Southland Can Expect More Rain : Weather: Meteorologists say next storms are due by this evening. San Juan Capistrano registers more than two inches of rain in 24 hours.

As Orange County residents braced for a new round of storms expected today, torrents of heavy rain pelted northern California’s wine country on Sunday, boosting rivers to dangerously high levels, activating sandbag brigades and forcing hundreds of residents from their homes.

Officials in Napa and Sonoma counties declared local states of emergency Sunday as river levels crept upward and forecasters warned that rainfall could continue through midweek.

Meanwhile, local emergency shelters remained open Sunday as residents across Orange County struggled through another day of rain, with winter storms brewing over the Pacific expected to lash the Southland later today.

In a 24-hour period ending Sunday afternoon, San Juan Capistrano received more than two inches of rain. Anaheim, Dana Point and Newport Beach were among areas that received more than an inch of precipitation in the same period.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service called for more showers throughout the week, with a 60% chance of rain today and a 70% chance of potentially heavy rain this evening. There will be a 70% chance Tuesday, forecasters said.

“You could see more than two inches on Tuesday,” said meteorologist Curtis Brack with WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times. “This looks like the big last wave that’s going to affect Southern California.”

The storm could also bring the snow level down to the 5,000-foot level on Southland mountains, Brack said.

But the expected precipitation will still measure far less than last week’s punishing storms, forecasters said.

In Northern California, the rain-swollen Russian and Napa rivers reached flood stage at several points Sunday, and the National Weather Service issued a flood warning for both rivers through today.

Officials were paying close attention to the Sonoma County town of Guerneville, where the Russian River, already at flood stage, was expected to continue swelling to 48 feet by this morning, triggering what the National Weather Service called potentially disastrous flooding.

Sonoma County assistant administrator Mike Chrystal said Sunday evening that mandatory evacuations could be called for today.

Amid the downpour, Guerneville 5 and 10 co-owner Andi Dalton switched from unpacking Valentine’s Day merchandise to candles, batteries, lamp wicks and other wet-weather supplies.

“Nobody wants Valentines. They want lamp oil,” reported Dalton, who on Sunday sold nearly 100 bottles of the fuel and all of her supply of batteries.

Up to three inches of rain fell in six hours in the area, and officials worried that flooding in the two counties could approach the devastating levels of February, 1986, when storms wreaked millions of dollars in damage.

“There’s no real letup in sight,” said Bob Benjamin with the National Weather Service in Monterey. “The ground has reached saturation, and everything right now is just piling up.”

In Petaluma, about 250 people were evacuated from a mobile home park and a housing subdivision in low-lying areas near the Petaluma River. And in Calistoga, elderly residents of two nursing homes were evacuated to the nearby fairgrounds.

In Orange County, the American Red Cross, which opened 10 emergency shelters since rains last week, kept two of them open through the weekend.

About 40 people sought shelter and emergency assistance Sunday at an American Red Cross center at Leisure World in Seal Beach, officials said. More than 300 residents had to be evacuated from the Leisure World retirement community last week after storm channel waters spilled into the housing area.

No one sought shelter Sunday at Red Cross’ other site, at Garden Grove’s Rancho Alamitos High School, but Red Cross officials are keeping it open as a contingency shelter.

“The weather report is not looking good for Monday night,” said Jayne Merritt, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross. “If the weather pans out to what it’s supposed to be, we will be there and we will be ready.”

Merritt said about 30 people used the organization’s Huntington Beach service center for emergency information Sunday.

In Fullerton, rain caused part of a roof to collapse on a home on the 1700 block of East Victoria Drive. Fullerton firefighters covered the roof with a plastic tarp, and reported no major damage or injuries.

The Cal State Fullerton campus still had some leaks in buildings, but parking lots did not suffer the flooding that caused them to be closed on Wednesday. Potholes and cracks will be repaired after the rains, campus safety officials reported Sunday.

Most Laguna Beach residents were finally able to use their telephones again after widespread communications problems. Nearly the entire city--about 25,000 people--lost phone service Wednesday, when a flood control channel overflowed and swamped GTE’s central switching office on Broadway, in the downtown area, with mud.

“We had about two to three feet of water in the vault,” GTE spokesman Mike Murray said. By Sunday night, GTE workers had replaced damaged cables and restored connections to the last 300 telephone customers who had remained without service.

In Westminster, power was out in an area of about a half square mile around the intersection of Golden West Street and Bolsa Avenue for three hours Sunday morning, police reported. Six Westminster police officers directed traffic and put up temporary stop signs in the area of the Westminster Mall until Southern California Edison crews fixed a blown transformer.

Huntington Beach police continued to keep all lanes of eastbound Pacific Coast Highway between Warner Avenue and Golden West Street closed due to flooding. Talbert Avenue east of Gothard Street remained closed because of a sinkhole--a 2-foot opening leading to a 6-foot-deep pit. Police on Sunday reopened the portion of Slater Avenue between Golden West Street and Gothard Avenue that had been shut down because of collapsing pavement.

Elsewhere in Southern California, three of four northbound lanes of Interstate 5 were closed at Castaic for about three hours Sunday after two huge rocks tumbled onto the freeway.

In the past week, Northern California has suffered the brunt of the series of storms, with several inches of rainfall in the lower elevations and several feet of snow in the upper reaches of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

On Sunday, sheets of rain battered a wide area of Northern California, where heavy seas were reported from Point Conception north to the Oregon border. Parts of Petaluma were being evacuated late Sunday because of concerns about high tides and flooding in the area.

In parts of Sonoma and Napa counties, the heavy downpour was expected to continue into the evening hours.

“I don’t think we need to bring out the arks yet, but some people in Healdsburg might not agree with me on that,” said Benjamin, Bay Area forecaster for the National Weather Service.

Hazardous conditions had prompted the U.S. Coast Guard to bar ships from entering or leaving San Francisco Bay from late Friday night until early Saturday morning--the first such closing since 1982, Coast Guard officials said. Farther north, strong winds forced a tugboat and a barge ashore at Crescent City early Saturday.

Southland mountains, which enjoyed up to a foot of coveted powder snow and the attendant throng of skiers in last Wednesday’s storm, were largely socked in with fog and drizzle Sunday.

And although there was still plenty of snow at ski areas in the San Bernardino Mountains, most skiers decided to stay dry and at home because of the inclement conditions, said Devra Zandell, a spokeswoman for the Snow Summit ski area at Big Bear.

“There’s a fair amount of die-hards out here, but it’s slow,” said Zandell. On the bright side, she said, the lack of new snow meant that the roads were open and clear.