Storm Brings Little Damage : Fears of Big Mudslides Unrealized, but Rains Cause Traffic Tie-Ups, Accidents

An intense but mercifully swift-moving winter storm swept through the Southland on Saturday, causing mud and water to ooze down canyon roads, but bringing no reports of major damage or injuries.

By 3 p.m., rainfall ranging from one-fourth to half an inch had fallen in many areas of the Los Angeles Basin, and half an inch to 1 1/2 inches had fallen along the coastal mountains, according to the National Weather Service.

In fire-ravaged Malibu, where residents had prepared by piling thousands of sandbags around their homes, rocks and mud slid onto the side of Pacific Coast Highway. On Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, heavy rains pushed water over the sidewalk, forcing store managers to block their front and back doors with sandbags. And in Laguna Beach, a major thoroughfare was shut down and authorities called for the voluntary evacuation of hilly areas considered most prone to mudslides.

Nevertheless, the worst fears of forecasters and residents--that the wind-swept Alaskan storm would trigger major slides on slopes denuded by the devastating brush fires of October and November--remained unrealized. And the forecast called for mostly sunny skies today and bright sunshine Monday.

“We had no problems,” said Bill Armstrong, 78, who spent Saturday morning digging a ditch to prevent water from Las Flores Creek from seeping into the only building of his Carden Malibu Elementary School that was not destroyed in the Calabasas/Malibu brush fire. “We’ll survive at least this flood.”

Indeed, some relieved residents of Pasadena Glen, where 27 of 65 homes were gutted in the brush fires, said Saturday’s rains might prove beneficial by helping newly planted hillside vegetation germinate.

“At the rate it’s coming down, this rain is the best-case scenario,” said Ray Towne, whose home survived the wildfires. “This will help the seeds we planted.”

Nonetheless, 39 families chose to play it safe and voluntarily evacuated their Pasadena Glen homes when the rain hit, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said.

The rains, which hit the Los Angeles area before noon and were most intense by 2 p.m., led to major freeway tie-ups and dozens of fender-benders.

One involved a Channel 2 news van that had been dispatched to Malibu to cover mud streaming down Big Rock Canyon toward Pacific Coast Highway.

As reporter Bill Smith and cameraman Marco Galvez worked on their report, a black BMW driven by Rebecca Louise, 38, of Calabasas slid across the roadway, spinning and smacking into the side of the van.

“I don’t know what happened,” the uninjured Louise explained to Galvez as he pointed his camera toward her after surveying the damage.

County firefighter Steve Linnell, one of several emergency workers who stopped to check on Louise’s condition, had his own ideas. “People never learn,” Linnell said, pointing to the wet, muddy pavement.

In Ventura County, where just over an inch of rain had fallen by 4 p.m., Christmas parades were postponed in Camarillo and Oxnard and mud oozed down the fire damaged hillsides around Thousand Oaks.

Bruce and Barbara Whetstone were in their home when they heard what they thought was rushing water. Looking out the back window, they saw a three-foot-high wall of debris coming through their back yard. “It busted through the dams of hay on the hillside and broke through the fence,” Bruce said.

By the time fire crews came to clear debris from an adjacent roadway, the Whetstones’ yard was filled with six inches of mud, sticks, rocks and hay. The mud got as far as their doorway but spared the home.

Heavy debris also flowed through Pasadena Glen in midafternoon. But, with the roadway closed and houses protected like fortresses behind three-foot-high stacks of sandbags, no damage was reported.

In Laguna Beach, a portion of Laguna Canyon Road was temporarily closed because of flooding. But few residents of the Canyon Acres neighborhood apparently heeded firefighters’ advice to evacuate.

At midafternoon, a Red Cross evacuation center was empty and one worker said the only people who had showed up, a man and his daughter, became bored quickly and returned home to get a basketball.

By 4:30 p.m. in Malibu, the sun had broken through and a rainbow spanned Pacific Coast Highway.

Regardless, wary residents acknowledged that the limited damage from the day’s downpour might prove only a temporary respite.

“Everything looks fine now,” said Gary Silverston, who lives near the mouth of Las Flores Canyon. “But the mountain is absorbing this water.”

“Our day of reckoning is coming,” added the general contractor. “It will probably be in February after about three days of rain.”

Times staff writers Ken Ellingwood, Scott Hadly, Chip Johnson, Jeff Meyers, Andrew LePage and Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.