Storm Nearly Took the Roof Off Family Home : Weather: Tornado-like wind that shook Buena Park was part of rainstorm that only eased the state's drought.

By LILY ENG and DAN MORAIN

Dec. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

BUENA PARK —

As the windstorm swirled into San Rafael Drive and nearly scooped the roof off Elaine and Don Bailey’s house, 3-year-old Marissa Bailey asked what was happening.

“My little daughter kept on saying, ‘Why is the house shaking like that?’ ” Elaine Bailey said. “All I could tell her was that God was doing his laundry and he had a lot to do. When she heard the thunder, I told her that God put the laundry in the dryer and it was a loud machine.”

The loud storm that blew through the neighborhood like a tornado, whisking trash cans up onto power lines and hurling patio furniture through glass doors, also brought an inch of rain to the county. Water experts said the storm brought signs of some relief to California’s persistent drought.

“It’s definitely helpful,” Maurice Roos, chief hydrologist for the state Department of Water Resources, said of the stormy weather that moved over California from the Pacific last weekend.

The storms leave the state “better off than we were last year” when the year-end snowpack was “disastrously low,” Roos said.

But even with another Pacific storm predicted to arrive in Southern California late New Year’s Day or Thursday, water officials sought to remind people that the new weather system would not drop enough precipitation on the Northern California mountains to end the drought.

In Orange County, the latest rainfall increased the season total to 1.28 inches, although the pre-drought average for the county by this time of year is 3.55 inches.

By Monday, the Baileys were trying to decide whether their house was habitable. The storm had torn off part of their tiled rooftop. The sheet rock that covered the ceiling had also fallen off.

“It was like the wind picked the house up, gave it a good twist, and dropped us,” Don Bailey said.

The wind funnel barely lasted a few minutes. But it left behind some eerie reminders. A trash can dangled between power lines on Valley View Street; Christmas trees lay scattered like tumbleweeds. The wind also broke tree limbs, tore down power lines and sheared off dozens of roof tiles in the Buena Park neighborhood, leaving behind a wet mess for residents to clean up.

National Weather Service officials said the windstorm may have been a tornado, but they couldn’t say for sure.

Buena Park resident Nancy Kulbeck said she was convinced the wind funnel was a tornado. Kulbeck was tending to her fireplace about the same time the storm rushed through San Rafael Drive.

“I had the fire going a bit and I saw the flames start to swirl like a miniature tornado,” Kulbeck said. “I shut the fireplace doors really quick. Then all the blowing started.

Wendon Spurlock said he and his wife were settling down to watch a television movie when they heard the storm shear off the top of a jacaranda tree, which stands in front of their home.

“I hear this pop and a big bang,” Spurlock said. “The treetop narrowly missed the windows. When I went out to look, it was pitch dark. All the neighbors were out wondering what was going on.” Buena Park Battalion Chief William Cleveland, who went to the scene, said, “All the traffic signals were out and the Christmas lights were all torn off the houses. I saw this old Christmas tree lying in the middle of the road. We started driving throughout the entire area checking to make sure everything else was OK.”

The storm also left a trail of downed telephone lines that kept repair crews busy all day. The storm doubled the number of Pacific Bell repairs and forced the company to add 20 more people to their normal work crews, spokeswoman Linda Bonniksen said.

Elsewhere in the state, the weekend storms offered ski resort operators the promise of a bountiful week to end the traditionally lucrative holiday season. Parts of the southern Sierra received up to four feet of fresh snow. In the Lake Tahoe Basin, the snowpack Monday stood at about half of normal for the end of the year, better than the 30% of normal snowpack that was on the slopes when 1990 ended.

Four feet of snow fell over the weekend in the Mammoth Mountain basin in the eastern Sierra watershed that supplies the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The Mammoth snowpack Monday was at 60% of normal, far better than the 23% of normal at this time last year.

“Basically we need about 10 storms between now and April to make it to normal,” said Bill Hasencamp of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Forecasters predicted that Southern California skies will remain clear for the Rose Parade on Wednesday morning. But rain could start falling by late Wednesday afternoon or night as the next storm front blows in, though it was too early to tell how much rain might come with the new storm.

“Chances are that it will stay nice for Wednesday morning,” said Stephanie Hunter of WeatherData, a private firm that supplies weather information to The Times.

Storm Nearly Took the Roof Off Family Home : Weather: Tornado-like wind that shook Buena Park was part of rainstorm that only eased the state’s drought.

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