1st Storm of ’95 Hits Southland : Weather: More than an inch of rain falls in some areas. Power is knocked out in Glendale. Snow shuts down the Golden State Freeway.

Residents slid, slipped and sloshed Tuesday through the first storm of 1995, which dumped more than an inch of rain in some parts of Los Angeles, dropped snow in the Antelope Valley and choked off freeway access to Central California.

The first major storm of the winter left Newhall beneath an inch of water and blacked out hospital offices in Glendale before leaving the region by early afternoon.

More than 1 1/2 inches of rain fell in some foothill communities by nightfall, with nearly a foot of new snow reported at some mountain resorts. The San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains reported a heavy frosting of snow.

Forecasters said those totals could double before the complex weather system--which originated off the Gulf of Alaska--finally moves out of the Southland Thursday afternoon. On Tuesday morning, thousands of commuters showed up late and wet for the first workday of the new year. The California Highway Patrol logged more than 250 accident calls on Los Angeles County freeways between 8 a.m. and noon--nearly four times the usual number during dry-weather conditions, Officer Pablo Torres said.

In the San Fernando Valley, 146 traffic incidents--none involving serious injuries--were reported between 5 a.m. and 1 p.m. Two lanes of the eastbound Ventura Freeway were flooded just west of Reseda Boulevard.

And in the county’s northern reaches, where snow fell from Palmdale to Lebec, the CHP closed the Golden State Freeway through most of the morning, escorting some vehicles between Lake Hughes and Laval roads leading into the Grapevine.

The heavy showers put city and county firefighters on alert for floods and mudslides, but no emergencies materialized.

A four-member city swift-water rescue team monitored conditions at Sepulveda Dam Recreation area, the site of major flooding three years ago.

Los Angeles County firefighters were prepared to hand out sandbags to residents in areas affected by the Malibu-Calabasas fires. At the Topanga Canyon station, Capt. Mike Johnson and his crew braced for the worst, which never came.

“We didn’t get so much as a phone call all morning,” Johnson said.

In Glendale, a waterlogged palm branch fell onto overhead wires, triggering a power outage that left 1,500 residents and part of the Glendale Adventist Medical Center without electricity for nearly two hours, starting about 10:30 a.m.

Officials said the medical center’s hospital operates on a different circuit and was unaffected by the blackout, which hit only the center’s administrative offices.

By 5 p.m. Tuesday, .91 of an inch of rain had fallen in Woodland Hills, and 1.04 inches had fallen in Newhall, according to the National Weather Service. Also by 5 p.m., 0.45 of an inch of rain had fallen at the Los Angeles Civic Center by 5 p.m. Tuesday, raising the season’s total there to 2.6 inches. The normal Jan. 3 total for the season, which runs from July 1 through June 30, is 5.16 inches.

Meteorologist Curtis Brack of WeatherData Inc., a company that provides forecasts for The Times, said a new batch of moisture-laden clouds is due to arrive before dawn today. The region faces a 60% chance of more rain, which will increase as another cold front approaches in the late afternoon.

Brack said the storm system, born in the frigid environs of the North, moved south along the West Coast before heading inland with a three-pronged attack.

First, one of the storm’s three moisture-laden arms moved across Southern California before dawn Tuesday, accounting for much of the day’s rain and snow. The second segment began moving inland after nightfall, and the third was due here about noon today.

Brack said skies are expected to clear Thursday afternoon, with mostly fair weather through the weekend.

Times staff writers Isaac Guzman, Chip Johnson and Eric Malnic contributed to this story.