Cold Breaks Water Mains--and Records

Water mains burst, motorists skidded, the homeless shivered but Christmas shoppers kept right on shopping as record-breaking cold temperatures continued to torment California on the first full day of winter Saturday.

At the Los Angeles Civic Center, the thermometer dipped to a pre-dawn low of 33 degrees, a record low for Dec. 22. Even the day’s high temperature downtown was a record low: 52 degrees, compared to the lowest previous high of 53 degrees set in 1948.

Elsewhere in the state, subfreezing temperatures were the order of the day. The low recorded at San Francisco was 28 degrees, nine degrees colder than the previous record low for Dec. 22.

And in Sacramento, Monterey and Bakersfield, residents experienced the lowest temperatures ever recorded in their communities. The mercury plummeted to 18 degrees in Sacramento and to 20 degrees in Monterey and Bakersfield.

The Big Chill of pre-Christmas, 1990, caused by a massive Arctic cold front, is expected to begin slowly dissipating today as a high-pressure system over the Pacific Ocean begins moving inland.

“It will be warmer by a few degrees (Sunday),” said Stephen Burback, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “And on Christmas Day, the warmest temperatures should be in the mid-60s . . . much closer to normal.”

Normal for California, that is.

On Saturday, all those migrants from Back East who fondly remember waiting for Santa Claus while huddled beside a crackling fire in the hearth needed only to pile up the logs, light a match and try to stop shivering.

“My house has air leaks,” said Santa Monica resident Carole Lerner, who grew up in the frigid climes of Chicago. “But I love this weather, I’ve never been so happy.”

Besides the 33-degree reading downtown--lower by one degree than the previous record for the day set in 1897--the lows Saturday morning included 3 degrees in Lancaster, 10 in Victorville, 20 in Santa Barbara, 25 in Riverside, 28 in Long Beach, 31 in Burbank and 35 at Los Angeles International Airport.

In Northern California, the mercury dropped well below 0. It was -24 in Alturas, and -28 in Truckee.

The icy weather had a dual effect on residents of the San Fernando Valley. Numerous water mains broke, flooding roadways and lawns. City and county emergency lines were also flooded--with complaints from residents who had no water in their taps because of ice lodging in exposed pipes in front of their homes.

Icy road conditions caused several fender-bender accidents in the Valley, forcing Los Angeles police to close Brand Boulevard between Sepulveda and Laurel Canyon boulevards between 7 and 9:30 a.m.

The problem, police said, occurred when water from a timer-set sprinkler in the center divider strip flowed onto the street and froze. Roscoe Boulevard near Hayvenhurst Avenue was also covered with ice when a water main burst.

“We have plenty of accidents everywhere,” said Police Department accident investigator J.W. Hosford. “There’s been ice all over the Valley today--it’s an early white Christmas.”

Particularly hard hit was the Antelope Valley, where 14 county Fire Department crews were called out for more than 100 flooding incidents.

“It’s just been all over the place, in hospitals, supermarkets, houses,” said County Fire Capt. Mike Metro. “It’s a real mess up here.”

At the Antelope Valley Convalescent Home, a pipe burst in a second-story attic, forcing residents to be evacuated.

Subfreezing temperatures also wreaked havoc on California produce growers.

At Treasure Farms in Irvine, workers spent the night protecting strawberry and vegetable fields by stirring up the air with wind machines and helicopters.

“We came through it fairly well,” said general manager Carl Lindgren. “But it ain’t over yet.”

Growers in Ventura County, where temperatures dipped as low as 16 degrees, were not as lucky. Terry Wilson, whose family owns 150 acres of avocado, lemon and orange groves on Coultas Ranch east of Ojai, feared that her whole crop was lost.

At Brokaw Nursery in Saticoy, co-owner Ellen Brokaw said a helicopter was of little help.

“There was no warm air for the helicopter to stir up and bring down . . . the cold air went so high up it didn’t work,” she said. “In the last 25 years these were the lowest temperatures I can recall.”

The freezing weather also made life even more unbearable than usual for thousands of homeless residents of Southern California. Los Angeles city and county emergency shelters were open at night, but hundreds of homeless people in downtown’s Skid Row remained outside, by circumstance or design.

“My wife and I missed the shuttle bus to a shelter and got left out in the cold overnight,” said Robert Fields, 36, as he stood outside The Midnight Mission at 4th and Los Angeles streets early Saturday morning. “It felt like you were in a war zone up in Alaska or something.”

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Greg Braxton in Chatsworth, Janet Rae-Dupree in Redondo Beach, James M. Gomez in Costa Mesa, Iris Schneider in Santa Monica and Leo Smith and James E. Fowler in Ventura.