Massive Cleanup From Storm Damage Continues : Mudslides: Malibu officials announce plans to offer city aid and hire temporary laborers to assist residents.

The coast highway reopened, the broken water main was patched and the homes were returned to some semblance of order Wednesday as the people of Malibu and the work crews who helped them continued the massive task of cleaning up mudslides that invaded the beachfront city.

Cleanup efforts also continued in Altadena and in Cherry Valley, two other communities hit by mudslides when Monday’s heavy rains stripped soil from hillsides denuded in last fall’s brush fires.

Cheered by a second day of perfect beach weather and an outpouring of neighborly support, Malibu residents worked shoulder-to-shoulder with crews from the state, county and city on Wednesday, and the results were heartening.

Traffic flowed along Pacific Coast Highway again after two days of around-the-clock labor to clear it of mud, rocks and water. Workers restored a water main that broke when the earth gave way in Las Flores Canyon, cutting off water service to many homes and adding to the flood. Families finally scraped away enough clotted sludge to find floors, carpets and personal belongings buried two days earlier.

City officials announced plans to hire temporary laborers to help residents clean up, and city staffers handed out flyers offering city aid to victims of Monday’s deluge.

Although the demand for sandbags ebbed with the floodwaters, officials advised residents to stock up for the next rainfall--due in as early as Sunday.

The two dozen homeowners who suffered the worst flooding needed no reminders.

A backhoe scooped what was left of three feet of mud from the garage of Randy Brant’s seaside home on PCH near Big Rock Canyon on Wednesday. Nearby, a pile of mud-covered debris--including a television and large boom box--grew to four feet high.

Drinking a Diet Coke and thanking neighbors who helped him dig out, Brant slogged through the muck in rubber boots and shorts, his exposed legs gray from caked mud.

“We don’t talk to each other that much during the course of the year, but it’s neat how everyone works together during a disaster,” he said.

Brant, a real estate developer, planted an “Open House” sign in front of the mess and, before the coast highway reopened, fashioned a mud tee and drove a golf ball down the middle of the road.

“It hit at 225 (yards) and probably went 390--John Daly beware,” he said, referring to the golfer. “I’m just trying to have fun.”

But what bothered him, Brant said, was that Caltrans first refused to scoop up the mud that flooded his and neighbors’ garages and then made their cleanup more difficult by reopening the highway.

The newly opened highway brought the first wave of sightseers.

Lyle Kaufman, a vacationer from New Hampshire, could hardly believe his luck as he videotaped the Brant cleanup--his second videotaped disaster since arriving here in December.

Kaufman said he had gone on the earthquake ride at Universal Studios the day before the real thing shattered the San Fernando Valley.

“It’s been one thing after another,” he said “I’ve got about 12 hours of video.

He lowered his voice: “I shouldn’t be excited about it, but I am.”

At Cosentino’s, a nursery that had been covered with mud at the base of Las Flores Canyon, life was getting back to normal--just in time for the busy Valentine’s Day trade.

At midmorning, it was virtually the only store open along the closed section of the coast highway.

“If you open the door, you get business,” said owner Jo Cosentino, as she bustled to fill a bouquet order. “We’re tough.”

A short way up Las Flores Canyon Road, tractors scooped up the remaining inch of mud. Pepperdine University senior Greg Vernovage, who had watched his back-yard creek swell to the top of its banks, was relieved that the apartment he shares with two roommates survived again.

“We made it through the fire. We made through the earthquake. We made it through the rain,” he said. “The shack stands.”

In Altadena, where about half a dozen homes suffered relatively minor damage, most of the major cleanup efforts were largely completed by Wednesday afternoon, and traffic was again moving along a street buried when a sandbag barrier gave way Monday night under a torrent of muddy water.

In Cherry Valley, a foothill community in western Riverside County, residents of the Highland Springs Village mobile home park finished scraping the mud from their yards and driveways. Further damage had been avoided when firefighters built a sandbag barrier that diverted much of the runoff into a creek bed.

Bruce Thoren, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said skies should be mostly sunny in southern California for the next few days, except for a few scattered clouds along the coast.

“Along about Sunday night, early Monday morning, there’s a chance of some more rain,” he said. “The way things look right now, L.A. probably will see only a few showers, if that. Right now, it doesn’t look like a big rain event.”