Alaskan Storm Brings Threat of Flood, Mudslides : Weather: Residents and workers are busy shoring up fire-ravaged areas in preparation for the expected onslaught.

A wind-swept Alaskan storm is expected to slam into Orange County this morning, dropping rain that could trigger mudslides on fire-ravaged hillsides and churning up waves atop unusually high tides that could cause flooding along the coast.

Forecasters said the storm’s visit will be brief but intense, releasing about half an inch of rain along the coast and up to twice that much in foothill communities during the day before moving east tonight.

In Laguna Beach, crews spent Friday handing out sandbags to worried residents and helping to shore up denuded hillsides.

“We’re doing as much as we can do to prepare for the rains,” said Terry Brandt, director of municipal services. “We’ll have our city maintenance workers working Saturday.”

Extremely high tides of nearly seven feet will occur at 6:50 a.m. today and will reach seven feet at 7:30 a.m. Sunday and could push storm-generated surf higher and onto beaches.

“It looks like this will be the first real significant storm of the season in Southern California,” said National Weather Service forecaster Gary Neumann. “There could be a chance that there will be some landslides, mudslides and debris flows.”

Officials warned that the mudslide threat is greatest where the devastating wildfire in October stripped slopes of the vegetation needed to hold soil in place during periods of heavy rain. Although grass seed has been sown in the denuded areas, the fledgling plants have yet to take root firmly in many spots.

The soil is so loose on the charred Laguna Beach hillsides that even a light amount of rain can cause problems, as it did during a relatively mild storm on Nov. 11. More than a dozen homes were flooded and rock slides closed all or parts of three major highways.

Sand and sandbags already have been made available for city residents, Brandt said. In addition, a prison inmate crew from San Bernardino spent the last few days shoring up drainage areas with sandbags, while heavy equipment was used to reinforce dams of hay bales with 3-foot-tall concrete rails.

The storm also will usher in cooler temperatures, with gusty northwest winds. The highs expected today are in the upper 50s to low 60s. At night, temperatures will be in the upper 30s to low 40s in the valleys and upper 40s to low 50s along the coast.

Another storm could be on the way by midweek, said James McCutcheon, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which forecasts weather for The Times.

*

Forecasters said flooding is possible at Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Newport Beach and Sunset Beach. In addition, a combination of astronomical high tides linked with higher waves from the storm could cause serious beach erosion.

Waves off northern Orange County beaches such as Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach and Bolsa Chica may reach 10 feet, forecasters said.

In Seal Beach, residents were provided with sandbags and sand at the city’s public works department, City Manager Jerry L. Bankston said.

In October, Bankston said, the city constructed a 12- to 15-foot berm, to help protect beachfront homes near 13th and 14th streets, where the beach is narrow.

“We are quite concerned with estimates of wave size and winds,” he said.

Maintenance crews will be on standby with heavy equipment, in case the storm causes a breach of the berm, he said.

But Sean Collins, co-owner of Surfline/Wavetrak, a private wave forecast firm in Huntington Beach, said the storm is not expected to cause as much damage as earlier expected.

“Based on the swell direction, we don’t see a significant problem with coastal flooding occurring” today, Collins said. “We need the high tides, the big swell and high winds generated from the storm to all coincide.”