1st of 3 Storms Hits; Flooding Called Possibility

The first of three anticipated storms swept over Orange County Friday, causing numerous fender benders, dampening areas recently hit by major flooding and prompting nervous authorities to brace for more heavy rain as early as Sunday.

“Whenever you get three storms in a week you can expect some substantial areas of heavy rain and the possibility of flooding,” said Dean Jones, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc. which does forecasts for The Times. In this case, he said, “the first (storm) wasn’t too bad, the second will be heavier and the third one looks pretty strong.”

The first of the three storms--all of which originated near Hawaii--hit the coast early Friday, depositing rainfall ranging from .13 inch in San Juan Capistrano to .27 inch in Anaheim.

Among other things, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol said, the weather played a role in more than 30 traffic accidents countywide, about triple the usual number for a Friday afternoon. The most serious accident, according to Officer Pete Gustafson, involved three cars and a motorcycle on the southbound Costa Mesa Freeway in Orange and resulted in serious injury to the motorcyclist.

Other reported rainfall on Friday included .16 inch in Dana Point, .18 inch in El Toro, .25 inch in Laguna Beach and .26 inch in Santa Ana.

Jones said the storm was expected to continue depositing scattered showers through this morning, eventually giving way to cloudy but dry skies later today with temperatures in the upper 50s to lower 60s.

Then late tonight, he said, a second storm more powerful then the first is expected to begin dropping rain that could last through Sunday, followed by clouds on Monday and the “final punch” on Tuesday.

“The way it looks right now,” Jones said, “Tuesday could be a very wet day.”

In Laguna Beach, which suffered severe flooding in the January storms, Terry Brandt, director of municipal services, said city workers would be on standby over the weekend in case they are needed for sandbagging and keeping the city’s storm drains open.

One benefit of the rain, Brandt said, is that it is helping to renew vegetation on slopes denuded in the 1993 firestorm.

Bill Reiter, public works operations manager for the county’s environmental management agency, described the county as having been “pretty much cleaned up” since the major storms of early and mid-January and the minor ones in February. “Flood control channels have been repaired to the point (where) they can handle normal flows,” he said.

Reiter cautioned, however, that the hillsides are already saturated. As a result, he said, any storm delivering a lot of water in a short amount of time could cause street flooding and mud flows, especially in the county’s eastern canyon areas.