Getting City Back in Shape : Cleanup: In Laguna, workers race rainy season to clear storm drains, pull toppled trees from flood channels and prop hay bales along bare hillsides.

Launching a massive cleanup effort, the city has begun the laborious job of clearing debris and stabilizing hillsides in areas that were devastated by fire last week.

Workers have begun hauling rubble from storm drains, removing toppled trees from flood control channels and propping hay bales on naked hillsides.

“There’s just an enormous amount of work,” said Michelle Wamsley, one of about 80 California Conservation Corps workers helping to clear storm drains in the Canyon Acres neighborhood.

The work will resume on Monday, when more than 150 CCC members station themselves in the neighborhoods of Laguna Creek, Canyon Acres and Emerald Bay. Their work will include removing debris and brush, hauling away hazards, clearing culverts and stabilizing soil.

Earlier this week the City Council resolved that Laguna’s condition in the wake of the fire constitutes “an imminent public calamity,” and authorized City Manager Kenneth C. Frankto spend $500,000 to get the job done. City officials are expecting to be reimbursed for most of the expense by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and by homeowners’ insurance companies.

At its meeting Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to approve an urgency ordinance to establish a quick abatement plan so the city can legally bill insurance companies for cleanup work.

Some repair work--such as planting new telephone poles and restoring utilities--began last week almost immediately after the fire, and the pace has quickened in recent days.

On Thursday, so many work trucks clogged Canyon Acres Drive that it was at times impossible to drive through. Mayor Lida Lenney toured the area in the morning, stopping to thank CCC workers for their efforts.

This early phase of the cleanup relies heavily on manual labor. At the end of Canyon Acres Drive, where a creek cuts into the steep hillside, workers hacked down charred trees to size and then dragged them along the creek bed.

“That’s the hard part,” said Bill Tidwell, an arborist for the Orange County Environmental Management Agency’s public works operation. “It’s the only way we’ve got to move it. You can’t get any equipment up there.”

Elsewhere in the city, CCC workers began propping bales of hay on the hillside along Park Avenue above Wendt Terrace to prevent erosion and landslides in the event of rain. And in the Mystic Hills community, the most devastated area, masked workers inspected the rubble along Skyline Drive, searching for hazardous waste, including asbestos-contaminated materials.

Some property owners have continued to sift through the rubble of their homes, searching for anything salvagable. But beginning Nov. 22, workers will start clearing off individual home sites. Property owners will be allowed to clear their own lots before that time if they prefer.

On Wednesday, county workers used a crane to begin leveling chimneys and walls that building inspectors said were unstable. By Friday afternoon, 11 chimneys and seven walls had been removed and 23 swimming pools had been pumped dry.

The city also has retained the Santa Ana consulting firm Woodward-Clyde to create an erosion control and hillside stabilization plan for Laguna Beach, as the firm did for the city of Oakland after the devastating fire there two years ago.

According to a memo released late Friday, the city is considering holding a workshop for residents regarding the need for erosion control on their individual lots.