Southland Braces for a New Storm : Weather: Death toll rises to six, including O.C. woman. County declares state of emergency. Three sewage spills only complicate local problems.

The fourth day of Southern California’s historic downpour began with a pre-dawn bang of thunder and hail Thursday and ended as three raw sewage spills closed some Orange County beaches.

As local officials braced for an approaching storm expected to strike tonight, Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton declared a local emergency to access state and federal help should the county be overwhelmed by new rains that could dump as much as three more inches in the county.

By Thursday, the number of weather-related deaths in Southern California rose to six as the body of a 15-year-old Woodland Hills boy was pulled from the Los Angeles River. The death of a 63-year-old Brea woman who lost control of her car on flooded Carbon Canyon Road on Wednesday night was also attributed to stormy conditions.

Searches continued for at least five others, including a crew member of a Tustin-based Marine helicopter that went down off the coast of Oxnard, two experienced Orange County skiers feared buried in an avalanche at Mt. Baldy and two men believed to have disappeared in the raging Los Angeles and Santa Ana rivers.

The hunt for the missing skiers, Tim Pines, 31, of Dana Point and Charles Prior, 34, of San Clemente is scheduled to resume early today, officials said. Ellen Prior said in an interview Thursday night that she believes her husband and Pines have survived the three-day ordeal on the mountain.

“They both have the wilderness skills and the know-how to find a way to survive,” Prior said. “They’re both smart, they’re both strong and they both have faith.”

Stanton’s state of emergency declaration came as county and municipal authorities rushed to clear clogged storm drains and distribute more than 10,000 sandbags to low-lying areas. At the same time, officials reported that the storm had caused at least three sewage spills.

Health officials said the largest spill originated at a San Bernardino County treatment plant, sending at least 2 million gallons of untreated waste into the Santa Ana River, which courses through Orange County and into the ocean off Huntington Beach.

The spill was apparently caused when heavy rainfall forced a creek to overflow its banks and into the plant, said Bob Merryman, Orange County’s director of environmental health.

Coupled with separate spills in Lake Forest and in Costa Mesa, totaling about 200,000 gallons of raw sewage, county health officials closed all waters of Newport Bay and a one-mile stretch of ocean in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach surrounding the river.

Merryman warned that swimming or surfing in the contaminated water could result in hepatitis or stomach ailments.

With local roads and freeways inundated by recent rains, police blamed the stormy conditions for the death of 63-year-old Wanda Evans of Brea, who apparently lost control of her car on Carbon Canyon Road about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday after driving through a stretch of deep water and mud.

California Highway Patrol Officer Angel Johnson said Evans’ neck was broken when her car slammed into a telephone pole.

Santa Ana police also fear the rain may have claimed a second life as rescue workers were continuing their search for a man who apparently tumbled into the swollen Santa Ana River on Wednesday afternoon near North Hesperian Street while trying to elude police.

Police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker said the unidentified man was one of four suspects police believed to be involved in a drug transaction about 5:30 p.m. Police said the man, attempting to flee, was swept away by the brown, choppy water.

Despite local reports of significant damage from the storms, officials said that Orange County has largely been spared the destruction seen in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“Overall, we’re not doing too bad. But wait until the mother of all storms hits,” said Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young, referring to the new series of storms expected this weekend.

Young said Stanton’s declaration was timed in anticipation of the weekend forecast.

“I’m sure he didn’t want to wait until the mud was coming down the streets and homes were being swept away to react,” Young said.

Outside Orange County, rescue teams again hunted for bodies in the debris-clogged delta of the Ventura River, which subsided after torrential flooding Wednesday submerged the Ventura Beach RV Resort trailer park. All the residents have been accounted for, but one homeless man who made his camp in the riverbed drowned and another is reported missing.

By Thursday, the river was little more than a wide, mud-filled basin dotted with mattresses, lumber, food containers and splintered trailers. A few dead carp and crawdads were left scattered in the ooze.

“This is what I came back to,” lamented RV park tenant Arthur Currier, 69, as he gathered a waterlogged wallet, heart medication and cash from his saturated 32-foot motor home. “This makes a person sick.”

With forecasters calling for another storm to strike the Southland later in the day, the Los Angeles Unified School District canceled classes today for all 630,000 students as a “common-sense precaution.” All Orange County schools were scheduled to remain open.

As much as two inches of rain could fall by Sunday, said Steve Burback, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. Light showers are expected again on Tuesday, but Burback said that would probably be the last gasp of one of the century’s worst storms.

“It looks like you’ll be done for a while,” he said.

Thursday’s downpour began with an early-morning burst, but quickly fizzled. Power was knocked out for thousands of customers in four counties and for a brief time at Los Angeles City Hall. Hail fell in East Los Angeles. In Anaheim, a small tornado slammed into an auto lubrication station on State College Boulevard, but no injuries were reported.

Lightning struck the National Weather Service headquarters in West Los Angeles, temporarily delaying transmission of weather updates.

“Somebody up there doesn’t like us,” said Bill Hoffer, a weather service specialist.

By afternoon, however, the city was treated to what in recent days has been a rare sight--blue sky.

Hoping to shore up their defenses for the weekend, hundreds of people descended on hardware stores, outdoor-clothing shops and contracting firms, where items that normally gather dust on the shelves sold like portable fans in August.

At King Pump & Dewatering Corp. in Santa Fe Springs, almost the entire stock of several dozen pumps was rented out Thursday. Anawalt Lumber and Material Co. in North Hollywood had “pretty much sold out” its supply of tarps and ponchos. And the people at World Restoration, an Orange County firm that repairs water and fire damage, said they felt as though they were being asked to live up to their name.

“Our stock is sold out and people are still calling today,” said Damita Ziegler, manager of the Eddie Bauer store at the Glendale Galleria. “Everybody is rushing out in a frenzy for rubber shoes. I mean the masses. It’s just amazing.”

Wednesday’s storms caused considerable havoc at the Santa Clara Townhomes in Santa Ana where roof repairs were continuing when the heavy rains hit.

More than 80 residents were evacuated from the complex and, with the help of the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross, spent the night at a hotel on the city’s south side.

Thursday morning, resident Rick Gregory stood in his soggy townhome and pointed to the gaping hole in the ceiling from where pieces of drywall had fallen and lay scattered on the living room floor.

“We’re just upset,” Gregory said. “All we can do now is keep our faith in God and wait.”

At the Orange County storm center in Santa Ana, crews had filled and distributed 10,000 sandbags by Thursday afternoon. Teams of employees prepared to work round the clock and had fielded about 1,000 calls from nervous residents since Wednesday afternoon.

The county also beefed up its crew of flood-control workers from 75 to 125. In teams, they roamed the county cleaning storm drains, handling minor mudslides and laying down sandbags in eroded areas.

Fire officials in a helicopter flew over the county on Thursday, mapping the region’s most vulnerable areas and prepared to stage mock, high-water rescues to train firefighters. Young said local Marines had also committed three helicopter rescue units should local authorities need additional resources this weekend.

“I think we are pretty well prepared,” Young said.

By a fluke of timing, Thursday also marked the opening of the National Roof Contractors Assn. convention in Anaheim. For a group that has been hit hard by the recession, the rains could not have come at a better time.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any outward celebration because of the rains, but it is one industry that’s certainly enjoying the weather,” said Richard Gordinier, president of the Huntington Park-based Henry Group of Companies, which makes roofing products.

He estimated that his firm has sold between 500,000 and 750,000 gallons of Henry 208--a roof cement that works even when wet--since the downpour first hit Southern California on Monday.

Many more people, who spent the day digging out from layers of mud, did not feel so fortunate.

- Several miles of beach were closed in Ventura and Orange counties, while the 76-mile-long Los Angeles County coastline remained closed for a fourth day, polluted by sewage runoff and littered with garbage.

“It looks like someone took a dump truck, opened the back and just drove it along the edge of the beach and poured it out,” said Adi Liberman, executive director of the nonprofit Heal the Bay group in Santa Monica.

-In Malibu, residents worked feverishly to fill sandbags in anticipation of more flooding along Las Flores Creek, which shifted it course by at least 30 feet as the result of a landslide on the west side of the canyon.

“I enjoyed it here but now it’s time to go,” said John Conover, 30, as he packed his things to move out of his inundated duplex.

- In the small town of Quartz Hill southwest of Lancaster, residents spent the day cleaning up tons of debris that washed through the area Wednesday when part of an earthen flood basin collapsed. Officials estimated that about 75 houses and 25 businesses suffered interior flooding.

“I’ve been here 15 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Quartz Hill resident Bill Myles.

- In Hesperia, officials devised an escape route for about 10,000 residents in the Mesa area after virtually all of their roads were washed out Wednesday. They also finished distributing the last of 19,000 sandbags.

- In Orange County, authorities worked to clear the Aliso Creek Resort in South Laguna, which was flooded when a four-foot wave slammed through the 62-room hotel. Large wooden beams snapped, concrete pilings washed away and several guests were evacuated in the basket of a backhoe.

- At the RV park in Ventura, owner Arnold Hubbard said he intends to reopen as soon as possible. Ventura City Councilman Jim Monahan, whose company received about $40,000 to help build the riverside park, said he would support that effort. But other members of the council, which approved construction of the park despite staff warnings in 1985, said they will ask lawyers whether the city can block its reopening.

“There’s no way it should be rebuilt, because this park is in a river bottom,” said Paul Tebbel, spokesman for Friends of the Ventura River, an environmental group. “This happened once and it’s going to happen again.”

Help to victims of the flood, which Los Angeles officials said caused about $1.5 million in damage to city property, came in a variety of forms.

Bekins Moving & Storage Co. offered flood victims free storage space for household goods for up to six months. First Interstate Bank of California unveiled a program to provide low-interest loans to owners of homes damaged by the drenching.

The California Conservation Corps sent 135 youths to Anaheim, Sylmar, Northridge and Camarillo, where they laid sandbags and spread plastic tarps to prevent further saturation of the already unstable ground.

“I heard about all the flooding and everything, and I heard that they needed help,” said Dominic Burton, a 23-year-old Cal State Northridge student who helped out Thursday. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

For all the hardship it caused, the storm did not bring an end to the drought.

At Mammoth in the Sierra Nevada, where runoff from the mountains supplies Southern California’s unquenchable thirst, the water content of the snowpack rose from 13.8 inches on Sunday to 19.3 inches on Thursday. Normal for this time of year is 30.4 inches.

“It is difficult to comprehend,” Gov. Pete Wilson told reporters, adding that the devastating rains seemed “almost a mockery” as the state enters its sixth year of drought.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Bill Billiter, John Chandler, Marla Cone, Donnette Dunbar, Tina Daunt, James Gomez, Daryl Kelley, Thuan Le, Eric Malnic, Mack Reed and Ron Russell.

RELATED STORIES: A3, A28-29

Orange County Storms This Winter

Four series of major storms have hit Orange County this winter, and the latest round has dumped far more rain than the rest combined. The county has above-average rainfall now, based on Santa Ana figures. The rainy season began July 1. EARLY DECEMBER From Dec. 8 to 11, .54 inches of rain fell. Year to date totals, as of Dec. 11: Average: 2.42 inches This Year: 1.05 inches Last Year: 0.33 inches LATE DECEMBER From Dec. 28 to 30, .86 inches of rain fell. Year to date totals, as of Dec. 30: Average: 3.55 inches This Year: 1.91 inches Last Year: 0.45 inches EARLY JANUARY From Jan. 3 to 8, 1.63 inches of rain fell. Year to date totals, as of Jan. 8: Average: 4.40 inches This Year: 3.54 inches Last Year: 1.35 inches THIS MONTH From Feb. 6 to 13, 5.47 inches of rain fell. Year to date totals, as of Feb. 13: Average: 8.06 inches This Year: 9.01 inches Last Year: 1.81 inches NOTE: Santa Ana reading for Feb. 13 unavailable. Reading used is average of Anaheim and Lake Forest figures. Source: WeatherData