For Travelers, Day Was Easy Going

Bracing for the worst, many holiday travelers were pleasantly surprised Wednesday as freeway traffic moved more smoothly than expected and huge airport crowds failed to materialize on what is billed as the busiest travel day of the year.

However, high winds played havoc with drivers early in the morning, and downed trees and other objects caused several serious accidents.

Apparently, drivers began leaving town earlier than usual for the long Thanksgiving weekend, spreading the congestion over two days rather than one jammed afternoon.

Freeways started getting crowded as early as Tuesday night, said Angel Johnson, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol. “We had the pre-Thanksgiving rush a day early,” she said. “We could hardly believe it.”

Still, Johnson said, traffic on the Riverside and Santa Ana freeways was reduced to a crawl Wednesday until late evening. Exacerbating the problem were a number of unprepared motorists who had mechanical breakdowns, ran out of gas or were simply lost, she said.

The CHP expects heavy traffic to reappear about 2 p.m. Sunday.

At John Wayne Airport, travelers anticipating long, exasperating lines were stunned to find ticket agents ready and waiting.

“Where are the crowds? Where’s the three-hour wait?” wondered Patty Baldi, as she looked down from the airport departure lounge to a nearly empty baggage claim area below.

Baldi took every precaution to reach the airport on time, leaving her Fullerton home by taxi at 4 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. flight to Reno. She ended up with three hours to kill.

“We ate at McDonald’s. We walked. We’ve been talking,” she said at 6:30, as daughter-in-law Kristie Baldi nodded. “I don’t know what we’ll do now.”

Frank Miranda, a security guard for Northwest Airlines who has worked at the airport for more than a decade, said Wednesday’s crowd was the thinnest he had seen on a Thanksgiving weekend. “Usually, we’ve got people all over the place,” he said, gesturing to an empty walkway.

Miranda attributed the drop-off to two things: clear weather in the East, which kept flights running smoothly, and the lack of a major holiday fare war.

The day began with wind gusts recorded at up to 89 mph, which uprooted trees and blew down power lines, causing several serious accidents. One of the most dramatic happened about 3 a.m., when a 70-foot steel beam fell from a San Diego Freeway overpass onto the northbound lanes near Bake Parkway in Irvine.

A driver and two passengers were injured when their car struck the fallen beam, CHP Officer Keith Thornhill said.

Hours earlier, a driver had run into a fallen tree at Irvine Boulevard and Parker in Irvine and suffered minor injuries, police said. Another tree later fell on top of a parked car in the same city.

Police and fire authorities reported that several homes in Anaheim Hills, Cowan Heights and Lemon Heights were slightly damaged when toppled trees struck the roofs. And at least one small fire was started in the early morning when winds blew down a transformer in Anaheim Hills.

About 100 firefighters aided by a water-dropping helicopter were able to put out the fire in about an hour, said Capt. Scott Brown, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman.

The Orange County Fire Authority kept two helicopters on standby for most of Wednesday and were prepared to send at least one extra fire engine to every structure fire, Brown said. The extra precaution began Tuesday evening when the winds, caused by a combination of an upper-level storm and a high-pressure front, entered the county and began creating havoc.

Wednesday’s gusts caused no serious injuries or damages, police and fire officials said.

However, more than 12,000 customers lost their electricity for a few hours from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning. Most had their power restored by noon, company officials said. Cities affected by the power outages include Santa Ana, Orange, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Fountain Valley.

The good news: “It will be calm on Thanksgiving Day,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “We’ll have more gusty northerly winds by Friday, but it won’t be as bad as this.”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Thao Hua and Martin Miller.