Maintenance Crews Get Look at Damage : Cleanup: Clearing mud and filling potholes are minor problems compared with destruction caused by slides.

Los Angeles city and county maintenance crews fanned out to fix damaged roads and survey saturated mudslide areas in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys during a break in the rains Tuesday.

In Woodland Hills, Los Angeles Street Maintenance Bureau workers and Bureau of Engineering technicians kept watch on a mudslide that began buckling a stretch of the 4800 block of Cerrillos Drive on Sunday. The slide had broken slabs of pavement and raised them about 8 feet above street level.

“I’ve been around 20 years and I’ve never seen a slide damage a street like that,” said Neil Spiva, superintendent of the maintenance bureau in the West Valley.

Parts of the hill are owned by the Thompson Group Limited Partnership, which developed several surrounding parcels in 1988. Greg Thompson, a partner in the firm, said he is unsure of what caused the failure and who is to blame.

“I don’t think anybody can know what’s next until geologists finish examining the slope,” Thompson said.

The partnership will have to fix the street if most of the slide occurred on their property, city officials said.

Other slides and flooding also closed several major streets and highways around Los Angeles County, with no scheduled opening dates.

“Our crews are very busy,” said Bob Hayes of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works. “There are even more problems out in the Valley because of hills.”

Spiva said he sent out 28 workers throughout the West Valley on Monday just to clear mudslides.

It will probably take the crews five to six days to clear the mud, he said. The 12 workers patching potholes in the West Valley hope to fill major holes in two to three days.

“During the rains, we can’t make repairs,” Spiva said. “The break is a chance to catch up for us.”

The East Valley also sent out shovel-toting armies to deal with mud and potholes, but flooding was the biggest problem in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, maintenance supervisors said.

Those areas “just don’t have the same drainage systems as some of the more urban areas,” said Jean Granucci, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

Granucci said one of the major stretches of road affected in the Antelope Valley is Sierra Highway, where 200 feet of roadway were broken and damaged in the storms.

The highway--closed from Davenport Road to Agua Dulce Canyon Road--will probably reopen by Thursday at the latest, she said.

Flooding Closures

Several highways and roads in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys were closed due to flooding, landslides and damaged pavement Tuesday morning. Roads in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys listed below will remain impassable for several days. Some roads in the San Fernando Valley are only partially blocked.

Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys

* Placerita Canyon Road, from Sierra Highway to Sand Canyon Road in Santa Clarita.

* Avenue M, from 100th Street East to 110th Street East in Palmdale.

* Avenue N, from 10th Street West to Sierra Highway in Palmdale.

* Palmdale Boulevard, from Longview Road to 150th Street East in Lake Los Angeles.

* 50th Street East, from Avenue E to Avenue H in Roosevelt.

San Fernando Valley

* Intersection of Orovista Avenue and Big Tujunga Canyon Road in Sunland (total closure).

* Haines Canyon Avenue, from Estepa Drive to Mistletoe Road (total closure).

* Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel at Mulholland Drive in Sherman Oaks (partial closure).

* Intersection of Mulholland Drive and Woodcliff Road in Sherman Oaks (partial closure).

* Intersection of White Oak Avenue and Plummer Street in Northridge (partial closure).

Sources: Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, Los Angeles City Board of Public Works