Storm Triggers Mudslides, Kills 8 in Tijuana

A new storm slammed into the Southland with a vengeance Saturday, dangerously swelling rivers and reservoirs, flooding roadways and triggering mudslides, including three in Tijuana that left eight people dead.

Heavy rains stranded residents in a section of Temecula, swept away a wall at the historic Mission at San Juan Capistrano and left 18 horses stuck in knee-high mud in Anaheim.

After canceling a warning earlier in the day, the National Weather Service reissued a flash flood watch from Santa Barbara to San Diego, and officials declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Barbara counties.

“The potential for flooding is at its greatest level in at least 10 years, possibly 15,” said Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times. But forecasters said that after more rain--possibly heavy--today and Monday, the rains should stop and skies will likely clear by Monday night.

The latest misery came as a second storm in less than 24 hours hit the area, the result of a forceful low-pressure system from Alaska. These storms followed a series of downpours that have hit the area over the past two weeks.

Wary officials expressed concern that the storm will create havoc with saturated hillsides and add to the millions of gallons of sewage that have been swept into the ocean during the last few days as storm drains continue to overflow.

Worst hit on Saturday was Tijuana, where eight people died in shantytowns, raising the total to 25 people killed there since a series of storms took aim at the crowded border city Jan. 6.

Much of central Tijuana was inundated Saturday, leaving hundreds of city streets impassable. At least 25 squatter settlements were left incommunicado by flash floods that carved car-size chasms in dirt roads. Another 32 neighborhoods were left without water because of broken water mains.

Soldiers patrolled some neighborhoods, distributing emergency supplies. Fear seized many other settlements bracing for more rain.

Until this weekend, most of Tijuana’s dead had been killed by floods. Starting late Friday night, waterlogged earth gave way to mudslides that began taking a new toll in hillside squatter settlements ringing the city. At least three deadly mudslides were reported Saturday.

Rosaura Dominguez, 26, and her children, Perla Judit, 3, and Epifanio, 1, were killed before dawn when a mudslide engulfed the bed they were sleeping in at the Colonia el Grupo Mexico in the La Mesa area east of downtown. Rosaura’s husband, Francisco Dominguez, was asleep in an adjoining room of their wooden shack and escaped injury.

“We told them that they should evacuate because the ground was very soft,” said a shaken neighbor, Socorro Santander. “But they stayed and tried to support the wall with stakes.”

Two other children died in a southern colonia called Rubi. Elizabeth Tovar, 6, and her brother, Jesus, 20 months, died about 11 p.m. Friday. Further details were unavailable Saturday.

A mother and her two children died in another mudslide early Saturday, authorities said. The three lived in a hillside squatter settlement called Chula Vista in the south-central part of the city. The three were identified as Sandra Becerra, 33, Tina Barrera, 4, and Juan Carlos Rodriquez, 11.

Authorities used helicopters Saturday night to evacuate people from zones around the swelling Rodriguez Dam.

Meanwhile, about 300 U.S. visitors remained stranded 180 miles south of Tijuana in the community of San Quintin, where a rain-swollen arroyo knocked out sections of a highway bridge north of town, blocking traffic along Baja California’s main north-south artery.

Floods wreaked havoc throughout Southern California, closing roads, snarling traffic and making life wet and miserable for many residents.

In south Riverside County, a portion of Temecula’s old town was cut off from the rest of the city Saturday night when rainwater washed over the banks of Murrieta Creek and flooded streets with two to three feet of water, Riverside County fire officials said. However, they said residents were in no danger.

California Highway Patrol officials said Murrieta, a small community next to Temecula, was also under water in most areas and authorities have begun evacuating residents. However, officials did not know how many people had been evacuated as of late Saturday night.

In Orange County, rain swept away an adobe and plaster containment wall at Mission San Juan Capistrano.

At the American Riding Club for the Handicapped in Anaheim, where the rains flooded the stable areas of horses used by the disabled children, volunteer Julie Nerney said: “We are up to our knees--and the horses’ knees--in mud.”

Los Angeles County firefighters rescued an 18-year-old Palmdale youth from rain-swollen waters of the Little Rock Creek in Angeles National Forest, just south of Palmdale.

Jason Plummer became stranded on an island in the creek when he and a friend, Art McLeran, 18, of Palmdale, tried to cross the waters during an early morning hike, Fire Capt. Ron Conway said. The creek, at the foot of Little Rock Reservoir, was six-feet deep and moving at 20 m.p.h., he said.

“He made it partway across, but then he decided it was too dangerous to continue, which it was,” Conway said. “The other guy made it, but he could have been swept away too.”

Throughout the region, safety personnel were alerted to the hazards of normally quiescent channels that abruptly became transformed into storm-powered, raging torrents.

“The water moves very rapidly and it can be very dangerous,” said Don Tayenaka, who heads the swift-water rescue teams for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

In Montebello, residents of an apartment house inundated Friday used the lull before the latest storm to sift through water-soaked belongings.

Fire officials said the heavy rains caused a concrete culvert to collapse on a hillside above the building Friday, sending a wall of water and mud crashing onto the building.

The building’s 134 residents were allowed back into their homes briefly Saturday to salvage what they could.

In San Diego, authorities warned migrants living in canyons below Hodges and Loveland dams to leave the area just as the dams began overflowing. The Barrett, Lower Otay and San Vicente dams, also in San Diego County, were expected to begin spilling over by early Monday, authorities said. However, the overflows posed no threat to residents near the dams.

In Ventura County, a mudslide Friday night prompted Caltrans to close an 11-mile stretch of California 150 between Ojai and the Santa Barbara County line. The mountainous highway, which winds around the northern side of the Lake Casitas Reservoir, will be closed for a week, a Caltrans spokeswoman said Saturday.

Although Santa Monica Bay beaches remained open Saturday, health officials recommended that people continue to stay out of the water between Torrance and Pacific Palisades after water samples revealed high bacteria levels.

“Anytime it rains, it’s not safe for anyone to go into the water . . . because the street runoff ends up in the ocean,” said Lt. Mickey Gallagher of the Los Angeles County Lifeguards.

On Skid Row downtown, homeless shelters have been filled for weeks. Those spending the night outside searched for abandoned cars, empty buildings or bits of plastic to cover their cardboard shelters.

“You see plastic, you grab it,” said Michael Ross. “We’re all sick of rain.”

As of Saturday afternoon, Los Angeles had received a little more than 15 inches of rain since the beginning of the season in July. The average for the whole year is 14.85 inches. Though rainfall varied greatly across Southern California on Saturday, one or two inches were expected to fall on waterlogged soil by this morning in many areas, according to meteorologists.

Though Los Angeles residents suffering East Coast-style wet basement syndrome may be skeptical, the Los Angeles Basin may turn out to have been spared the worst of either storm.

However, snow levels were expected to lower to about 5,000 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains by Monday.

Clearing was expected by late Monday with no more rain in sight. In short, starting Tuesday morning, Southern California will look more like Southern California.

“Once the low-pressure system goes by, the pattern will have shifted to a high pressure,” said Burback. After that, he said, “there’s virtually no chance (of rain)--I promise.”

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Laurie Becklund, Steve Padilla, Hugo Martin and Patrick J. McDonnell in Los Angeles; Rene Lynch in Orange County and Gary Gorman in Ventura County.