Surprise Storm Socks Southland : Weather: Some O.C. areas get hail, lightning and up to half an inch of rain, which may continue today.

Hail, lightning and a brief but intense rain battered Orange County on Wednesday, and forecasters said the racket might continue today.

Some areas of the county reported almost half an inch of rain, and many South County residents reported a quick burst of hail around noon.

“It got very dark and threatening, and all hell broke loose, said Rose Froelick, who was watching television at home in Rancho Santa Margarita when the storm came. “Hail is so unusual around here, and I’ve lived here six years. It was a torrential downpour.”

The hail “only lasted a few minutes, and the storm wasn’t very long either, but there were huge amounts of rain and plenty of noise coming from the hail hitting the tile on our roof,” Froelick said.

In El Toro, the rain caused some street flooding, said Dave King, field operations manager for the Orange County Environmental Management Agency. “It was quite a short but intense thunderstorm before it moved out,” he said.

On the Orange Freeway, driver Heime Aure, 44, lost control of his car, spun and rolled backward down a 12-foot embankment into a concrete flood control channel. No one was injured in the 3:45 p.m. accident north of Tonner Canyon Road, fire officials said.

The California Highway Patrol in Orange County said none of the other fender-benders in the fleeting rain was serious.

“I think people are sort of used to it,” said CHP Officer Lyle Whitten. “Maybe they’re voluntarily slowing down.”

At 1:10 p.m., a finger of lightning touched a flagpole in the 2900 block of Cassia Street in Newport Beach, fire officials said. But again no one was injured.

In San Clemente, Cathy Stockwell, 44, was running errands all morning with her 4-year-old daughter, and the unpredictable weather had her visibly frazzled.

“Look at this, it’s sunny right now,” Stockwell said at 2:30 p.m. as she arrived at a San Juan Capistrano bank. “I would have had to change my clothes three times today just to be properly dressed for the weather because it’s changed so many times today.”

Stockwell, a community volunteer, normally feeds a small group of hungry or homeless people each day at a local park. Because of the sudden downpour, the usual group of about 20 people who show up for hot lunches had dwindled to a handful. Stockwell handed out a few sack lunches instead.

The rains also prompted some brief power outages around the county.

At the Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young had just stepped up to testify in the case of a homeless man who claims the city violated his civil rights when the lights flickered and went out.

Christopher B. Mears, attorney for the plaintiff, asked Young jokingly, “Does this power failure have anything to do with you being here?”

Young replied, “As in all things, I am sure I will be blamed for it.”

When power was restored, the air conditioning did not come back on. Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore then asked Young jokingly, “Is this your fault too?”

Young’s reply: “No, (this is a) county building. Call (Supervisor) Roger Stanton,” prompting laughter in the room.

Scattered showers and possible thunderstorms could dump from a quarter-inch to half an inch of rain today, meteorologists predicted.

Some light rain may fall Friday but should end by afternoon, giving way to partly cloudy skies, said Rick Dittmann, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

Wednesday’s storms, blown by shifting winds from the desert and mountains, affected a widespread area of Southern California.

In the San Gabriel Valley, rescuers plucked two teen-agers from a rain-swollen wash.

The teen-agers, both from Pasadena, were carried for miles along the wash before a San Gabriel narcotics officer rescued the 13-year-old girl and a boy, 15.

San Marino firefighter Kevin Lennox said he and other firefighters arrived at the Rubio Wash on the city’s border with San Gabriel about 2 p.m., just in time to “see these two heads floating by.”

Firefighters and police in San Gabriel were notified, and several rescuers converged on the scene on Garvey Avenue where the Rubio Wash empties into the Rio Hondo. The dramatic rescue by firefighters, deputies and police was broadcast live on local television.

“About five of us police and firefighters got into the water,” said San Gabriel Police Sgt. Gene O’Connor. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ismael Loya was able to grasp the girl but he was knocked down by the 25-m.p.h. current, O’Connor said.

Rescuers then tied a rope around Detective Mike Hudson, and he was able to get his arms around the girl, O’Connor said. “We all pulled him out,” the sergeant said.

About 20 minutes later, Hudson went back into the wash with a rope around him to pull the boy out. The youngster had held tenuously to a firefighter, but lost his grip and floated downstream. Two more efforts to pull the boy out failed before he was able to float to a shallow area and be rescued, authorities said.

“A fire company had snagged a hose or a rope across the river, and he hung on to that,” about three miles from where the girl was rescued, O’Connor said. “Detective Hudson went in again after that boy and grabbed him, just like the girl.”

He said there were several rescues within the rescue.

“For a while, it was like everyone was getting washed in the wash and everyone was saving everyone--firemen saving policeman, deputies saving firemen, O’Connor said. “It was all mixed up but it worked out well.

Both youngsters were airlifted to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where the girl was treated for hypothermia and a fractured leg, O’Connor said. The boy was hospitalized with hypothermia. Neither youngster was identified.

In San Diego County, residents of an Escondido neighborhood hit by a freak thunderstorm said Wednesday that the city is to blame for damage caused by flooding because it failed to keep drainage areas cleared, a claim city officials denied.

Times staff writers Lisa Omphroy, Gebe Martinez and Greg Hernandez contributed to this story.