THE CALIFORNIA DELUGE : Downpours Drive O.C. Firms to Allow Workers to Leave Early : Weather: From sandbags to letting support staff work at home, many businesses open to public had prepared for this week’s rains.

Fearing that floods or mudslides would make major roads impassable, many companies in Orange County sent employees home early Tuesday, adding to traffic jams on freeways already slowed by the driving rain.

The workday started off typically at most companies. “It is pretty much business as usual here,” said Michelle Sweet, spokeswoman for Irvine Co. in Newport Beach, Orange County’s largest landowner. “I’m surprised just how many people are out and about today.”

Hyundai Motor American Inc. had no more absentees than usual at its Fountain Valley headquarters, spokesman Bill Wolf said. A few employees left early because of concerns about flooding in their neighborhoods.

But at 3:30 p.m., as flood waters rolled through parks, creating rivers where none existed before, Hyundai advised everyone to go home, and most did, Wolf said. On Jan. 3, when the first in the series of storms brought several inches of rain, Hyundai shut down at 3 p.m. to enable employees to avoid the rush-hour freeways.

Many businesses open to the public had prepared for this week’s storm. American Savings Bank in Irvine, with 161 branches statewide, sandbagged some of its branches. Some support staff worked at home, said spokeswoman Marsha Mathias, but many of the thrift’s 3,383 employees statewide have to be at the branches to serve customers.

Employees at Downey Savings & Loan in Newport Beach and some of its 54 branches car-pooled to work to help avoid freeway congestion. The biggest problem appeared to be at its Torrance branch, where power was lost for part of the day, said Stephen W. Prough, Downey’s president. The branch remained open, however.

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Checking on flooding and road conditions for his employees led Prough to quip: “We may start offering boat loans.”

At accounting firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co., managers kept tabs on weather conditions and road closures to help decide whether to send the staff home. The company dismissed employees in its Los Angeles office at 2:30 p.m. and those at its Newport Beach location an hour later.

“Our human relations manager, after letting everyone know they could leave early if they needed to, got a telephone call from her child’s day-care center in Irvine saying they were flooded out, and she ran out of here,” said Michael Meyer, managing partner of Leventhal’s Orange County offices.

At Hughes Aircraft’s Fullerton plant, employees were given the option of leaving at 3 p.m. Hughes spokesman Dan Reeder said the company hasn’t decided yet whether employees will have to make up the time they missed.

“Obviously we can’t charge the missed time to (government) contracts, so we’ll have to work that out later,” he said. “The overriding issues is whether people can get home safely.”

Pay for missed work was on the minds of some employers. More than a dozen companies called the Employers Group for advice on what to pay hourly employees, said Elizabeth Winfree-Lydon, senior consultant for the Newport Beach management consulting firm.

Hourly employees, absent a union contract, must be paid for actual time worked but not for work missed because of an “act of God,” she said. However, she said that she advised all companies to use their benefit plans to provide vacation time or personal time to cover any missed work and keep the employees whole.

Salaried, or exempt, workers must be paid for the full day, she said.

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Times staff writers John O’Dell, Greg Johnson, Debora Vrana and Ross Kerber contributed to this report.