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State Reels From Storms; 6 Die, Bridge Collapse Cripples I-5 : Weather: Latest destruction reaches from Big Sur to Orange County. Nine-mile stretch of interstate is shut; officials continue search for six motorists who plunged into raging creek.

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The storms that have barreled across California for several days turned deadly at week’s end, killing at least six people, leaving six more missing, flooding vast tracts of farmland, forcing hundreds to flee their homes and shutting a section of the state’s major north-south freeway, as the first front finally made its belated push into the Southland on Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Two deaths were confirmed and six other people were missing after a bridge on Interstate 5 near Coalinga collapsed, spilling at least four cars into a raging San Joaquin Valley creek.

In several Southern California communities, residents made harrowing escapes as brown floodwaters surged into their homes. Malibu was the hardest hit locally, as dozens of houses were flooded along Pacific Coast Highway, which was closed under a mountain of mud and rock.

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The destruction covered a broad swath from Big Sur to Orange County:

* Streams breached the California Aqueduct in two places in the Central Valley, as farmers and government workers pumped frantically to keep the vital waterway intact.

* The collapse of Interstate 5 near Coalinga, which will not be repaired for at least six weeks, was the most dramatic fissure in a badly shattered road and highway system.

* Extensive flooding of farmland flushed strawberries onto Ventura County beaches and damaged almonds and asparagus elsewhere--prompting predictions of higher produce prices in supermarkets.

* More than 2,000 people were evacuated from the town of Pajaro near the border of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and another 1,500 people in Big Sur and Carmel Highlands were virtually cut off from the rest of California--with limited electricity, phone service and water.

* By Saturday night, 38 California counties had been declared disaster areas.

Inch-an-hour rains unleashed the destruction. As much as seven inches fell in some places, in a state already soaked this year with almost double the normal rainfall.

“The storm was just horrendous out here,” California Highway Patrol spokesman Al Galvez said in Coalinga. Wearily eyeing more sheets of rain on the horizon, he added: “That is not a pretty picture.”

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While thundershowers continued in some areas through Saturday night, Southern California is expected to get a reprieve today and for the foreseeable future. Another storm front will arrive in the state Monday, but it is expected to remain mostly in the north and pack less power, forecasters said.

“This looks like the last shot, then it should be dry for an extended period,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

It was at an unremarkable bridge in rolling farm country that the devastating I-5 collapse occurred.

About 9:20 p.m. Friday, the columns propping up the giant freeway could no longer sustain a pounding from normally tranquil Arroyo Pasajero Creek. Boulders, uprooted trees and mud battered the columns until at least five gave way. When they did, two lanes that travel in each direction disappeared.

At least four cars hurtled off the roadway and into the brown water, although an exact count was difficult because of treacherous conditions and because the creek bed has for years been a dumping ground for abandoned cars.

One man was able to pull himself from the wreckage of a car and into a tree, where he waited for rescuers. Two bodies were spotted in one capsized car, but the floodwaters were too swift to retrieve them. The search for other survivors was apparently in vain.

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A Fresno County sheriff’s helicopter fired flares into the darkness Friday night at the site but could not find anyone, including two waitresses and a cook from nearby restaurants who were reported missing.

“There is no way to save a life, not as this stage,” said Sgt. Jim Hamilton of the Fresno County sheriff’s search and rescue team. “This is not a rescue operation anymore, it’s a recovery mission.”

A Caltrans official who surveyed the damage said the highway, the main line from Los Angeles to San Francisco and points beyond, would be out for at least six weeks. Traffic will be forced to either detour around a nine-mile stretch of the closed freeway or be rerouted to U.S. 99 or U.S. 101, which is nearer the coast.

Dave Crockett, a foreman at TCI Truck Leasing in Los Angeles, said the closing of I-5 is “going to crucify us,” creating a major disruption for his company and other shippers.

Farm officials said the latest rains would add to a troublesome year, particularly for almonds in the northern Central Valley, asparagus in the Sacramento River Delta and strawberries in the coastal farmlands south of San Francisco.

Clark Biggs, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation, said crop damage will probably mean higher supermarket prices for lettuce, tomatoes and some other vegetables and fruits, at least temporarily. “In some cases you’ve got trees that have been destroyed and in others the wet ground means farmers will be disrupted in getting to the fields,” he said.

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Along the California Aqueduct near Coalinga, officials said they had controlled two breaks where creeks overflowed into the waterway, which carries water from the Sacramento River Delta to Los Angeles.

Much of the excess water was to be pumped into the aqueduct by farmers and then out again more than 100 miles to the south to prevent an overload. The tens of thousands of acre-feet of water came from salt- and pesticide-laden land. But Jay Malinowski, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California said the breaks posed no health danger.

The deaths in Coalinga were the largest single tragedy, but others came with a terrible variety in a 200-mile storm swath from the Central Valley to Pasadena. A transient was swept out of his makeshift home near a Van Nuys storm channel; a driver in Pasadena careened off the slick Pasadena Freeway into the Arroyo Seco channel; a judge was washed out of his Santa Barbara home as he and his wife fought water from a swollen creek, and a teen-ager who had been visiting a camp in the Los Padres National Forest drowned when a van in which she was traveling failed in its attempt to ford a creek near Santa Ynez.

Other destruction was widespread:

Big Sur and Carmel Highlands had only one small mountain road to connect them to the outside world after a bridge over the Carmel River on California 1 washed out and mudslides closed Pacific Coast Highway more than 20 miles to the south.

A Red Cross worker said it will be more than a week before road access to the region is restored. For at least part of Saturday the only communication into the areas was via ham radio operators.

Dr. Philip Miller of Big Sur found himself enlisted in relief efforts by the local fire chief, whom he happened to pass on the road. Miller said volunteers were prepared to make a dramatic run via inflatable powerboat to Monterey to fetch medicine. “We are going around the horn,” he said.

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One entrepreneur found opportunity amid the chaos, stopping by with his helicopter, en route to an air show, offering to ferry passengers over the washed-out bridge at $30 a head.

Farther north, the massive evacuations in Pajaro came when the river of the same name overflowed its banks, flooding a mile-wide area with up to three feet of water. Some residents of the low-lying town who refused orders to leave were rescued Saturday by boat.

To the south in Santa Barbara, administrative law Judge Edward H. Schiff was swept to his death. He had been mopping water from his home when a wave of water from Sycamore Creek crashed through the French doors. Schiff and his wife, Lilliane, were flushed toward the front door. She managed to grab hold of the door jamb and cling to it until firefighters arrived, said Deputy Alfredo Ontiveros of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.

But Judge Schiff was washed away, his body found later, snarled in foliage and trees farther down the street, Ontiveros said. Schiff, 67, was pronounced dead at the scene.

In another Santa Barbara County community, Santa Ynez, a car was trapped in a stream after leaving a church near Camp Cielo in the Los Padres National Forest on Friday afternoon.

A passenger, 18-year-old Rosa Jimenez, climbed onto the hood, but the van lurched sideways and dumped her into the water, which swept her away, said Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Gracie. Jimenez’s body was found downstream Saturday morning.

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Besides causing the deaths, the floodwaters closed the troubled U.S. 101 near Ventura, buckled a river bridge in Ventura and pumped tons of mud through a house in Ojai. And more evacuations were ordered from the seaside village of La Conchita, where nine homes were destroyed last week.

Elsewhere in Ventura County, one family in Oak View barely escaped harm. Randy Lewis and his family first heard a rumbling shortly after 10 p.m. Friday. His 13-year-old son, Justin, was watching television in his bedroom. “I just saw the mud coming down,” the boy said. “It hit the fence and I ran.”

His parents and two siblings also escaped, although their 50-year-old house was demolished and partially buried in mud. “I’m devastated, but I’m thankful,” said Randy Lewis.

In Los Angeles County, the Pasadena motorist and the Van Nuys transient were killed, about 15,000 homes served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power lost electricity and disaster-prone Malibu took another heavy blow.

The homeless man, a Native American in his 40s, had apparently been sleeping in the Sepulveda Basin when he was swept away by waters from a rain-swollen flood control channel.

Groundskeepers at Woodley Golf Course found the body about 7:30 a.m. Saturday near the 18th hole, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Brad Kubela. “He apparently died from drowning, hypothermia or both,” he said.

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Authorities did not identify the 36-year-old man whose car plummeted 25 feet off the northbound Pasadena Freeway into the Arroyo Seco channel about 5:20 a.m. Saturday. The car landed upside down in the concrete waterway and was submerged when rescuers arrived, said California Highway Patrol Officer Rob Lund. A passenger was saved but the driver died of undetermined causes.

In Malibu, an estimated 100 houses on Pacific Coast Highway were socked in by walls of mud, mixed with rocks, tree trunks and gnarled root balls. The debris washed across the highway when Tuna, Pena and Big Rock creeks overflowed.

Several residents had to flee over their roofs as water lapped at their front doors. Garage doors were blown off their hinges, decks collapsed to the sandy beach floor, chunks of foundation gave way and exterior gates crashed under the weight of the debris. The highway was littered with BMWs, Mercedeses and mini-trucks that washed away from their driveways.

Waist-deep mud inundated at least 10 houses, where tennis shoes, computers, teddy bears, couches and stair-climbers were left floating. A 25-foot mountain of rock, sand and dirt covered the highway at Pena Canyon and it appeared that the highway would remain closed through Monday.

Christina Capps, a 20-year resident who lives just west of Tuna Canyon, said she was battered black and blue by debris as she fled through the muck with her two dogs after midnight.

“You decide real fast what is important in your life,” she said.

Near San Bernardino, three young boys were washed away as they rode their bikes through a flood control channel, a California Department of Forestry officer said.

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Capt. Andrew Bennett said officers, responding to a call from a group of apartment complex residents who spotted the boys floating in the channel, fished a 10-year-old and his 14-year-old brother out of the rushing water.

About 20 minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy found the brothers’ 7-year-old playmate in another part of the channel and secured the youngster with rope, Bennett said. Officials said the three boys were transported to San Bernardino County Medical Center with hypothermia.

Orange County was not spared, with sections of two major roads closed and power cut off to about 13,000 Santa Ana residents, but police reported no serious damage or injuries.

Rain and runoff buckled a portion of busy El Toro Road in Mission Viejo. Authorities closed the street in both directions, creating long traffic delays for motorists Saturday morning. Residents of nearby Portola Hills faced a 20-mile detour to get to and from their neighborhood, but work crews were expected to repair the road before Monday’s rush hour.

In San Juan Capistrano, the storm weakened a bridge on Ortega Highway, closing the road in both directions near La Pata Avenue.

Power poles snapped by 35 m.p.h. winds caused traffic to be diverted from Sand Canyon Avenue--between the Santa Ana Freeway and Alton Parkway--while workers cleaned up the road, Sheriff’s Lt. Jay Mendez said.

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Times staff writers James Rainey and Ron Russell in Los Angeles, Richard C. Paddock in San Francisco, Leo C. Wolinsky in Big Sur, Maria L. La Ganga in Napa, J.R. Moehringer and Thao Hua in Orange County and Tony Perry in San Diego contributed to this story. Correspondents Kathleen Kelleher in Malibu and Tracy Wilson in Ventura also contributed. Arax reported from Coalinga, Respers from Los Angeles and Reed from Ventura County.

* ROAD CLOSURES: Days before Saturday’s storm hit Southern California, Caltrans strategists began making preparations. B1

* O.C. SPARED WORST: Most of Orange County received only 2 inches of rain. A31

* VALLEY SOAKED: Storms kill man, wreak havoc on local roads. B1

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