New Toll of Latest Storm: 2 Dead : Rain: In Tijuana, two unidentified men are killed as they try to cross flooded arroyos. More homes threatened by mudslides.

Despite picture-perfect skies for most of Saturday, the latest of the week’s storms took a heavy toll as two people drowned in Tijuana and hundreds of Southern Californians worried whether their homes would survive looming banks of mud, charging rivers and floodwaters that stubbornly continued to rise.

The latest storm only dropped 0.97 of an inch of rain at the Los Angeles Civic Center late Friday and early Saturday. That was far less than forecasters had predicted, but brought the three-day storm total to 3.3 inches and the season total to 22.31--more than 12 inches above normal.

So much water has poured into Los Angeles-area reservoirs in the last few weeks that the Army Corps of Engineers announced Saturday that it was releasing water from 13 county dams. Engineers warned parents to keep children away from storm channels after three teen-agers were rescued from threatening waters late Friday in La Puente. The youths “basically were just fooling around” when they became trapped in a storm drain, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy John Voza said.

John Squier of the Los Angeles County Emergency Operations Center also warned residents to stay out of flood control channels because the County Flood Control District and Army Corps of Engineers would be “bringing the (water) level down” behind local dams for several days.

Southern Californians attempted to make the best of their moment in the sun Saturday. Joggers hit the streets again and homeowners flooded hardware stores seeking roof sealant. Street vendors traded in tropical fruit bags for umbrellas.

“It’s going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights, buy your umbrellas now!” Jose Martinez Perez, 30, shouted Saturday to passersby on Broadway. “Good thing about umbrellas,” he confided to a reporter. “They don’t go bad like oranges or bananas or peanuts.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of homeowners in some of the county’s most scenic areas continued to live in fear that if Saturday’s storm did not finish off their homes the next one--expected to arrive late Monday--may.

“It’s some of the worst damage I’ve seen in the 30 years I’ve been here,” said Fire Battalion Chief Chuck Merriman of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, referring to widespread damage throughout Los Angele County’s western residential areas.

In an exclusive area of Spring Valley Lake outside Victorville, six houses were evacuated Saturday morning after the Mojave River changed course and moved 50 yards west. The river washed out the back yards of all six homes and a room on one house fell into the surging waters.

“It’s somewhere down toward Barstow now,” said Bill Peters, spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

With emergency crews attempting to divert the river, a second room was dangling over the river Saturday afternoon as television helicopters circled above, hoping to capture footage for evening news programs.

In Tijuana, where last month’s disastrous storms left 32 dead and forced 10,000 from their homes, two unidentified men were killed when they attempted to cross flooded arroyos, said Alfredo Escobedo, who coordinates the city’s civil protection efforts. One of the dead was a 70-year-old man on crutches. The other was 24 years old.

In Canyon Country, the back-to-back storms meant one disaster after another for resident John Muskavitz. First, a swollen torrent in an usually dry riverbed snapped the water pipe in front of his home, then the gas line broke. Out back, a creek sent mud flowing toward his house. An initial attempt to flee landed him in the raging water. Upon returning home Saturday, he found his home and Jacuzzi intact but his septic tank was 2,000 feet downstream.

On the Westside of Los Angeles, three homes were seriously damaged in Mandeville Canyon, one of them owned by a couple vacationing in the Bahamas. Nine other homes remained in peril in Pacific Palisades on Saturday after recent rains eroded the cliff-side homes so much that they had to be evacuated.

Retired real estate salesman George Lerner watched from his deck as the sun set over the Pacific and said he feared that he will soon be forced to leave too.

“This is the place we want to be able to live the rest of our lives,” he said. “Look at the view we have!”

But on the street above him, three houses had been declared unsafe. On the slope below, plastic strips glistened in the waning light. “We stayed with our children last night,” he said. “We may stay in a hotel tonight. . . . God knows how long this hill will remain stable.”

In Riverside County, Lake Elsinore continued rising slowly but ominously even as puffy white clouds scudded across the skies.

Chris Hryze, 20, a park attendant who has worked at the lake for four years, said there was about 12 feet of water in the lake last fall. Now it has consumed campgrounds, telephone poles and a fishing peninsula.

“There’s not much park left,” he said sadly. “I’m still hoping I have a job.”

In northern Los Angeles County, a 12-mile stretch of Sierra Highway between Saugus and Agua Dulce was strewn with toppled telephone lines, bits of fence, trees and cars buried in mud. “It’s a disaster,” said Bob Jezek, a county heavy equipment operator who had been using a skip loader to clear mud. County workers estimated it would take crews at least three weeks, working around the clock, to reopen the road.

Meanwhile, in Orange County, the Federal Emergency Management Agency office in Anaheim, which had been helping homeowners in the mudslide areas of Anaheim Hills, was closed 6 p.m. Saturday. The San Clemente office will close tonight at 6.

Times staff writers Laurie Becklund, Jeffrey L. Rabin and Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.