‘Pineapple Express’ Heading Out of Area

After towering over Southern California for three rain-chilled days, the so-called “Pineapple Express” storm is expected to wash out today, but its last gasps created knots of traffic and other hassles across the region Wednesday.

Fed by the rainstorm out of Hawaii, scattered floods spilled over roadways in commercial and residential areas, but environmental risks posed by overflowing storm drains were expected to be minimal, Los Angeles County health officials said.

Mudslides were reported in hilly areas, but caused only minimal damage. At higher altitudes, the storm had coated mountains--and ski resorts--with between 2 and 14 inches of snow by Wednesday afternoon.

Meteorologists predicted that the storm would veer away from the area today, with rain tapering off and clearing skies by this afternoon.

Although the region has been more than an inch short of its typical 10.15 inches of rain at this point in the season, “this storm could catch you up to near normal,” said Curtis Brach, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc.

The storm dropped 1.19 inches on the Civic Center Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But it swamped other areas, including Ventura and Orange counties, with as much as 5 inches.

In a 7:13 a.m. accident Wednesday, seven El Camino Real High School students and one motorist were taken to hospitals after a multi-vehicle collision on the northbound Hollywood Freeway involving two school buses, an MTA bus and four cars. CHP officers arrested the driver of one Los Angeles Unified School District bus on suspicion of drunk driving.

In an earlier 6:26 a.m. crash, a big-rig truck jack-knifed on the northbound Santa Ana Freeway near Washington Boulevard in the City of Commerce area. The truck cab toppled onto the center divider, causing back-ups in four northbound lanes and in the southbound fast lane until 8:40 a.m.

The CHP reported another accident on the westbound Pomona Freeway in which a car was crushed between two big-rigs. Lund said at least three people were injured and one victim, who was trapped in the car, was pried free and taken by helicopter to County-USC Medical Center.

In Santa Monica, a power outage darkened restaurants and shops at midafternoon Wednesday. Two people were trapped in elevators in two different buildings. But firefighters jimmied open the elevator doors and rescued both people within half an hour, said Roni Roseberg, a Santa Monica Fire Department representative.

On the Irwindale-Monrovia border, public safety workers nervously guarded a 60-by-30-foot sinkhole, opened in Tuesday’s downpour. The hole had swallowed a portable building, a telephone pole and a volatile mix of chemicals, authorities said.

As Wednesday’s drizzle and run-off continued to eat at the hole, officials examined ways to extract several propane containers, oxygen tanks and the large field office, all owned by a nearby rock company. The office, held up by the still-vertical telephone pole, bore cautionary signs indicating that it also could contain explosive materials.

Times staff writer Abigail Goldman and correspondents Mary Moore in Los Angeles, John Cox in Long Beach and Jeffrey McDonald in Ventura County contributed to this story.