7.

The forecast for Thanksgiving is for sunshine and temperatures in the low 70s as an upper-level high-pressure system begins to build.

Monday night’s storm was caused by a cold front moving east through Southern California into Arizona. The rain began early Monday night and tapered off before about noon Tuesday, which was partly cloudy, breezy and cool, with temperatures from the low to mid-60s.

Forecasters expect the level of rainfall to increase in December, the start of the rainy season lasting through February, but it is too early to tell if the year’s rainfall deficit will be erased.

This is the second consecutive year of below-normal rainfall in San Diego County and the fourth year of drought in many areas of California.

The forecast for today is for more partly cloudy conditions before sunshine returns in the afternoon. Today’s low temperature is expected to drop to 50 degrees, with the daytime high rising to 68.

As a result of Monday’s storm, electricity was knocked out temporarily to 12,500 homes and businesses from South Bay to northern San Diego County, said Fred Vaughn, spokesman for San Diego Gas & Electric.

The first outages came about 7:30 p.m. Monday, and the final outages related to the storm were reported at 10 a.m. Tuesday. About 1,600 customers still were without electrical power by noon Tuesday, but work crews were expected to have completed repairs by the end of the day, Vaughn said.

Most of the outages occurred when light rain mixed with dirt on the transformers, creating sparking and arcing, Vaughn said. A harder rain would have washed the transformers clean without sparking, he said. SDG&E; and other utilities in dry states regularly clean their transformers in an effort to avoid such outages.

Outages also were caused by branches being blown onto power lines, causing electrical shorts or knocking down the wires, Vaughn said.

Areas hardest hit by the power outages were San Diego’s Golden Hill, where 3,500 customers lost power, and the North County communities of Oceanside and San Marcos, where 2,300 and 2,000 customers, respectively, went without electricity temporarily.

An outage in east central San Diego that cut electricity to 11,000 customers was caused by a problem with a customer’s transformer and was not related to the storm, Vaughn said.

The storm caused the most damage to area utilities since January, 1988, when a storm with 60 m.p.h. winds left 300,000 customers without electrical power for up to three days. It was the worst outage in SDG&E; history.

The rain also caused widespread problems on roads. One man was killed and five other people injured Tuesday morning when a speeding and out-of-control car hydroplaned across rain-slicked Interstate 5 in Carlsbad near the Jefferson Street overpass and slammed into another car, CHP spokesman John Martinez said.

Angel Carrillo, 36, of Anaheim, a passenger in the second car, was dead at the scene, officials said.

The driver of the car that lost control, Stephen Harris, 31, of Carlsbad was treated for minor injuries at Tri-City Medical Center and arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, manslaughter and felony child endangerment, Martinez said. Riding with Harris were his pregnant wife, Cynthia, 2-year-old son and a 14-month-old infant.

Cynthia Harris, 26, and the 2-year-old were taken by Life Flight to Sharp Memorial and Children’s Hospital, respectively. Neither was wearing a seat belt, and they were thrown from the car. Harris was listed in good condition, with a gash on her head and bruises, and the toddler remained in the pediatric intensive care unit.

Harris’ 14-month-old infant, who was secured in a child safety seat and not hurt, was to be turned over to county social services until a relative picked up the child.

Francisco Reveria, the driver of the other car, suffered minor injuries and was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla.

The accident occurred about 10 a.m. as Harris was driving south at about 80 m.p.h. on I-5 and swerved from the fast lane across four lanes and back again in an effort to get around slow-moving traffic, Martinez said. His car spun out of control, hitting the other car and forcing both into the center divider, Martinez said.

Slick roads contributed to 71 traffic collisions from Monday night to 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, a CHP dispatcher said. Most of the accidents were fender-benders that caused minor injuries.

Eight wrecks occurred on northbound California 163 south of Washington Street early Wednesday morning, and 90 minutes later four other cars rear-ended each other at the same site, CHP spokesman Konstantin said. Northbound traffic was diverted to a side street.

Sections of both lanes of 163 near the I-8 exchange were blocked for several minutes because of nine separate collisions at the same time Wednesday morning, Konstantin said.

On California 78 near Sycamore in San Marcos, motorists failing to leave a safe stopping distance caused multiple collisions as traffic backed up, he said.

No freeways were fully closed because of the traffic problems, but there were many delays, Konstantin said.