Residents With Pumps and Bags Brace for Next Round : Weather: L.A. estimates $1.5 million in damage to public property. Officials put the loss in Santa Clarita at $3 million.

As Los Angeles officials continued to assess rain damage Thursday, residents of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys filled sandbags and bought submersible swimming pool pumps in record numbers in anticipation of the storm forecasters say will arrive tonight.

Shirley Mattingly, director of emergency management for Los Angeles, said the city’s “very preliminary” estimate of damage to public property was $1.5 million--the bulk of it in the Sepulveda Basin in Van Nuys where flash floods swamped about 70 vehicles Monday, stranding dozens of motorists.

The cost estimate includes damage to the basin’s golf courses and the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, and mounting overtime for city emergency crews that rerouted traffic and plucked motorists from car roofs, Mattingly said.

City officials are still assessing damage to private property, she said.

Santa Clarita city officials estimated public and private storm damage at $3 million, including damage to storm drains, hiking trails, a leaking municipal building in a park, trees, and a flooded mobile home park.

Los Angeles officials are preparing a videotape, expected to be broadcast today on Channel 35, that shows how to fill sandbags and effectively place them around homes and businesses to hold back floodwaters, Mattingly said.

Property owners have already been taking advantage of the sandbags available at neighborhood fire stations, Mattingly said, adding that the city was coordinating state Conservation Corps crews and volunteers to help residents protect their homes.

“I know the sandbag supplies have been disappearing very rapidly, and we’ve had to search the state for additional sandbags to order 200,000 more,” Mattingly said.

Scores of people, meanwhile, were partially draining their swimming pools and buying submersible pumps to prevent runoff, pool suppliers said.

“It was pretty crazy in here yesterday,” said Kim Markowitz, manager of Leslie’s Swimming Pool Supplies in Tarzana. Markowitz said her outlet sold 100 of the $75 submersible pumps between Tuesday and Wednesday. She said she has ordered 50 more from Texas, with 10 of them sold already.

“We did as much business yesterday as we would have done on a good Saturday in June,” Markowitz said, adding that her phone began ringing with requests for pumps and service before the store opened at 9 a.m.

Patrick Dellibovi, Leslie’s corporate advertising director, said every other call received by the company’s service department since Monday included requests for drainage. He said pools should never be drained completely because the reduction in weight can cause the pool to pop upward in muddy soil, ruining it.

The third major storm of the week was expected to start tonight and continue through Saturday, dumping an estimated one to 1 1/2 inches of rain in coastal areas and up to four inches in the foothills and mountains, according to the National Weather Service.

“It looks like it will be a strong one, the exact intensity we don’t know,” meteorologist Scott Entrekin said.

Because the Valley received more rain than the rest of the city, more telephone problems have been reported there, ranging from static to no service, said spokesmen for Pacific Bell and GTE California. Pacific Bell reported Thursday that of its 18,000 outstanding service requests throughout metropolitan Los Angeles, 11,000 were from the Valley. A normal load is about 2,300 calls a day.

In Santa Clarita, City Manager George Caravalho declared a local state of emergency late Wednesday, and the city set up a storm hot line and emergency operations center to handle dozens of calls for help from flooded residents and business owners, particularly from the Newhall area.

At least 40 houses and 20 businesses reported flood damage, said city spokeswoman Gail Foy.

Several city crews will work around-the-clock through the weekend, cleaning up flooded houses and directing traffic in affected areas, Foy said. The three local garbage haulers Thursday were filling 1,300 sandbags and delivering them free to residents who requested them, she said. A Red Cross shelter has been set up at Hart High School.

“It is very possible we may see some evacuations of homes this weekend, so we’re getting ready for it,” Foy said.

Operators of the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley late Thursday were preparing to drain part of a huge pool of rain water to prevent it from inundating trash disposal areas and polluting ground water.

Employees of Waste Management of North America Inc., which operates the dump, said they were seeking approval from city officials to pump the water onto Tujunga Avenue, where it would flow into storm drains. They said the pumping would begin Friday or Saturday if the pool of water continued to rise.

The Bradley Landfill is a former quarry that is gradually being stuffed with trash. In an empty part of the quarry, water was 30 to 40 feet deep by Thursday and was about five feet below the point where it could overflow into the trash-filled area and become tainted by garbage before soaking into the ground, officials said.

Laboratory tests showed the water is clean enough to dispose of in storm drains, according to Rod Nelson, a senior engineering geologist with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. Nelson said Thursday that the state agency has approved disposing of the water in storm drains.

“We have no intention of letting the water get up into the trash,” he said.

Workers Thursday began installing about a quarter of a mile of metal pipe to convey the water from the landfill to the street. But Paula Becker, a spokeswoman for Waste Management of North America, said the firm is awaiting city approval and would not start pumping before today.

Tom Estes, a spokesman for the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which regulates landfills, said the massive storm had spawned problems at other landfills, including erosion that exposed buried trash.

Estes said workers at the Lopez Canyon Landfill were using tarpaulins to cover exposed trash at the city-owned dump in Lakeview Terrace. He said the soggy terrain prevented crews from using heavy equipment to apply a fresh cover of soil.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, at the peak of flooding Wednesday, about 25,000 gallons of partially treated sewage spilled into Malibu Creek from the Tapia Water Reclamation Plant in Malibu Canyon, according to officials of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District.

The spill lasted just over 30 minutes about midday when flows through the plant exceeded its maximum wet weather capacity of 32 million gallons per day. Water district officials said the spilled effluent had received secondary treatment but had not undergone final chlorine disinfection.

It was a minor spill compared to the estimated 66 million gallons of inadequately treated sewage that has been discharged into Ballona Creek in west Los Angeles to flow into the Pacific Ocean.

Malibu Creek also empties into the ocean. All 76 miles of the Los Angeles County coastline and 20 miles in San Diego County have been quarantined this week because of sewage spills.

Times staff writer Myron Levin contributed to this story.

Where to Find and Give Help Santa Clarita’s storm hot line number is (805) 294-2520.

Los Angeles residents who need help sandbagging should call (213) 485-4641.

For extra sandbags, Los Angeles residents can call (818) 458-4306 during the day and (818) 458-6308 after business hours.

Those who want to volunteer to help should call (213) 353-0457.