Calamity After Storm : Mudslides Shut Aliso Wood Park as the Countywide Cleanup Starts

Heavy mudslides caused by recent rainstorms have wiped out several trails in the 3,400-acre Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park, forcing county officials to close the hiking and biking area at least through next weekend.

The damage left sections of Wood Canyon impassable, particularly where overflow from Wood Creek last week swept away the main trail through the canyon. In another section of the park, an access road was demolished and a bike trail was damaged by overflow from Aliso Creek, whose rampaging waters swept away bridges and flooded the Aliso Creek Golf Course.

“There are some areas that even we can’t drive to,” said Bruce Buchman, supervising park ranger. “This is the worst damage we’ve had since the park opened” in April, 1990.

Elsewhere in the county, efforts continued to assess the storm’s damage and to coordinate cleanup efforts.

In Laguna Beach, the City Council Tuesday declared “a local emergency area” after learning that the city suffered over $4 million in damage during the series of storms. The county passed a similar measure Thursday to expedite access to state and federal funds.

In other coastal cities, like Newport Beach, massive cleanup efforts focused on removing tons of rubble deposited by the storm on the beaches and in the ocean.

City officials say the Newport Harbor, which is fed by San Diego Creek, is choked with everything from trees to telephone poles, making conditions hazardous for small craft.

The harbor and a half-mile section of beach on either side of the mouth of the Santa Ana River nearby has been closed since Thursday because of sewage spills caused by the bad weather. County health officials say tests to determine the safety of the waters will not be complete until Thursday afternoon.

“It’s real bad out there,” said Lt. Ray Carver of the Newport Marine Safety Division. “It’s a mess on the beach and a mess on the bay. You really have to watch where you’re boating or you’ll hit a log.”

The debris problem was more moderate in beachfront areas located away from tributaries emptying into the ocean. Larry Paul, county coastal facilities manager, said cleanup operations were normal for any winter storm.

Also closed by storms is a 44-acre fishing lake in Laguna Niguel Park. Heavy mud conditions along the lake’s banks has made fishing there dangerous, say park workers. The lake’s status will be judged daily by county maintenance crews.

County officials say that no reports of heavy damage have been received from other parks.

With parts of the main trail in Wood Canyon eliminated, heavy equipment will be needed to cut a temporary path through the canyon, say park rangers. If repairs can’t be made by Monday, the rest of the park could still be opened, rangers said.

Home to thick groves of oak and sycamore trees, caves and several species of wildlife, the park is officially designated as a wilderness preserve by the county. On an average weekend, about 500 hikers and bikers use the area.

Lake Forest resident Otto Appel, who said he has fished the Laguna Niguel Park lake for 17 years, was disappointed Tuesday at its closure.

“Hell, if you were 84 years old and came out here every day to fish like I do, you’d be kinda mad too,” Appel said. “But, the storm made it like a barrel of snakes out there with those branches in the lake. But if I can’t catch ‘em (fish), nobody can.”

But Appel said he understood why the lake is shut down.

“The banks are so muddy, you’d be sliding around. You could drown out there.”

Rangers have been clearing up the mess by hand, but expect to bring in a light tractor this week to level and compact the damaged trails. So far, however, overcast skies and drizzle since last week’s cloudbursts have kept the ground wet and hampered cleanup efforts, Buchman said.

“Instead of drying out, things are staying wet,” he said. “If these conditions persist, we would have to delay the reopening. We need a little sun.”

Much of the earthslide activity occurred in the upper canyons, which Buchman said were heavily damaged by erosion. With the exception of some sections of Wood Canyon that were flooded by the creek overflow, many of the trails on the canyon bottoms are in good shape, he said.

But the entire park was closed because of the potential of further slides, Buchman said.

“The ground is just saturated out there,” he said. “We’ve got to play it safety first, handling the erosion second.”

The rangers are also repairing damage caused by the flooding of Aliso Creek last week.

Last Thursday afternoon, a wall of water pounded down the normally mild stream, destroying a bridge and swamping the nearby golf course. The flash flood stranded several workers at the South Coast Water Treatment Plant abutting Aliso and Wood Canyons Park who were evacuated by helicopter.

In the park, the flood tore away huge chunks of land, completely obliterating parts of a service road that wound close to the creek. Also gone is a section of bike trail leading to the canyon areas.

“We lost tons of earth,” said park ranger Tom Maloney. “It’s all out in the ocean somewhere now.”

In Laguna Beach, the public property losses ranged from the washout of a bridge leading to coastal water treatment plant for Aliso Canyon to damage to the city’s animal shelter.

The damage to private property included the Aliso Creek Inn, whose lower level was wiped out, and Ben Brown’s golf course, which is closed indefinitely. A preschool and riding stable in Laguna Canyon, inland from the flood control channel, also suffered some damage.

Times correspondent Leslie Earnest contributed to this story.