Storm Fails to Live Up to Its Billing : Weather: Orange County was braced for the worst Saturday, but the less-than-predicted rainfall caused few problems.

What had been billed as the worst yet in a 10-day series of storms that killed at least seven people and caused record flooding charged through Southern California so fast Saturday that it left more relief than damage in its wake.

“I think we’re really prepared for about three or four times the storm we’re getting,” Capt. Dan Young of the Orange County Fire Department said as work crews filled 14 tons of sandbags--many of which went unused.

Manholes popped. Freeways flooded. Mudslides threatened homes. Hail pelted crops. Creeks rose perilously in canyons. More than 70 oaks were uprooted by winds in Santa Barbara. But the worst never happened. Just three-quarters of an inch of rain fell in Santa Ana, and less than one inch in Woodland Hills--one of the hardest-hit communities throughout the historic series of storms.

The quick passing of the storm, and the prospect of at least a few dry days to come, were welcome breaks for rain-weary Southern Californians.

“We were expecting a humdinger, and we got a normal storm instead,” said Steve Burback of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“It was still a sizable storm,” Burback said, “but it came and went and didn’t have the tropical moisture that the others before did.”

Light, scattered showers are possible this morning, clearing by afternoon, forecasters said. And a new rainstorm may hit the region Tuesday--”but not anything like the storm we’ve had,” Burback said. “It won’t be nearly as much of a threat.”

That’s good news for Orange County residents and public officials who were braced for the worst Saturday.

At the county’s storm center, about 15 staffers were on hand with 10,000 sandbags for use in shoring up trouble spots in the county, but most of the bags were never needed, and all but one of the staff members were able to leave by nightfall.

The Orange County Red Cross, which opened shelters at Portola Junior High School in Orange and at the Buena Park Community Center in anticipation of evacations, closed them late Saturday when no one showed up, according to spokeswoman Judy Iannaccone.

In Laguna Beach, some homeowners and merchants braced their properties with more sandbags, even as they tried to clean up from the damage of the week’s flooding. More than $2 million in damage had been reported at Ben Brown’s Golf Course and Hotel.

But as firefighters stood ready, “most of the damage happened a couple of days ago,” Bob Scraggs of the Laguna Beach Fire Department said. “It’s been lighter than we expected.”

Around the county, hardware stores reported rapid sales for plastic sheets, roof patches and submersible pumps.

“We’re constantly busy,” said Tom Booker, manager of Trabuco Hardware in Mission Viejo. “It’s home repair day--this rain exposes all the problems in the house.”

But by afternoon, the rains had stopped, and flooded roofs for most residents were just a bygone fear.

In Buena Park, local officials kept a wary eye on a flood-control channel that had been damaged by the week’s rains. Fearful of flooding from the channel, city officials considered closing off Beach Boulevard and evacuating about 100 people from nearby homes and businesses.

“We were worried another good flow would punch right through” a concrete channel wall that had been cracked by previous rainstorms, said Lt. Tom Lucenti of the Buena Park Fire Department.

But the rains began to abate and evacuation never became necessary.

Orange County authorities reported no traffic fatalities Saturday connected to the weather, but the rainfall produced one near-miss for three thrill seekers.

Three San Clemente men--two of them lifeguards--rescued themselves from the swollen San Juan Creek after jumping in with an inflatable raft and a boogie board.

“These three guys thought they could ride the wild surf through the canyon,” said Young of the Orange County Fire Department. “They thought they were going to do some white-water rafting, which is a good way to get killed. . . . They were pretty lucky.”

In the creek, the three men were washed against a small dam, where they grabbed onto trapped branches and struggled to keep their heads above the rapid waters, Young said.

The buoyancy in their wet suits apparently kept them afloat, and they were able to pull themselves out of the water, he added.

Meanwhile, a passerby had seen them and called 911, and paramedics arrived to find them lying on a creek bank, vomiting and shivering from hypothermia, Young said.

Tad Morris, 21, a San Clemente city lifeguard, refused treatment at the scene. Evan Cassaday, 19, a state Parks and Recreation Department lifeguard, and Jason Armison, 20, were transported to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center for treatment.

In Los Angeles, city officials had expected the worst and deployed more than 300 people Saturday in what was described as the city’s largest volunteer effort in memory for a natural disaster. More than 150 members of the California Conservation Corps also had been dispatched.

“What I envisioned was a tremendous hillside sliding . . . the mother of all storms,” said Bill Russell, a city health official who was coordinating the effort. “But we were lucky. We fed 150 of the volunteers lunch and sent them home.”

Travel remained difficult throughout much of the state, with Amtrak connections between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara remaining out of service, and freeway off-ramps and city streets flooded.

A tornado touched down shortly after 11 a.m. at a mobile home park on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in San Diego County, said Marine Sgt. Nephi Limb. The twister overturned a mobile home and downed several trees but caused no injuries, he said.

In the San Fernando Valley, hit hard all week by the storms, four of six Santa Clarita families who had been evacuated because a hillside had cracked above their cul-de-sac were allowed to return home Saturday, relieved that a mudslide had been averted. The slope had been shielded from the rain with sheets of plastic.

But Santa Clarita building inspectors ordered two families to stay away from their residences in the 19000 block of Maplebay Court because of lingering concerns that a waterlogged hillside might still collapse.

To the north in Ventura County, mudslides blocked off a canyon community in Ojai, a creek in Oak View flooded nearby homes, and farm workers had to be airlifted off a Camarillo hillside Saturday after their field was flooded. Two youths fell into a drainage channel in Thousand Oaks, but managed to pull themselves out of the swift water.

The storm was considered the most potent of the season in the northern Sierra, where it dumped up to three feet of snow--spelling good news for drought relief, but marooning travelers on a holiday weekend.

More than a foot of snow fell in parts of the San Bernardino Mountains. Interstate 5 remained open all day through the Grapevine, where California Highway Patrol units were escorting motorists through the most hazardous areas.

Weather temporarily suspended a search for two experienced skiers from Orange County who had disappeared Tuesday after an avalanche this week on Mt. Baldy.

“The mountain is too unstable and the conditions are not conducive to a successful search,” said a representative of the Mt. Baldy Search and Rescue Team. If conditions improve, he said, the hunt for the pair could resume today with 40 to 60 searchers, search and rescue officials said.

Still missing from the storms were a crew member from a Tustin-based Marine Corps helicopter that sank off the coast of Oxnard; a Ventura transient reported missing from his campsite at the Ventura River, and a fugitive who fled Orange County authorities by jumping into a swollen river. At least seven people have been confirmed killed by the storms.

More than 70 oak trees were uprooted near Jalama Beach in northern Santa Barbara County as a result of a tornado or downdraft during an intense thunderstorm at 2 a.m. Saturday.

“It’s an eerie sight, it really is,” said Don Eittreim, owner of the Jalama Beach Store. “Limbs of trees with no foliage sticking out of the ground. A steel post completely bent in a U-shape. It’s really strange for this part of the country.”

About the same time, winds of more than 92 m.p.h. were recorded at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 40 miles to the northwest.

Heavy rains also forced repair crews to postpone efforts to shore up San Diego’s 11,000-foot-long sewage outfall pipe, which had broken in several places two weeks ago, pumping partially treated sewage into coastal waters.

Four of six Santa Clarita families who had been evacuated because a hillside had cracked above their cul-de-sac were allowed to return home Saturday.

But Santa Clarita building inspectors ordered two families to stay away from their residences because of lingering concerns that a waterlogged hillside might still collapse.

Saturday’s rain brings the season total to 13.50 inches for the Civic Center, well above the 9.81 inches norm for this time of year. Last year, only 1.90 inches of rain had fallen by Feb. 15.

Some areas, though, were hit much harder. The storms dumped 16.46 inches on Woodland Hills, twice what it left in downtown Los Angeles.

“I was kind of relieved that it wasn’t that bad this morning,” said Woodland Hills resident Bob Farmer, 53, who was out for a walk on a surprisingly dry Saturday afternoon. “It was pouring and pouring and pouring. You go a mile a way and there was nothing. The storm just seemed to have stuck here.”

In fact, said meteorologist Burback, the community was the victim of a phenomenon known as a “train echo.”

“A train echo is where a series of showers or storms follow a repeat run over the same area,” Burback said. “That’s what happened with Woodland Hills.”

The storms provided a rare mixing of habitats. Stunned rattlesnakes carried downstream by frantic rains woke up on the beach, winding their way through driftwood at the mouth of the Ventura River. Upstream, in Matilija Canyon near Ojai, frogs took up residence in slopes where rattlesnakes are more likely to hide.

“We have hundreds of frogs that have somehow realized there’s a playground out there,” Matilija Canyon resident Allen Carrozza said. “You sleep like the Waltons at night here.”

Carrozza and his neighbors had built their own dikes in preparation for a new onslaught Saturday. But miniature geysers began spouting inside his yard, the product of a sudden rise in the underground water table.

O.C. Storm Totals Santiago Peak, with 1.46 inches, and San Juan Capistrano, with 1.38 inches, were hit with the most rainfall Saturday in Orange County. The city-by-city totals as of 4 p.m., with no significant rainfall expected for the rest of the day: Anaheim: .83 Brea: .91 Corona del Mar: .71 Cypress: .02 Fullerton: .87 Garden Grove: .71 Huntington Beach: .75 Irvine: .67 Laguna Beach: .63 Lake Forest: .91 Mission Viejo: .22 Modjeska Canyon: .14 San Juan Capistrano: 1.38 Santa Ana: .75 Santiago Peak: .46 Villa Park: .63 Westminster: .71 Yorba Linda: .14 Year-to-Date Rainfall Based on Santa Ana figures, as of 4 p.m. Saturday, for season beginning July 1 Average: 8.20 inches This year: 9.32 inches Last year: 1.81 inches Source: Orange County Environmental Management Agency and WeatherData Inc. Contributing to the storm coverage were Times staff members Mayerene Barker, John Chandler, Tracey Kaplan, Santiago O’Donnell, Carol Watson, Chris Woodyard, Jim Herron Zamora and Michael Meyers in Los Angeles; Eric Bailey, Vivien Lou Chen, James M. Gomez, Eric Lichtblau, Davan Maharaj and Danny Sullivan in Orange County, and Alan Hagman and Psyche Pascual in Ventura County and David J. Smollar in San Diego.