WEATHER-BEATEN: O.C. DELUGE : Downpour Is One for County Record Books

The drenching that hit Orange County on Wednesday broke records and then some, dumping more than 3 1/2 inches of rain in Santa Ana, where the record had stood at 2.54.

And the drenching was even worse in Seal Beach, where the rainfall measured 4.61 inches in 12 hours, according to Environmental Management Agency records.

“Records are made to be beaten,” said Orange County historian Jim Sleeper, author of a rainfall records almanac. “But this is a little bit early for really hard rains.

A whopping 3.58 inches of rain fell in Santa Ana as of 10 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. That was 1.04 inches more than the previous record set in 1987, Sleeper said.

Elsewhere in the county, San Juan Capistrano received 1.50 inches of rain in 24 hours as of 4 p.m.; Dana Point received 1.00 inch and El Toro .76 of an inch, said Curtis Brach, a meteorologist at WeatherData Inc., which provides weather information for The Times.

The northern part of Orange County endured the bulk of the storm, which began at 4 a.m. Tuesday, but it was not immediately known if the rainfall in individual cities broke records.

“This is a pretty strong storm for this time of year, although it’s normal for the heaviest rainfall in Southern California to be in January and February,” Brach said.

Santa Ana received significantly more rain Wednesday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. than it has so far the entire season, which began in July. Last year on the same date, Santa Ana received no rain, Brach said.

“It’s one big hellacious mess,” Sgt. Dick Faust said. “A lot of our employees have gotten five blocks and just come back.”

The stranded employees were welcomed by the department, which was holding six of their daytime and all of their traffic officers into overtime.

“We told our night shift, which starts at 6 p.m., to go right out and start handling stalled cars,” Faust said.

Faust said the last time the city was as disrupted by torrential rainfall was in 1969. “That was when the Santiago Creek overflowed,” he said.

Satellites showed the eye of the storm was north of Santa Barbara County, said Joe Dandrea of the National Weather Service.

“We’re getting the south end of the storm, and it’s pulling all that moisture with it,” he said.