Laguna Beach Again in Recovery : Weather: Storms tore the boardwalk, eroded the beach. City manager blames tollway grading for mud onslaught.

This city began the all-too-familiar process of dealing with disaster Thursday as workers scooped mud from downtown streets while canyon residents prepared for the next storm by beefing up sandbag walls.

One day after muddy floodwaters coursed through the city’s business district, shutting down Pacific Coast Highway and ripping away a chuck of the boardwalk and Main Beach park, City Manager Kenneth C. Frank blamed grading for the tollway in Laguna Canyon for creating the dirt that turned into a mud flow when the rain hit. He estimated the damage at $400,000.

Frank said he will file a claim against the tollway agency and ask the City Council to declare Laguna Beach a disaster area.

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Meanwhile Thursday, downtown merchants forced to close their businesses rinsed or shoveled mud from their stores and hoped to reopen today. About 30 business were shut down Thursday, some because there was no access through the mud, water and debris.

Residents in the vulnerable Canyon Acres community filled potholes and steadied sandbag barricades that were erected after a massive fire in October, 1993, scarred hillsides and prompted earlier flooding and mudslides.

Bob Maul said many of his neighbors have put emergency food, water and blankets in their cars if they have to leave quickly in the next rain, due Saturday. He and his wife, Reo, keep their boots and jackets near their front door.

“You’ve got to be ready to go, we learned that from the fire,” he said. “If we were in bed, we’d just keep our pajamas on and put clothes over them. You don’t waste any time.”

Despite earlier fears that hills denuded by the firestorm 15 months ago would give way in Wednesday’s downpour, Frank said it was the grading for the San Joaquin Hills tollway project that caused the biggest problems.

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Erosion control measures failed at the grading site, causing mud to slide from the hillsides and clog waterways alongside Laguna Canyon Road, he said.

Transportation Corridor Agencies officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Others said Laguna Beach is simply susceptible to flooding.

Until about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Coast Highway--which normally carries about 30,000 cars daily--and adjacent streets were closed in the heart of the downtown, frustrating weary motorists who were guided along alternate routes by police officers.

Laguna Canyon Road, which was closed to outbound traffic early Thursday, also reopened later in the day.

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Despite the closed businesses, downtown streets were alive with activity throughout the day Thursday as hand crews worked alongside bulldozers and dump trucks, seeking to free streets and sidewalks of their muddy burden.

Water gushed from fire hoses extending from the lobby of a downtown movie theater; at a downtown newsstand, magazines and newspapers were caked with mud, along with much else.

“If somebody’s looking for a particular type of magazine and it’s not ruined, we’ll sell it to them,” manager Daryl Krajewski said.

At Coast Hardware, which was flooded with eight to 10 inches of water Wednesday afternoon, workers in boots escorted customers into the store one by one Thursday, so they could buy the shovels, brooms and other cleanup supplies.

Officials said most Laguna Beach homes fared well in the storm; however police received about a dozen calls from residents requesting the Fire Department pump water from their houses.

Other storm-related problems included toppled trees and broken gas lines at the Laguna Beach Animal Shelter.

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But the heaviest damage by far was at the city’s beloved Main Beach, where storm waters gouged a hole about 15-feet deep and 100-feet wide alongside the boardwalk. About 150 feet of the popular walkway itself was also crushed by the storm.

“I’m very overwhelmed because it’s been one thing after another that’s happened here in town,” said one woman, staring at the battered boardwalk. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Hoping to prove the Transportation Corridor Agencies is at fault for this latest calamity, Frank said the city collected mud samples and took aerial photographs of the graded area in the canyon Thursday.

“They went right ahead and graded in the rainy season,” Frank said. “They accomplished their goal, which was to denude the property.”

Canyon Acres resident and city fireman Carl Klass dismissed the idea that the problem was caused by grading in Laguna Canyon.

“That’s politics. They blame everything on that road,” he said, referring to the city’s longtime opposition to construction of the tollway. “This happens to Laguna all the time.”