Fierce Storm Floods Area, Clogs Freeways

A powerful winter storm accompanied by fierce winds and snow swept through San Diego County on Monday, creating waterspouts that damaged a mobile home park, stopping train service and slowing traffic to a crawl.

The National Weather Service issued a waterspout warning after three of the funnel clouds spawned over the ocean, spokesman Frank O’Leary said.

A waterspout reported off Carlsbad moved onshore about 3 p.m., becoming a tornado. Carlsbad Police Lt. Greg Fried said the tornado touched down at the Solamar Mobile Home Park, tearing the roofs off several homes. No injuries were reported.

Waterspouts, which are tornadoes over water, were also spotted in the ocean about eight miles west of San Diego at 1:24 p.m. and off Mission Beach at 2:30 p.m., said O’Leary.

A deluge damaged railroad tracks at San Clemente, forcing Santa Fe Railway officials to close the line between Oceanside and Santa Ana at 9:05 a.m., Santa Fe spokesman Mike Martin said.

The closure affected four Amtrak trains and three freight trains traveling in both directions. Amtrak passengers were bused between Oceanside and Santa Ana.

Water runoff eroded the base under the tracks, creating unsafe conditions. Several rail cars filled with rock were brought in to shore up the line. The tracks were reopened at 12:44 p.m.

Winds reached 35 m.p.h., causing havoc with power lines in North County. SDG&E; spokesman Fred Vaughn said as many as 20,000 customers lost power, although most of the outages were brief.

The tornado in Carlsbad also blew a 10-foot piece of aluminum into power lines, causing them to short. Car dealers at Canon Road and Interstate 5 lost power for 30 minutes. Three outages in downtown San Diego cut power to several businesses and residences.

“We may have worse problems (Monday) evening. We’re expecting thunderstorms and snow in the mountains. We’re going to maintain a special alert status during the night,” Vaughn said.

Snow was reported at Laguna, Cuyamaca and Palomar mountains and the snow level may reach 4,000 feet Monday night. A snow advisory remained in effect overnight in the mountains, with snow accumulations of up to eight inches expected.

More than one inch of rain was recorded Monday in numerous places in the county. The wettest spot was Coronado, where 1.65 inches of rain fell. Alpine reported one inch of rain, Fallbrook 1.42 inches, and Lindbergh Field .97 inch, weather officials said.

The storm was expected to move out of the county Monday night. However, the cold, unstable air left in its wake could create more thunderstorms.

A high surf advisory posted Monday will continue through today. The storm is expected to leave 6- to 10-foot waves behind, with occasional breakers reaching 14 feet, accompanied by gusty winds of up to 25 m.p.h.

Heavy runoff from the storm forced county officials to shut off pumps that handle about 12 million gallons of sewage daily from Mexico, which flows down the Tijuana River to the Pacific Ocean. Officials said the shutdown was forced by high water flows in the river.

The coastline from Seacoast Drive in Imperial Beach south to the U.S.-Mexico border was quarantined as a precautionary measure because raw sewage began flowing into the ocean Monday night. The quarantine will remain in effect until authorities determine that the bacteria level is safe for recreational use.

Torrential rains forced Sea World officials to close the marine park Monday for the fourth time in its 28-year history. Park officials said the rain had no effect on marine animals.

Motorists inched along on slick freeways as the morning and evening commutes became slow-motion nightmares. California Highway Patrol officials reported more than 300 accidents by 4 p.m., most chain-reaction fender-benders.

In other parts of Southern California, the storm flooded homes and highways, derailed a train over a freeway, set off rockslides and clogged mountain roads with snow.

Rain pounded the Los Angeles area throughout the day, with more than four inches reported in Montebello, Monrovia and Anaheim by 4 p.m. A record 1.26 inches fell at the Los Angeles Civic Center by midafternoon, easily eclipsing the record for the date of 0.9 of an inch, set in 1918.

Morning and evening commuter traffic moved at a snail’s pace if it moved at all, with the Pomona, Santa Ana, Long Beach and Costa Mesa freeways all shut down at various times by accidents and flooding in low-lying areas.

The tangle worsened in the afternoon when a washout derailed a train on an overpass above the Harbor Freeway near Gardena, leaving four rail cars perched over freeway lanes and halting traffic in both directions. Police said the freeway closure could last until early this morning.

Although most of the storm-related traffic accidents were minor, a woman was killed when she swerved to avoid a rockslide in Malibu Canyon and crashed head-on into a truck.

A teen-age girl was pulled uninjured from La Mirada Creek in La Mirada after the waterway’s rain-swollen waters swept her off a pedestrian bridge, security officers at Biola University said.

A tornado-like wind was reported in Anaheim, and mobile homes in Westminster were ripped from their foundations by cyclonic winds.

Rising floodwaters seeped into celebrity homes in the Malibu area and forced the closure of roads behind Sepulveda Dam. Heavy surf generated by the storm pounded beaches from Point Conception south to the Mexican border, with occasional 10-foot waves reported.

The steady rains forced Disneyland to close for the first time since a storm shut it in 1987.

Heavy snow fell throughout the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains, and chains or snow tires were required on most roads above 4,000 feet.

Forecasters said the rough weather should move out to the east by early this morning, but another powerful storm is expected to hit the Los Angeles area late Thursday.

The morning rush hour was a disaster Monday, with commuter traffic backed up for miles in every direction as heavy downpours flooded freeway underpasses and made pavement dangerously slick in Southern California.

“It was a real mess out there,” said California Highway Patrolman Ernie Garcia. “We had problems everywhere.”

About 1 p.m., a Southern Pacific railroad freight train derailed over the Harbor Freeway at 149th Street in Los Angeles’ Harbor-Gateway Strip, forcing the closure of the freeway in both directions until the railway cars could be removed and creating a mammoth traffic jam that extended into the evening rush hour.

In Malibu, Dawn Marie Vanden-Broeder, 20, of Canoga Park, a kindergarten teacher, died during a morning downpour when she swerved to avoid rocks that had tumbled onto Malibu Canyon Road and crashed head-on into a truck, officers said.

In east Anaheim, a tornado-like wind ripped through an industrial area during the morning, overturning a car, Anaheim police said. Witnesses said the cyclonic wind tossed trash cans and debris into the air and tore skylights from a building’s roof.

“It was about half the width of the street and it went down the left side of the street pulling up all the water from the gutters,” said Bob Adams, service manager at Mission Uniform and Linen Service in Anaheim.

In nearby Westminster, cyclonic winds tore through a mobile home park, uprooting trees, clawing at roofs and pulling three mobile homes off their foundations.

In Ventura County, a whirling wind uprooted about 20 trees in the Moorpark neighborhood of Home Acres at about 5 a.m. Monday.

“It hit here like hell,” said Bill Harney, a Home Acres resident who went outdoors after the sun rose to find the table and benches in his gazebo overturned.

“I wanted it to rain,” he said. “I didn’t want it to tear the house apart.”

A tree limb crashed onto a house in Ojai, causing about $20,000 worth of structural damage, fire officials said. The damage exposed the furnishings to the rain, which caused another $5,000 damage, officials said.

In the exclusive Malibu Colony, Malibu Creek overflowed and water began washing against the back of some expensive beachfront homes belonging to several celebrities, including tennis star John McEnroe and actor Larry Hagman.

“This is Lake Malibu,” Hagman said as he stood in his garage, watching the water lapping around the wheels of his Rolls-Royce.

Actor Burgess Meredith wandered by, and Hagman invited him inside.

“I was standing there shivering,” Meredith said. “He took me in.”

Local residents used sandbags stockpiled at Los Angeles County fire stations to build barriers to hold back floodwaters.

In Long Beach, the rain flooded an underground parking garage, soaking more than 30 cars. Tidal surges eroded some beachfront, and some boats sustained minor damage when they were knocked about in their moorings.

In nearby Seal Beach, a 30-year-old man was cited for jet-skiing down flooded Electric Avenue and causing the water to seep into several residences and businesses, a Seal Beach police officer said.

“A group of vigilantes armed with rakes and brooms were about to confront him when we got there,” watch commander Dean Zanone said.

The jet-skier was cited for “failure to obey warning devices,” a never-before-used vehicle code in Seal Beach, Zanone said.

In the high-desert community of Hesperia, flash floods threatened as many as 20 homes and rendered at least 30 roads impassable. The flooding also forced closure of several Interstate 15 freeway ramps in the Victorville area.

In the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, heavy snow prompted the National Weather Service to issue winter storm warnings. Big Bear Lake reported up to 14 inches of new snow by nightfall, with snow still falling.

Ski resort operators were delighted, but officials were keeping a close eye on structures damaged in the recent series of earthquakes in the area.

“Obviously, the snow is a concern to us, with the weight building up on structures,” said Al Langworthy of the San Bernardino County Office of Disaster Preparedness. “We may have structures that won’t support as much weight as they used to.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Andrea Ford and Ron Russell in Los Angeles; Roxana Kopetman in Long Beach; Aaron Curtiss in the San Fernando Valley; Tom Gorman in Riverside; David Reyes, David Avila, Bob Barker and Bob Elston in Costa Mesa; Gerald Faris in La Mirada, and Mack Reed and correspondent James Maiella Jr. in Ventura.