Southland Learns From Past Disasters : Planning: New radar system, fortified swift-water rescue teams and new culverts help prepare for the worst.

Flood control measures installed after a series of disastrous deluges since 1992 were proving their reliability Tuesday, although it was too early to say whether Southern California would come through the new pummeling on its feet or up to its hips in mud and embarrassment.

With a new National Weather Service radar system that allows forecasters to predict severe flooding more quickly, swift-water rescue teams that are better trained to save people who fall into the swollen flood-control channels, and new construction that corrals nature’s excesses, Southern California was prepared for the worst this time.

The area’s vulnerability to severe weather was exposed when a week’s worth of punishing storms in February, 1992, dumped more than 16 inches of rain, caused seven deaths and $88 million in damage. Flooding last year swamped homes in Malibu and inundated tiny communities such as Pasadena Glen.

The heavy rains also dealt a blow to the reputations of public service agencies who failed to rescue 15-year-old Adam Bischoff of Woodland Hills after he fell into a flood-control channel in 1992. The same storm turned the Sepulveda Basin into an inland sea and stranded motorists on top of their cars.

From the City Council chambers to local police watch commanders’ offices, officials promised that they would not forget the lessons they had learned once the rain stopped falling. And on Tuesday, it appeared that at least some promises were being kept.

The National Weather Service’s new Doppler radar station atop Sulfur Mountain in Ventura County was giving forecasters a richly detailed picture of where the rain was falling and how much. Quicker flash-flood warnings were being issued across the basin as a result of the improved images it yielded.

“We can see the rain before it moves into an area,” said meteorologist Clay Morgan. He said the NEXRAD system is infinitely better than the 1974 system that was in place two years ago.

Morgan expects no more surprise Sepulveda flooding, such as that which stranded 48 people. “That will not happen again anywhere where this radar can see,” Morgan said.

Swift-water rescue teams were out patrolling hundreds of miles of flood-control channels citywide as a result of the Bischoff drowning on Feb. 12, 1992.

Each six-member team, a cooperative effort involving the Los Angeles and Culver City fire departments and Los Angeles County lifeguards, is equipped with small watercraft. Firetrucks have been outfitted with devices to help people in the channel stay afloat.

Fire crews have mapped every mile of the region’s network of flood-control channels. They know which bridges are better than others for rescues as well as locations where it is safe to put a boat in the water.

“I’m the result of Adam,” said Firefighter Jim Goldsworthy, who oversees the teams.

In the rustic San Gabriel Valley community of Pasadena Glen, storm waters, carrying boulders so large they sounded like passing aircraft, tumbled by--but not through any homes.

New culverts diverted torrents of muddy water and allowed residents to finally gain the upper hand on Mother Nature in this community of 38 homes. “This much water and rain last year would have been a disaster. It would have taken out homes,” said Terry McGough, a contractor whose Pasadena Glen home burned down.

In October, two new culverts were completed at a cost of $1.2 million. The money came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and homeowner assessment fees of $500 per household.

The largest culvert can handle about 2,600 cubic feet of water per second, or about three times the amount coming down Tuesday at midday. To residents such as Connie Towne it was a pleasing sight. “I wanted to see the culvert tested,” Towne said. “You get nervous when a jet goes over because it sounds like debris flow.”

“From our experience, this amount of rain should cause flooding,” said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service. “So the credit ought to go to those people who set up those barriers and sandbags.”