Storm Misses O.C.; Second on Way : Weather: City workers, homeowners prepare for new threat in areas affected by slides in earlier rains.

While Orange County escaped the first of a pair of powerful Pacific storms Tuesday, anxious homeowners and city workers prepared once again to deal with the renewed threat of mudslides from a second storm expected today.

Light rain is expected this morning, with heavy rain hitting about 4 p.m. and continuing through Thursday, said meteorologist Dean Jones of WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

“The ground is very saturated, so any type of heavy rainfall can lead to significant problems--mudslides and rockslides, that sort of things,” Jones said. “It could turn out to be a pretty messy situation.

In Anaheim Hills, where 46 homes remain evacuated because of an ongoing landslide triggered by last month’s torrential rains, officials Tuesday were preparing for the worst.

City workers were using tar and concrete to seal ground cracks in hope of keeping water from seeping into the saturated soil. Workers also set up sandbags to divert water into storm drains. About 75 pumps will continue to draw water from the slide area, which covers 25 acres.

Throughout south Orange County, city officials and residents also were preparing Tuesday. While some sought sandbags, others installed plastic tarps on hillsides.

In San Clemente, where the storms last month destroyed six homes and businesses and left another eight uninhabitable, officials met Tuesday afternoon to make a list of about a dozen “hot spots” vulnerable to slides and flooding.

“We still have some areas that are subject to some significant problems if we get heavy rainfall,” San Clemente City Manager Michael W. Parness said. “We’re crossing our fingers and hoping that the forecasts we’re hearing won’t happen.”

When it starts raining, city crews will be on standby, and hourly checks will be made in potentially troubled areas, Parness said.

“We’ve been in training for this,” San Clemente Fire Department spokesman Jack Stubbs said. “We plan on getting wet.”

In Dana Point, a stretch of Coast Highway from Camino Capistrano to Palisades Drive remained closed Tuesday because of storm damage last month to homes perched atop unstable bluffs next to the roadway.

“Because of the rain that will occur, we will probably keep it closed this week,” City Engineer Dennis Jue said.

About five other hillsides in Dana Point have been targeted as potential slide areas, although no homes are believed to be in danger, Jue said.

The storm is expected to bring two to four inches of rain along the coast and four to six inches in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains, WeatherData’s Jones said. It is also expected to dump one to two feet of snow at the 7,000-foot elevation.

At a Federal Emergency Management Agency center opened Monday in San Clemente, about 35 people have applied for assistance for damages suffered from Jan. 5 to Jan. 22, according to Maurice Robertson, a center manager with the state Department of Social Services.

Officials expect to keep the Disaster Application Center, located in the Amanecer Industrial Complex at 1015 Calle Amanecer (off Avenida Pico), open through Sunday. The center, which includes representatives of the American Red Cross, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration and Franchise Tax Board, is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week.

Times correspondent Terry Spencer contributed to this story.