WEATHER-BEATEN: O.C. DELUGE : Laguna Hammered Again by the Elements : Weather: Residents encounter massive flooding and forced evacuations. Major roads are closed, temporarily sealing off city.

Residents couldn’t believe it was happening again. Laguna Beach was being battered.

This beautiful seaside community was racked again by natural disaster Wednesday, as a fierce rainstorm caused massive flooding, knocked out phone service and forced evacuation of dozens of residents, including 62 children stranded at a canyon preschool.

Nearly two inches of rain fell Wednesday, including a severe downfall that began at 5:28 p.m. and dumped three-quarters of an inch in 30 minutes, said Patrick Brennan, Laguna Beach Fire Department spokesman.

No injuries were reported, police said.

Flooding caused closures of Laguna Canyon Road, portions of Newport Coast Drive, and Coast Highway, temporarily sealing off Laguna Beach.

“We closed the whole city down,” Laguna Beach Police Sgt. Lance Ishmael said from an emergency Red Cross shelter set up at Laguna Beach High School.

Rising waters in nearby creek prompted the evacuation of 62 children from Anneliese’s Preschool, 20062 Laguna Canyon Road. At 6:53 p.m., the children were safely taken to another preschool because rising creek waters threatened to cut them off from help, Brennan said.

In addition, 77 children who were at the Laguna Beach Boy’s and Girl’s Club also were evacuated in buses to a Red Cross shelter set up at Laguna Beach High School.

Vicki Munsell, Boy’s and Girl’s Club education director, said the club’s staff spent the afternoon calming their young charges.

“They were really nervous,” Munsell said, “but we said your parents are coming and not to worry.”

Munsell notified police who then told worried parents where their children could be picked up.

Massive traffic jams causing long delays developed at major arteries leading into the city, as hundreds of residents tried to get home in the evening.

Homeowners in Canyon Acres, whose houses burned in the Oct. 27, 1993, firestorm, survived last year’s floods only to see new construction topple Wednesday from a torrent of water that swept down Canyon Acres Road.

Virgil Blacketer, 67, a Canyon Acres resident who lost his home in the fire, said he had just gotten a new floor built and carpenters had put up wooden wall frames last week.

As Blacketer surveyed Wednesday’s damage, he said, “half of that’s blown down now.”

Blacketer, however, refused to evacuate the trailer where he lives beside the construction site.

At the high school shelter, Pat Hart, 68, sat with a warm blanket over her legs, comforted by her two cats. She was among those homeowners in Canyon Acres who was evacuated about 6 p.m.

For Hart, the experience was all too similar to the 1993 fire and subsequent flooding last year.

“This is beginning to be a bit monotonous,” said Hart, who wanted to stay with a daughter in Corona del Mar but went to the school after police closed Coast Highway.

By 8 p.m., half a dozen residents had taken advantage of the shelter at the high school.

Carmen Escamilla, 40, an assistant principal at Los Alisos Intermediate School in Mission Viejo, got through the roadblocks only to learn from police that her daughter, Monica Duffy, 9, had been evacuated with other children from the boy’s and girl’s club.

In the downtown business district, a river of mud up to six inches deep flowed across Coast Highway near Main Beach.

Among those stuck was Sandy Clark of Newport Beach, who said she had been visiting a friend in town but had the misfortune of rounding a corner on her way home and suddenly finding her car mired in the thick mess.

Not far away, a section of the boardwalk at Main Beach was washed out by the rain and mud, with a crater measuring some 20 feet across. Late Wednesday, broken pipes in the hole were spewing water, adding to the confusion.

Nearby, the Broadway street sign dangled by a strand of wire, its support apparently damaged by the winds and rain.

Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said the problem was worsened by recent grading that occurred in Laguna Canyon for the San Joaquin Hill tollway and from runoff because of the fire-damaged hillside.

Water was coursing down Broadway to Main Beach where waves of water washed over the boardwalk, knocking out an estimated 125 feet of the structure.

“We have probably $200,000 damage out here we’re looking at,” Purcell said. “You couldn’t begin to stand anywhere near it, and we had to close down the town.”

Tractors continued working to clear mud from Coast Highway in front of Main Beach. Workers were also working to clear drains, getting ready for the next deluge. At one point, Purcell said, water was flowing out of Laguna Creek and shooting seven to eight feet into the air.

Times staff writer Len Hall, correspondent Leslie Earnest and photographer Mark Boster contributed to this story.