Powerful Storm Batters Region, Triggers Slides

A blustery arctic storm hammered Southern California with intense thundershowers Thursday night, unleashing mudslides below the fire-scarred hillsides of Malibu that blocked the coast highway and several canyon roads.

Heavy snow fell in the mountains, stranding several dozen motorists on the Angeles Forest Highway and closing Interstate 5 in the Grapevine area. A scramble was on for the last available motel rooms in Gorman as it became increasingly likely that the state’s principal north-south highway would remain closed until sometime this morning.

The Thursday night commute was a stop-and-go nightmare on most Los Angeles freeways, which were clogged with traffic accidents and stalled cars. Despite heavy rains, roads through the Sepulveda flood basin remained open.

An unidentified man, believed to be in his early 40s, was killed about 5:15 p.m. when his car spun out on rain-slicked La Tuna Canyon Road about a mile west of the Foothill Freeway, crossed the center line and triggered a four-car crash, city fire officials said. They said two other men and a woman--drivers of the other cars involved--suffered minor injuries.

Gale-force winds were reported in several areas, and strong gusts shorted out power lines in several areas of Los Angeles on Thursday, cutting electrical service to about 4,300 customers for varying lengths of time.

Fire officials said a small tornado touched down briefly in Santa Barbara, flattening an outbuilding.

Forecasters predicted more severe thunderstorms--with heavy downpours and scattered hail--before the storm begins to ease sometime tonight.

“It’s going to be nasty,” National Weather Service forecaster Debra Rominger said. “It’s a pretty strong one.”

Bruce Thoren, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said as much as three inches of rain is expected to fall in the coastal valleys and along the foothills before the storms move out to the east, probably sometime Saturday.

Thoren said there is a slight possibility of even more rain if the cold storm from the Gulf of Alaska hooks up with a broad band of moisture stretching from Hawaii to Baja California.

“Right now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, but it could,” Thoren said.

The weather service said the storm--unusually cold for this time of year--probably will drop between one and two feet of snow in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains by Saturday night. The snow level in some of the northern ranges is expected to dip as low as 2,500 feet--about the level of the Antelope Valley floor.

In Malibu--where dozens of houses were invaded by mudslides in February after brush fires destroyed scores of homes and stripped hillsides of vegetation last fall--rockslides blocked traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway and on at least four canyon roads leading inland Thursday night.

Most of the slides occurred between 5 and 6 p.m. as heavy rain, sometimes mixed with hail the size of jellybeans, reduced visibility to about 30 feet in some areas. A stream of runoff a foot deep coursed down Las Flores Canyon Road, disappearing into a storm drain at the coast highway.

The rain continued into the night and so did the rockslides. Caltrans crews said they were not sure when they would be able to reopen the PCH, Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Topanga Canyon Road, Big Rock Drive, Las Flores Canyon Road and Tuna Canyon Road.

Many of Malibu’s residents stood watch over sandbag barriers in front of their homes Thursday night, guarding against the possibility of major slides like the ones that damaged homes there last month.

“It’s going to be a long, long night and a long, long weekend,” Kent Knudsen said as he sipped a mug of hot chocolate and gazed balefully at the continuing rain. His house on Pacific Coast Highway was one of those damaged during February’s storms.

“I want to get this trench cleaned out, along with the drain, and then I’ll just do it all over again,” he said. “I just want to keep the mud and water out of the house this time.”

Because sheriff’s deputies would not let traffic through on the PCH, Carole Smith and her 5-year-old son, Shane, had to walk about a mile home in the rain.

“It’s a lovely night for a walk,” she said with only a touch of sarcasm. “I thought about trying to bribe the sheriffs, but I decided not to.”

Sarah Maurice, a spokeswoman for the city of Malibu, said the city had notified residents to prepare for the storm, but added: “We don’t want them to have a false sense of security, because a fire or sheriff official probably will not come knocking on their door to tell them to get out. If they feel they are in danger, they probably are and should just get out.”

Such warnings are old hat in Malibu, where most residents prefer to stick it out.

Michael Spack, who lives midway up Big Rock Drive, was undaunted by the thrashing rain that hit by about 3 p.m.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed, but the city got all the drains in and did some hydro-seeding so I am feeling pretty safe about it,” Spack said.

In the Pasadena Glen area--another neighborhood where disastrous brush fires during the fall were followed my destructive mudslides in February--an improved system of culverts and barricades appeared to be protecting homes from storm runoff Thursday night. The rainfall there was steady but not exceptionally heavy during much of the evening, and the streets were deserted as emergency crews retreated to warmer, drier quarters.

Most of Pasadena Glen’s residents had left their homes Thursday afternoon rather than wait for what many feared would be a renewed onslaught of mudslides.

Barriers were in place in the neighborhood--many heavy, steel-braced wooden walls that county flood control crews had erected to divert the anticipated runoff from the homes and into newly paved flood-control channels.

Jim Paul, a 65-year-old retiree who lives with his dog, Biff, in an 18-foot trailer on the lot where his house burned to the ground last fall, was one of the few who decided not to evacuate on Thursday.

“I’ve lived up here for 37 years,” Paul said. “It gets exciting at times. We get to see a lot of nature, only sometimes nature goes on a rampage.”

Times staff writers Mike Carlson and Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.