Orange County Gets Full Dose of Storm Chaos

Torrential rain poured down on Orange County on Wednesday, bringing flash floods, a dramatic helicopter rescue of 16 people and the retrieval of three Yorba Linda boys from a flood control channel. One man was presumed drowned in the Santa Ana River while fleeing police.

Across the county, stalled cars littered intersections, the normally dry Santa Ana River climbed halfway up its banks, and men and women waded through water up to their knees--or higher. In Mission Viejo, five feet of water flooded a baseball field, nearly wiping an outfield fence from view. Freeways were hopelessly snarled for hours and train service was disrupted.

The rains came quickly in many areas, which caused more problems than usual for surprised motorists who watched intersections fill with water, and homeowners who found their roofs buckling under the deluge.

More than an inch of rain fell in Laguna Beach in little more than an hour, and officials said the rainfall for eight hours at one measuring station in Santa Ana was 1.93 inches, the greatest amount for a Feb. 12 since at least 1930. For the first 12 days in February, the total at the station was 4.53 inches, surpassed only by the 4.99 inches of 1937 and the five inches of 1978.

Wednesday’s squall of wind and rain was the fourth storm to hit the county in less than a week. Officials predicted two inches or more of rain for today in most of the county, but over seven or eight hours, not as concentrated as it was Wednesday.

One man was presumed drowned after Santa Ana police saw him disappear in the swollen Santa Ana River while they were investigating a suspected drug transaction under the Garden Grove Freeway where it bridges the river.

Police Cpl. Dan McDermott said he and two officers saw two men attempting to cross the rushing waters. One man dog-paddled across the river, apparently trying to flee police, McDermott said, but the other may have have become trapped in concrete barricades erected across the channel to catch debris.

“He went over and under and we never saw him come out,” McDermott said. “We don’t know where he is.”

In South Laguna, Aliso Creek spilled over its bank, flooding the Aliso Creek Inn and golf course and knocking out bridges. “It was the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Violet Brown, who has owned the resort since 1957. “It just hit so fast.”

One of the broken bridges stranded 16 South Coast Water District employees at a water treatment plant about a mile up narrow Aliso Canyon from the resort.

Helicopters from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station shuttled in and out to pluck the workers to safety. Dozens of residents braved the rain to witness the rescue; others gathered near Aliso Creek Pier to watch the boiling creek roar into the ocean.

Belinda Millicken of Laguna Beach, who had taken her 5-year-old son, Kyle, to see the gushing creek, was rescued by use of a tractor after her four-wheel-drive vehicle was swamped by the rising waters.

“It happened in a flash,” Millicken said. “I turned my head and when I looked again about four feet of water surrounded us. I’ve never seen anything like this. That’s what I call a flash flood.”

In Yorba Linda, police and firefighters rescued three boys, ages 11 to 13, who plunged into a flood-control channel to retrieve a school bag and were swept away by fast-moving waters.

Jeremy Phillips, 13, was the easiest rescue. County firefighters stretched a ladder across the open storm drain about half a mile south of the spot where the boys fell in, northeast of Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway, and plucked him out.

Brea police, who patrol Yorba Linda, pulled the other two, John Nelms, 12, and Ryan Golovkiv, 11, from the water after they emerged from an underground section of the channel, authorities said.

The boys were treated by paramedics at the scene for scrapes and bruises, Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young said. “They were pretty darn lucky,” he said.

The county Red Cross reported that two dozen families were moved to a Ramada Inn in Santa Ana after their condominium complex was flooded. A family in Laguna Beach and one in Westminster were given shelter in motels when their homes appeared threatened.

Mudslides covered part of Coast Highway between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, though the road stayed open. To the north, a flooded stretch of Pacific Coast Highway from Golden West Street to Warner Avenue was closed much of Wednesday.

“It’s hazardous because the cars are going along at a pretty good clip, then they suddenly hit about three feet of water at the bottom of the bluff,” said Phil Nelson, a Huntington Beach maintenance worker.

Heavy rains, flooding on some campus roadways and reports of freeway closures prompted Cal State Fullerton to cancel afternoon and evening classes at the main campus and its satellite facility in Mission Viejo.

In Santa Ana, tow trucks were overwhelmed by requests for assistance by motorists who ventured into unexpectedly deep water at several major intersections. Many drivers were forced to get out in knee-deep water to try to push stalled vehicles through the rising waters.

Santa Ana’s Bristol Street, a main shopping thoroughfare, looked like a muddy river. Raging torrents of water boiled down the street between the Civic Center and South Coast Plaza. Clusters of students at Mater Dei High, a large Catholic school at Edinger Avenue and Bristol Street, waited forlornly for buses running behind schedule. Blocks away, a lone white heron stood on the banks of a drainage ditch looking dazed and soaked.

The rains forced a halt to Amtrak trains between Los Angeles and San Diego because tracks between San Juan Capistrano and Santa Ana became “unstable and muddy,” a railroad spokeswoman said. It was uncertain when full service would be restored.

Northbound trains stopped at the San Juan Capistrano station, and southbound trains at Santa Ana. Buses took commuters between the two stations to resume their train journeys.

Phones rang off the hooks at police and fire departments as stranded motorists, panicky homeowners and flooded businesses looked for help.

“The whole city is under water,” Garden Grove Police Officer Neil Poll said. “We are getting calls from everybody. There’s no place for the water to go.”

A spokesman for the Auto Club said emergency calls shot up 145% between 12 and 2 p.m.

Carbon Canyon Road, a major thoroughfare in Brea, was closed between Valencia Avenue and Olinda because of mudslides. A state Department of Transportation spokesman said it took four hours to clear the mud, but the road remained closed to all but residents.

Along the Santa Ana Freeway near its intersection with the Garden Grove Freeway, four lanes of traffic squeezed down to less than half a lane.

In Buena Park, one couple whose home was flooded grabbed their month-old baby and sought safer ground: a friend’s house.

Companies and some government agencies sent people home early. In Laguna Beach, firefighters evacuated the residents of four homes along Laguna Canyon Road, and a dozen preschool children were moved to a different building.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Bob Nesmith reported a traffic collision between two garbage trucks at Lemon Street and Villa Park Road, causing minor injuries. Nesmith said sheriff’s deputies responded to numerous accidents that caused minor injuries in South County, and to reports of minor hillside slides in Santa Margarita and Lake Forest. No homes were threatened by those slides.

In Huntington Beach, curious onlookers flocked to the beach to witness the ocean’s fury. Waves were pitching up against the shore, eroding the sands.

Rick Simon, 32, said he had never seen such heavy rain in his eight years in Huntington Beach. “Three weeks ago, there was certainly a lot more beach out here than I see now,” he said.

At a Miller’s Outpost store on Chapman Avenue in Garden Grove, the roof in an employee break room collapsed without warning under the weight of 700 gallons of water that had collected because of clogged storm drains, assistant store manager Julie Carlos said.

Water poured into the store, causing an undetermined amount of damage, she said. “There was no warning. It was a surprise. I was glad nobody was back there,” Carlos said. “We only had five (customers) in the store plus six employees.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Davan Maharaj, David Reyes, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Jim Newton, Eric Young, Kristina Lindgren, James M. Gomez, Bill Billiter, Gregory Crouch, Leslie Berkman, Kevin Johnson, Gebe Martinez, Tammerlin Drummond, Marla Cone, Lily Eng and George Frank and free-lance reporters Len Hall, Frank Messina and Ann Michaud.

Rain, Mudslides and Rescues

Flood-prone areas: Shown are areas of Orange County susceptible to flooding during a major coastal or inland storm.

Year-to-Date Rain: Measured in Santa Ana for year beginning July 1: Average: 7.96 Inches This Year: 8.60 Inches Last Year: 1.81 Inches

Wednesday Highlights: Weather-related incidents around Orange County:

1. Buena Park: Flood control channel behind a dozen homes on Melrose Street overflowed, sending about two feet of mud and debris into back yards and up against homes.

2. Santa Ana: A man was presumed drowned after police saw him disappear into the swollen Santa Ana River while they were investigating a suspected drug transaction under the Garden Grove Freeway where it bridges the river.

3. Laguna Niguel: Three motorists on Crown Valley Parkway had to be rescued from their cars by sheriff’s deputies.

4. South Laguna: Severe flooding at mouth of Aliso Creek. Water rose to roofs of several nearby cars. Two bridges destroyed at Ben Brown resort near Aliso Beach. Five people rescued by helicopter after being stranded at sewage treatment plant.

O.C. Storm Totals: In inches, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday Anaheim: 2.17 Brea: 1.61 Corona del Mar: 0.94 Cypress: 1.34 Fullerton: 1.77 Garden Grove: 1.61 Huntington Beach: 1.93 Irvine: 0.94 Laguna Beach: 2.01 Lake Forest: 2.05 Mission Viejo: 1.77 Modjeska Canyon: 2.36 San Juan Capistrano: 1.26 Santa Ana: 1.89 Santiago Peak: 3.03 Villa Park: 2.13 Westminster: 1.93 Yorba Linda: 1.97 Sources: Orange County Environmental Management Agency, WeatherData, Federal Emergency Management Agency, staff reports