Wet, Weary and Wary : Preparation: Sandbags are stacked and drains cleared as county braces for yet another storm.

With thousands of sandbags in place and culverts and flood-control channels cleared of debris, Orange County stands braced for another pounding expected today.

“We’ve been working around the clock since last Wednesday,” said Bill Reiter, the county’s public works operations manager. “We’ve had a thorough inspection of all the flood-control channels, assessing the damage and making temporary repairs to get ready for the upcoming storm.”

The full force of the storm is expected between the morning and early afternoon and could cause renewed flooding and mudslides, weather forecasters said. But the storm is not expected to be as intense as last week’s. Orange County residents should prepare for at least a half-inch and up to 2 inches of rain, with possible flooding in low-lying areas. Up to 3 inches of rain are likely in the mountains, forecasters said.

In Laguna Beach, city workers opened an emergency operations center on Monday to track the incoming storm and continued to clear inlets, fill sandbags and make sure storm drains were not clogged.

“Right now I’m really concerned with what we’re seeing,” said Patrick Brennan, a Laguna Beach firefighter inside the city emergency operations center Monday night. “Santa Barbara has areas where they got 4 inches of rain and 2 inches on the coast already. If things continue like that, we can get 2 inches our way, and our canyons and hills are already saturated.”

Hillsides burned in the October, 1993, firestorm continue to cause concern for storm watchers here. Laguna Beach Fire Chief William Edmundson said heat from the fire caused the soil to “crystallize” about eight to 10 feet beneath the surface.

So far, however, city officials say the burned hills have held fairly steady.

Firefighters have been talking with downtown merchants to make sure businesses, some of which were flooded in Wednesday’s storm, are protected, Edmundson said. They are also working to protect the GTE switch room, which was awash in eight feet of water Wednesday, disrupting telephone service in Laguna Beach.

In Cypress, the city has distributed 4,000 sandbags to residents, said Mark Christoffels, director of public works. All of the city’s storm drains have been cleared and repaired, he said.

In Garden Grove, where more than 100 homes flooded and three storm drains were damaged during last week’s storm, residents also piled sandbags.

“I don’t think we’ll have a problem this time because last week’s storm was so unusual,” said Mike Fenderson, the city’s deputy city manager. “We haven’t had a problem like that since 1984.”

Wednesday’s storm combined with high winds gave the county a severe, one-two punch and caused havoc with flooding, mudslides, evacuations and power outages. The widespread damage prompted the Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency.

In Buena Park, the rain flooded 150 homes and caused 2,000 feet of a flood-control channel wall to collapse and a 20-foot hole to develop on Beach Boulevard. City Council members Monday night unanimously ratified a declaration of a state of emergency, allowing federal and state help for emergency repairs. At the same time, representatives from state and federal agencies were in town assessing the damage.

Already, this season’s rainfall is well above last year’s at this time. In Santa Ana, 8.54 inches of rain has been reported, 6.59 of it since Tuesday, compared to a normal rainfall of 4.50 inches.

The American Red Cross of Orange County has two shelters open, one at Leisure World in Seal Beach and the other at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove. Since last Wednesday, the Red Cross has served over 2,000 meals and sheltered 100 people. Eleven people are still staying at the Leisure World shelter.

“We’re monitoring the situation, and other shelters will open if they’re needed,” said Judy Iannaccone, Red Cross spokeswoman. “We have contingency plans for other shelters with trailers near schools in various locations of the county where flooding can become a problem.”

The Red Cross also has opened two service centers, at 5762 Bolsa Ave. in Huntington Beach and at Leisure World, for flood victims needing assistance. A Red Cross mobile team will respond to calls from flood victims in Laguna Beach. And the agency is offering free cleanup kits to all flood victims. The kits, which include such items as a bucket and broom, are available at the two service centers open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

More than 200 of the 6,900 Leisure World residents suffered flood damage. Damage to the retirement community is estimated between $1 million and $2 million.

Officials, however, do not expected further flooding.

“Unless we have five inches in four hours like we did the other day, we should be OK,” said Seal Beach Mayor George Brown, who lives at Leisure World. “I think (the last storm) was a freak thing.”

Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times, said the storm is expected to subside after today, with a slight chance of showers on Wednesday.

The storm already was reported in parts of Northern California where winds neared 100 m.p.h. Monday morning across the highest ridges of the Sierra, and blizzard conditions were reported in some places. Elsewhere, rain mixed with wet snow threatened to produce mountain flooding.

Times correspondents Leslie Earnest, Russ Loar and Lesley Wright contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Recipe for Heavy Rain A vast, oval shaped storm system stretching from the Gulf of Alaska to Baja California is dumping heavy rain and snow along the entire West Coast. *

1. The storm is being intensified by two dierging branches of the high- altitude jet stream winds that are bringing in warm, moist air from the central Pacific.

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2. As the branches diverge, they accelerate and intensify their lifting effect on the moist air below, leading to the formation of storm clouds. *

3. The storm system contains two low- pressure systems, with a cold front a its leading edge. *

Why All the Rain As the air rises, it cools and the moisture condenses, creating the clouds from which the rain and snow are falling. *

Storm Totals For Santa Ana, as of 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9: Season: 8.54 Last year: 1.70 Normal: 4.50 *

From Jan. 3-9, storm totals around Orange County Anaheim: 5.85 Santa Ana: 6.59 Newport Beach: 3.88 El Toro: 4.49 Dana Point: 3.49 San Juan Capistrano: 6.97 Sources: WeatherDATA, National Weather Service Researched by Cecillia Rasmussen / Los Angeles Times