Storm-Ravaged O.C. to Receive State Aid : Recovery: Wilson OKs $20 million to fix flood control channels and other work. More rain due today.

Reeling from its bond-induced bankruptcy and a winter storm that took a heavy toll from Garden Grove to Laguna Beach, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Friday asked Gov. Pete Wilson for $20 million in aid to help repair ruptured flood channels, battered roads and cities devastated by up to 6 inches of rain.

Late Friday, Wilson complied, citing widespread flooding and damage from Wednesday’s deluge and declared a state of emergency in both Orange and Los Angeles counties.

The governor’s action came even as Southern California braced for yet another major storm, which was expected to reach the coast today. Although the worst of the weather is expected to hit central and Northern California, Orange County is not expected to escape rain and heavy wind until early next week, officials said.

Even the hint of more rain felt like misery to thousands of Orange County residents, many of whom were evacuated from or suffered damage to their homes, without flood insurance to pay for it.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Shirley Hirschel, 75, one of 29 people at the Leisure World retirement village in Seal Beach who spent Thursday night in a Red Cross shelter and expected more nights in unfamiliar beds over the weekend. “When I heard there was going to be another storm, I started to shake. But what can you do? The damage is already done.”

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Martha Galvick, 71, who stayed Friday at the Leisure World shelter, said she was girding for the weekend’s worst by placing all of her sheets and towels against her door.

“I’m alone. I’m scared. And there’s not a thing I can do,” Galvick said. “We were in Hurricane Agnes in Pennsylvania in 1972. I lost my home. This time, I just thank God for the Red Cross.”

By Friday, it was clear the storm had also delivered a punch to Orange County businesses.

“I’m dead meat,” said Connie Kittipongtonr, whose Beach Liquor store in Buena Park has seen a disappearing clientele because of the flooding. “Maybe I’ll declare bankruptcy just like Orange County.”

As county officials continued sorting out the damage from Wednesday’s storm--which dropped 5.75 inches on Cypress alone, shattering a 1956 record--cities such as Garden Grove, Buena Park, Westminster, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach began calculating losses in the millions of dollars.

Bill Reiter, the county’s public works operations manager, said that about $4 million of the $20-million request is needed to repair four concrete-lined flood control channels that either came apart or sustained major damage. The remaining $16 million would go to individual cities that sustained heavy losses, Reiter said.

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The governor’s emergency declaration provides state financial assistance to help repair and rebuild sewers, roadways, bridges and other public facilities pummeled in the storms. In addition, the state will cover the costs of local emergency operations provided by police, fire departments and public works agencies.

“The Southern California communities that have been hard hit by rain and flooding over the past week have the full support of the state’s emergency services,” Wilson said in a prepared statement. “With this declaration, local governments will be eligible for state assistance and financial relief to cover the costs of responding to these unfortunate acts of Mother Nature.”

The governor’s proclamation also serves as a necessary prerequisite to requesting federal disaster assistance. Wilson directed his Office of Emergency Services to begin assessing the damage to determine if the state should seek a disaster declaration from President Clinton. Federal assistance would include low-cost loans to pay for damage to private businesses and homes with storm damage not covered by insurance.

In Orange County, the city of Garden Grove appeared to have been the hardest hit--in both public and private property losses--as waters from the ruptured East Garden Grove-Wintersberg flood channel crested and overflowed into its neighborhoods.

Countywide, the Red Cross began opening service centers Friday night to counsel storm victims, since fewer than 10% carried flood insurance. The agency provided shelter Thursday night, and will throughout the weekend, to the residents of Leisure World, where 168 homes were declared uninhabitable.

On Friday, the Red Cross appealed to the community for help in its efforts to aid victims of the floods. Officials said the agency is seeking donations of clothing and small household appliances, along with monetary contributions to help defray the costs of its disaster relief operation, which could reach $800,000.

Transportation improved Friday, with all roads reopened except for northbound and southbound Beach Boulevard from Orangethorpe Avenue to Manchester Avenue in Buena Park, according to the California Highway Patrol. Amtrak and Metrolink rail service was restored to normal on Friday, officials said.

But telephone service remained frozen in some areas of the county, with many residents expecting further disruptions over the weekend.

Much of the focus Friday was on preparing for whatever fate awaits the county today and Sunday. The approaching storm was expected to strike hardest in central and northern California, with the heaviest rain predicted northeast of Los Angeles, according to Dean Jones, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc., in Wichita, Kan.

“I don’t think this storm coming in late (Friday) and early (today) will be as strong or as heavy as what you had Wednesday night,” Jones said, “but you should get some good rain out of it, which could lead to additional problems, because the ground there is already so saturated.”

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That’s precisely what county officials and residents were fearing.

“We’re working feverishly,” Reiter said.

He noted that 80 people, including 40 jail inmates, worked Friday to restore the storm-damaged flood control system to at least temporary effectiveness.

The county has enough money in its maintenance fund to do emergency patching of the storm channel system in the wake of Wednesday’s storm, despite its recent declaration of bankruptcy, Reiter said.

He estimated that the emergency work this week, which is designed to hold at least through the remainder of the winter rainy season, will cost the county about $250,000.

The larger expense, he said, will come in the summer when permanent repairs begin.

“So far, we have identified $3 million to $4 million in flood-control (channel) damage,” he said, identifying the problem areas as the Fullerton Creek Channel in Buena Park; the East Garden Grove-Wintersberg Channel in Garden Grove; the Westminster Channel in Huntington Beach; and the Anaheim-Barber City Channel in Westminster.

Reiter said the $20-million estimate applies only to damage to public property sustained throughout the county. If the federal government agrees to declare the storm damage a national emergency, it picks up 75% of the repair costs, he said, while the state pays about 19% and local governments about 6%.

Throughout the county Friday, cities coped in various ways with the storm’s devastation:

* In Seal Beach, residents grieved over their losses, but for the most part, said the damage could have been worse.

Breda Culhane, 18, lamented her favorite furnishings in her water-drenched home.

“I had all new furniture, but I’m just happy nothing happened to me,” she said. “I’m praying the storm won’t come, but if it’s to come, let it come now.”

On El Dorado Drive in Leisure World, Lina Nelson, 74, was packing her belongings and putting them into storage.

“What else can I do?” she said. “Some of my furniture was 50 years old. I was going to have a party (tonight), invite the girls over for some poker and dinner. Now, look at this.”

* In Laguna Beach, where mudslides continue to bring reminders of the 1993 firestorm that inflicted $528 million in damage, merchants in the downtown business district--which ended up under four feet of water Wednesday--spent Friday sweeping out soggy shops.

In Canyon Acres, a tiny rural community where the main street turned into a river during Wednesday’s storm, residents still had sandbags in place that were put up after the inferno of 15 months ago, and spent Friday reinforcing the makeshift barricades.

Elsewhere, many residents and city officials--who promised to seek $400,000 in damages--were blaming the Transportation Corridor Agencies and the recent controversial grading of Laguna Canyon for much of the city’s problems.

The agency is building a 17-mile-long toll road from San Juan Capistrano to Newport Beach through the heart of the canyon, which has become a rallying point for environmentalists.

But Lisa Telles, spokeswoman for the agency, said Friday that Laguna officials are “stretching it” if they suggest that grading the toll road in Laguna Canyon caused the downtown flooding that accompanied Wednesday’s storm.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals slapped an emergency injunction on the San Joaquin Hills Tollway agency two weeks ago, which put a stop to any construction activity on the road that cuts through the canyon.

“We did everything we could under the injunction to minimize water runoff,” Telles said.

* In Cypress, which reported the heaviest rain during Wednesday’s storm, Bill Raymond, the public works superintendent, called it the worst disaster in the city’s history. Officials estimated the damage in the city at $900,000.

“That was the equivalent of a 100-year storm,” Raymond said. “We were lucky we didn’t have more damage.”

Times staff writers Eric Bailey, Leslie Berkman, Nancy Hsu and H.G. Reza, photographer Alexander Garcia and correspondents Bert Eljera, Alan Eyerly and Leslie Earnest contributed to this report.