State Digs Out as U.S. 101 Reopens : Storm: Thousands remain evacuated while rain continues in Northern California. The preliminary estimates of damage rise to $112 million.

By RICHARD PADDOCK and RICHARD SIMON

Jan. 12, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Armed with shovels, rain gear and a fresh federal declaration of disaster, Californians on Wednesday began digging out from the most recent spate of storms as they cast wary eyes to a horizon teeming with more rain-bearing clouds.

Throughout the state--half of which was formally declared a disaster area by President Clinton--residents crept beyond police blockades to glimpse the devastation. The luckier ones, who made it back to homes and businesses, found them filled with mud and debris.

Thousands remained evacuated, and in Northern California rain continued to pummel the sodden earth, raising the prospect of more flooding through the weekend. In Southern California, the rains largely dissipated and forecasters said there probably will be no rain at least until the weekend.

Admittedly premature damage estimates rose to $112 million. The state Office of Emergency Services said $62 million in damage was reported in 12 counties, but several heavily damaged areas, such as Los Angeles County, had yet to make assessments. In Sacramento County alone, damage was set at more than $50 million.

Nevertheless, hopeful signs were emerging. U.S. 101, one of two major north-south arteries in the state, was fully reopened in Ventura in the afternoon, allowing access to previously isolated areas of that county and Santa Barbara.

Government officials from Clinton on down expressed their solidarity with suffering Californians. In an address fed by satellite to California television stations, the President praised the resilient spirit of the state.

“With the earthquakes and the fires, you have shown that you’re a people who can come together in times of crisis, and overcome those crises,” said Clinton, whose declaration of disaster Tuesday night covered 24 counties, from Orange and Los Angeles counties north. “Our Administration has stood with you. . . . We’ll get through this, in good American style.”

Gov. Pete Wilson, opening his second term much as he served his first--overseeing disasters--traveled to Malibu to observe Caltrans crews at work on a weakened bridge.

“I have terrible concerns and deep sympathy,” said the governor, who later raised the number of counties listed as state disaster areas to 34. “Your heart breaks for these folks.”

Across the state, there were these developments:

* The death toll rose to three in Southern California. In addition to a homeless man found Tuesday in the Ventura River, the storm claimed the life of a Marine lieutenant colonel at Camp Pendleton and an 11-year-old boy in Orange County’s Trabuco Creek. State officials said five other storm victims have died in the last week in Central and Northern California.

* In Guerneville, north of San Francisco, one of the towns hardest hit by flooding, the Russian River remained eight feet above flood stage. Many riverfront properties were underwater, but the flood had receded in most of the downtown business district, leaving a slimy layer of silt.

* In Ventura County, which reported the worst flooding in 25 years, more than 230 people spent Tuesday night in emergency shelters and others were stranded in their cars, waiting for the reopening of the Ventura Freeway. “At this point, we’re concentrating on getting people out of the weather and providing them food, water and sanitary facilities,” said Brian Bolton, executive director of the Red Cross’ Ventura County chapter.

* In Malibu, some were virtually stranded in their upscale but decidedly muddy homes, as road closures cut off all but the most roundabout routes to the outside. The Malibu Lagoon Bridge remained closed, limiting access to some areas, but Caltrans crews were working furiously to reopen it.

The National Weather Service said two more storm systems are moving east across the Pacific toward California, and although both are expected to bring more rain to the northern half of the state, Southern California should be spared.

The forecast for areas north of San Francisco calls for rain to continue--off and on, but with no major breaks--through Monday, as the current system moves out and the two new systems follow close behind.

Just 0.56 of an inch of rain fell at the Los Angeles Civic Center in the 24 hours that ended at 4 p.m. Wednesday, raising the total for the season--which runs from July 1 through June 30--to 11.21 inches. The normal season’s total for the date is 5.84 inches.

The victim at Camp Pendleton, Marine Lt. Col. Harry M. Murdock, was last seen alive about 4 p.m. Tuesday as he searched rain-swollen San Onofre Creek for a spot where he and 79 Marines could safely cross during what had been a routine infantry training exercise.

Murdock, 43, was found by searchers at 10 a.m. Wednesday about four miles downstream from where he had fallen into the water, said Lt. Douglas Constant, public information officer at Camp Pendleton.

The 11-year-old Mission Viejo boy drowned in a harrowing attempt with two men to cross Trabuco Creek by rope. Ninety minutes after Cary Dean Burlew was swept away by the violent current, firefighters and swift-water rescue teams found his body in O’Neill Regional Park just east of Mission Viejo.

Across the state, government officials fanned out to assess damage to public structures. In Los Angeles, county public works crews checked 113 debris basins that stop mud, rocks and branches from choking stream channels and sending floodwaters into homes and businesses.

Estimated state highway damage from the recent storms surpassed $2 million, Caltrans spokesman Jim Drago said.

“This is a rough estimate,” he added. “A lot of it (the damage) is still underwater.”

Fifty-three of the Ventura Pier’s wooden support poles have been destroyed or damaged since the storms began Jan. 3. In Port Hueneme, the sagging pier dropped another 12 inches; 38 pilings have been lost during the past week’s series of storms.

The state’s agricultural industry worried that storm damage would increase prices at the market.

“Heavy rains have caused fits for the state’s avocado, orange, strawberry and vegetable growers who are now harvesting crops,” the California Farm Bureau said in a statement.

Reports of damage ranged from drowned livestock to uprooted almond trees and swamped strawberry fields, the farm bureau said. In Ventura County alone, agricultural damage was set at $22.7 million.

Throughout the state, the damage--financial and emotional--from a week’s worth of violent storms became abundantly clear as those evacuated during the height of flooding returned to their devastated communities. At least 2,830 people remained in shelters and untold others were staying with friends and relatives, the Red Cross said.

In Guerneville, trees along the riverfront were festooned with debris--picnic tables, household furniture, tires, even a portable outhouse--that had been deposited there by the flood before the water level started to drop. Water and gas service were out and electrical service was spotty at best.

Most of the business district was still a ghost town, but Perry’s Delicatessen was open for business. Customers were lined up in front as Leslie Tait peddled beer, candy and cigarettes through the front door.

“I usually drink imported,” Lief Jensen said. “But at this point, it doesn’t matter.”

Suzy Feehery, a determined woman in her 40s, owns the other delicatessen in town, Midway Deli. Her house is a couple of blocks downstream, and she watched in horror late Monday as goods from her ravaged store swept by her home.

“I could see the bottles of beer, bags of chips and loaves of bread floating by,” said Feehery, who was back at her store Wednesday to clean out the place.

Almost everything in the store had been rearranged by the flood--the tables, the chairs, the microwave, even a small stage. Only a massive pool table, weighted by its slab of slate, remained in place. A wall cabinet was intact, but the wine glasses in it--formerly empty--were half-filled with muddy water.

In Rio Linda, near Sacramento, 150 houses were flooded and water in some areas remained as deep as 10 feet because nearby rice farmers pumped water off their fields to save the crop.

Scores of people were evacuated there late Tuesday. National Guard troops and local emergency crews evacuated one elderly man, a double amputee, at 2 a.m.

Nearby in Roseville, swollen Dry Creek and Linda Creek had receded enough for 300 residents to return home. They found living rooms and kitchens filled with mud and garbage and parts of trees. State forestry workers cleared the creeks of debris in preparation for another deluge.

The city was offering $500 grants to flood victims and five-year loans of $5,000 at no interest.

After sustaining the heaviest rainfall in its history Tuesday, Santa Barbara awoke Wednesday to find formerly quaint State Street looking like a river bottom. Two cars were buried in the mud at U.S. 101. Beaches were covered with smelly silt and debris.

By Wednesday, more than 12 inches of rain had fallen in town, washing mud, branches, fruit and leaves down from the hills and onto city streets.

As many as 500 homes--most in the working-class area on Santa Barbara’s lower east side--were damaged or destroyed by the powerful onslaught.

In neighboring Ventura County, crews worked frantically to clear away mud and debris that had blocked the Ventura Freeway. The southbound lanes were opened late Tuesday and the northbound lanes reopened at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.

Hundreds of truckers and other motorists stranded in Ventura had anxiously awaited the all-clear signal after spending a cramped night in vehicles on freeway on-ramps and side streets.

As floodwaters that turned the Ventura River into a rampaging force receded, Ventura police tried to block transients from returning to their river-bottom camp. It was from the swamped camp that at least 10 people were plucked by helicopter Tuesday morning when floodwaters blocked their escape to higher ground.

One man, identified as William Lee Shubert, 31, formerly of Camarillo, died in the river.

City officials vowed to block any effort by the homeless riverbed residents to re-establish their camp. “Reality is upon us,” said Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures.

Despite police patrols, a few of the 200 river dwellers managed to slip back to retrieve possessions that had not been swept downstream. A five-year resident, 32-year-old Patrick Haskett, loaded his things onto a handcart Wednesday morning.

“This is what I managed to save: My clothes, my Thermos and a little dog food,” said Haskett, who was staying with friends in Saticoy.

Malibu was growing used to disaster, after 1993’s devastating fires and subsequent gully-washers. Caltrans crews hoped to reopen part of the Malibu Lagoon Bridge by nightfall Wednesday.

The bridge, built in 1935, had been scheduled to be replaced in the next year.

Some residents--accustomed to trying to get around barriers erected by both nature and man--found ways to commute to work. And some just stayed home.

“We’re trapped at this point,” said Barbara Casey, a Point Dume resident who owns a Santa Monica-based public relations firm. Casey was spending her second day working out of her home.

“We’re landlocked,” said David O’Malley, a Malibu Colony resident. “We can’t get out of here in any convenient way. I’m left to try out the so-called home-office concept for the first time.”

O’Malley, who spent 3 1/2 hours driving from Dana Point to his Malibu Colony home Tuesday night, lost his house in Las Flores Canyon in the 1993 fire. But he has no plans to leave Malibu.

“It’s a good place for us to be living . . . we think,” he said.

Further south, officials in bankrupt Orange County said they will be forced to seek advance payments from the state and federal governments before they can arrange for crucial storm-related repairs.

Staggered by its financial problems, the county is unable to guarantee vendors and suppliers that it can pay for necessary repairs to flood control channels and other facilities, officials said. And without such assurances--in writing--many contractors have told the county they are unwilling or unable to perform the work.

“They’re gun-shy right now and I can’t blame them,” said Rick Schooley, supervisor of planning, scheduling and procurement for the county’s public works operations. “A lot are just reluctant to deal with us, understandably.”

The latest rains sent a river of mud-laden water into downtown businesses in Laguna Beach, where people struggled Wednesday to dig out. Several said they hoped to persuade city officials to prevent a similar occurrence in the future, perhaps by cutting a culvert through Laguna’s popular Main Beach Park to allow floodwaters to reach the Pacific more easily.

In the Inland Empire and areas east of metropolitan Los Angeles, heavy rain continued to fall Wednesday, fouling traffic and forcing the release of 1,550 cubic feet of water (700,000 gallons) every second through the Cedar Springs Dam at Lake Silverwood and into the Mojave River.

In Beaumont, walls of sandbags up to five feet high stood to protect structures downtown. The water came off hillsides burned in the Cherry Valley fire of October, 1993.

San Bernardino fire crews, meanwhile, said they have given up the search for a person reportedly seen struggling in a raging flood control channel Tuesday afternoon. Authorities south of the area where the person was believed to have been seen clinging to a bicycle had not found a body.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Rain Gauge

Downtown Los Angeles has already received almost two-thirds of its average yearly amount of rain.

Cumulative Civic Center Reading Annual Average: 15.0 Jan. 3: .45 Jan. 4: 2.48 Jan. 5: 3.69 Sat.: 4.64 Sun.: 5.36 Mon.: 5.51 Tues.: 8.50 Wed.: 9.06 *