Slide, Winds Take Heavy Toll on Homes : Storms: Collapse of bluff destroys five houses in San Clemente.

Bluff-top homes in San Clemente lay crushed and battered by an overnight landslide and cyclonic winds ripped through a residential area near Azusa as another storm lashed Southern California with powerful winds and heavy rain Tuesday.

Five of the houses in San Clemente were destroyed and four more were in danger of collapse after a rain-soaked cliff gave way beneath them and slid onto Pacific Coast Highway on Monday night, flattening power poles and burying a 100-foot section of railroad track used by Amtrak.

Officials said the heavily traveled Los Angeles-to-San Diego commuter line will be shut down at least until Friday.

In the Azusa area, the winds struck shortly after noon on Tuesday, damaging 12 homes between Glenlyn Drive and Alosta Avenue. Carports were shredded, tiles were peeled from roofs, trees were uprooted and power lines were severed.

“It was just like a mini-tornado, if you know what that’s like,” said Mary Oriti, who was visiting her mother’s home on Traymore Avenue.

In Sacramento, state officials conceded that--after weeks of rain--California’s prolonged drought is “essentially over.”

“There should be a statement within the week from the governor’s office, or from David Kennedy, the director of water resources, declaring that the drought is officially over,” said Dee Davis, a spokesman for the state’s Drought Information Center.

Residents of the 2800 block of La Ventana in San Clemente said they fled as the ground under their ocean-view homes in the exclusive hilltop neighborhood started to give way at about 10:45 p.m. Monday.

“It sounded like a cross between a bomb and an earthquake,” said Diane Ward, who lives across the street from the homes. “The glass was cracking, and wood was popping for at least 15 minutes.”

Geologists said it was hard to predict whether there would be more damage from rain that is expected later this week.

“We’re still trying to assess the damage,” said geologist David Peters. “Rain certainly wouldn’t help the picture.”

The buried section of Pacific Coast Highway, across the San Clemente border in Dana Point, has been closed by that city since Jan. 16 because of the threat of a landslide. After a small slide occurred in the area earlier this week, geologists warned residents that the bluffs might collapse. Two of the homes on La Ventana were evacuated several weeks ago.

“My geologist told me this has the potential to be the biggest slide ever (in San Clemente),” said Peter Shikli, who lost about half his home Monday night.

The pile of dirt, rocks and concrete that slid down the cliff loomed ominously Tuesday above the beachfront home of Lana Schaefer.

“We heard it all come down last night, but it wasn’t until we woke up at dawn that we saw all of the devastation,” she said.

Families left homeless found shelter with neighbors and relatives or moved into a hotel offering free rooms to slide victims.

Trains serving about 5,000 daily rail commuters will be halted by the slide, Amtrak officials said.

On Tuesday, most northbound commuters were provided shuttle bus service, said Clifford Black, Amtrak’s director of public affairs in Washington. He said the shuttles will continue in both directions until rail service can be restored, probably about Friday.

No one was hurt when the whirling winds touched down in the unincorporated area east of Azusa and cut a path northeast toward Glendora. The winds tore the carport roof from a house on Glen Lyn, spreading debris across several neighbors’ yards.

“I heard a whoosh, and then everything went dark,” said Thain Hanaford , owner of the house, who was inside at the time.

Kurt Jacobsen, who lives across the street, said he “heard a rumbling like a train, and then I look out the window and saw Thain’s carport roof being tossed into the air.”

Tom Merill, who lives nearby, said he ran outside when he heard the noise.

“The whirling wind was 150 to 200 feet wide and sucked up stuff as much as 200 feet in the air,” he said. “The clouds were low, but there was no funnel cloud.”

About seven blocks to the northeast, in Glendora, a 50-foot redwood tree toppled onto three cars in a restaurant parking lot. Doug Stacey, the restaurant’s general manager, said one car was severely damaged, but the other two were drivable.

In La Canada Flintridge, four boys who went rafting in a rain-swollen creek were pulled to safety by Los Angeles County fire rescue crews. The boys were reported in the wash along the 5200 block of Gould Avenue about 4:20 p.m., said county Fire Inspector Jack Pritchard.

In Sacramento, drought spokesman Davis said that with rainfall at 200% to 300% of normal for the date in Southern California, and 135% of normal for the date in Northern California, “the drought is essentially over, as far as we are concerned.”

Davis said the most important precipitation figures are for the northern half of the state, which provides the lion’s share of water used in California.

The near-record depth of the Sierra snowpack is particularly significant because runoff from the melting snow provides much of the water funneled south through the California Aqueduct to the major population and agricultural centers of Southern California.

In downtown Los Angeles, the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered public works officials to take immediate action to reopen a stretch of Sierra Highway that has been washed out in Mint Canyon, near Acton.

The road is a heavily traveled commuter route that should be reopened “as soon as possible,” Supervisor Mike Antonovich said.

In Tujunga Canyon above Sunland, about 35 homes were cut off when Orovista Avenue was washed out by the rising water in Tujunga Wash. Residents could still traverse the area with four-wheel-drive vehicles along a rutted fire road, but repeated mudslides severed waterlines and buried yards, authorities said.

South of San Diego, the flooded Tijuana River has caused a resurgence of mass sprints by Mexican immigrants across the border into the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, officials said.

More than 30 people charged en masse through the Mexican customs station and onto the freeway Monday after about 150 had done the same thing on Saturday, said U.S. Border Patrol commanders, who met Tuesday with Mexican diplomats and the California Highway Patrol to discuss the problem.

In Ventura County, officials said that more rain could cause serious erosion in the Piru area, where Piru Creek has come out of its banks to threaten several homes.

County flood control teams have been digging a channel in the middle of the stream bed and reinforcing the banks with hundreds of tons of rocks in an effort to head off further erosion.

Dean Jones, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said skies will be partly cloudy in Southern California today and Thursday, with increasing clouds Thursday night and a chance of more rain by early Friday morning. He said there will be rain through the day Friday, with scattered showers Saturday.

Officials said 0.46 of an inch of rain fell at the Los Angeles Civic Center between 4 p.m. Monday and 4 p.m. Tuesday, raising the season’s total there to 23.58 inches. Normal for the date is 10.37 inches.

Contributing to this story were staff writers Len Hall and Frank Messina in Orange County, Maia Davis in Ventura County and Sebastian Rotella in San Diego County.

WHAT’S NORMAL? A century of rainfall data shows Southland rarely hits the average. B1