Storm Blamed for Pileups on Freeways : Weather: Another huge system is moving in and is expected to begin pounding the Southland beginning Tuesday.

Another fast-moving storm pelted Southern California on Sunday, triggering several freeway pileups in what weather forecasters called a precursor to a huge tempest expected to pound the area beginning Tuesday.

Rain was partially blamed for a 20-car pileup on the San Bernardino Freeway that left several people injured. The early afternoon crash in West Covina was one of several multiple-car collisions on rain-slick Southland freeways, authorities said.

In San Diego, in the wake of heavy rains and winds, county health officials Sunday closed additional stretches of beach in Mission Bay and from the San Diego river to the border because of high bacterial counts from the sewage spill.

As the sewage crisis entered its 50th day, county health officials shut a total of about 22 miles of coastline, or about double the amount of beach that had been closed to the public last week.

“It appears that the storm and winds, between the runoff (from Tijuana) and sewage in the ocean, gave us high bacterial counts by the ocean beach pier and along the Strand up to the Naval Air Station,” said Gary Stephany, director of the county’s environmental health services.

As a result, officials closed a stretch of the east part of Mission Bay along the Pacific passage from Campland to Tecolote Creek through the jet ski area. The weekend rain, coming from the southwest, shoved the Point Loma spill into this region, causing high bacterial counts.

Officials also closed a 12-mile stretch of coast from Imperial Beach to the North Island Naval Air Station on Coronado because the pump that usually handles 12 million gallons of sewage daily from the United States and Mexico was shut because of heavy rain runoff.

“This doubles the amount of area we’ve closed,” Stephany said. “It’s probably more of a serious economic problem than a health problem as long as we keep people out of the water.”

Forecasters said .03 of an inch of rain fell at Lindbergh Field during the 24 hours ending at 4 p.m. Sunday. The highest temperature was 65 degrees, only 1 degree short of the average high temperature for the date.

Farther north, the weather caused numerous problems. Los Angeles city sanitation crews said they had contained a sewage spill in Los Angeles Harbor caused by Friday’s storm, but not before nearly 12 million gallons of partially treated sewage had flowed into the Los Angeles Harbor off San Pedro. Officials blamed the spill on a power failure.

Inner Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro remained closed Sunday as county health officials moved to determine the degree of sewage contamination in the harbor. The spill was confined primarily to the harbor, said Clarence Mansell, manager of the city’s Terminal Island sewage plant.

Forecasters said showers and isolated thunderstorms were expected through today before the storm clears out. Another storm system building in the Gulf of Alaska is expected to move into Southern California Tuesday night, bringing heavy rain and winds up to 25 m.p.h. through Thursday.