Crazy Quilt of Weather Hits Southland

Mother Nature delivered a full ensemble of mismatched weather to Southern California on Tuesday, clearing the skies above Los Angeles with crisp autumn breezes, teasing the San Bernardino Mountains with snow and dumping torrential rains on its fire-ravaged foothills, unleashing muddy flash floods that swept cars like so many yachts down a quiet neighborhood street in Highland.

The storm, a cold front born in the Gulf of Alaska, also prompted gusty desert winds and high surf.

Four teenage boys hiking in the San Bernardino foothills, including one who injured his hip, were rescued by a sheriff’s helicopter Tuesday morning after finding themselves trapped above a rain-swollen creek.

The storm, which weather experts said could not be blamed on the El Nino phenomenon, apparently contributed to at least three deaths.

Two High Desert men were killed on the downhill Interstate 15 grade near Devore when their pickup truck crashed into the center median during heavy rain about 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, the California Highway Patrol said.

On Monday lifeguards recovered the body of Lane Mitchell, 40, of Lancaster, off Oxnard State Beach in Ventura County. Coast Guard boats and helicopters continued their search for a second man believed to have been on board an 18-foot boat that capsized in heavy seas as the storm moved in Monday.

Swells up to 13 feet high were reported off San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties and 12-foot breakers hammered west-facing beaches from Los Angeles to San Diego.

The storm cell that unloaded over the foothills also brought up to an inch of slushy wet snow to the mountains around Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead. It quickly melted.

The storm front, carried by the jet stream to Southern California, was stronger and colder than expected, creating an unstable atmosphere that caused havoc over the Tehachapis and San Bernardino Mountains, said John Sherwin, a forecaster with WeatherData Inc.

When the front reached the mountains, the unstable air was deflected upward, cooling further until the moisture within it condensed and fell, both as rain and snow.

The heaviest rainfall total was 1.7 inches in Running Springs. Crestline received 0.56 of an inch and Big Bear Lake 0.25 of an inch.

“This is really a typical fall-winter weather pattern, perhaps a little cooler than usual for this time of year,” Sherwin said. “El Nino gets none of the blame.”

While Los Angeles awoke to a pleasant fall chill, residents in the foothill community of Highland, above San Bernardino, were startled by rising water outside their homes and apartments.

“I got up about 5:45 to get the kids ready for school, went to open my bedroom window--and the water outside was almost up to the sill,” said Bekuretsion Beraki as he sloshed across the muddy carpet in his apartment. “Then I saw cars floating by in the parking lot, banging into each other, and I’m thinking, ‘Am I dreaming this? What is this?’ ”

The flooding was sparked by a ferocious predawn downpour on hillsides denuded by last July’s 2,200-acre Hemlock grass fire above Highland.

The runoff, turned gray by ash, carried mud and debris--including tree trunks and limbs--into two storm-runoff channels. At least three different culverts clogged like beaver dams, said Bill Collins, a San Bernardino County field operations chief.

The turbulent runoff spilled charred timber and up to four feet of mud down several miles of suburban streets.

Water and fine silt seeped into about 30 homes, forcing startled residents to quickly stack furniture, stereos and televisions above soppy carpeting.

Worst hit was Date Street in Highland, where a clogged storm drain created a 5-foot-deep lake that flooded cars--including a public utility pickup truck that was only visible by its emergency light bar.

Residents ran outside to try to retrieve cars that began floating down the street.

“It was scary,” said Delores Ornelas, “because it was hardly even raining at the time, and we didn’t know where all the water was coming from, and we didn’t know when it would stop.”

Neighbors pulled vehicles to high ground, even using a rope to tie one car to a fence so it would not again float away.

Gloria Oliver said she was awakened in her second-floor apartment by a man downstairs shouting for help. “I looked out my window for my car--and it wasn’t there,” she said. “A neighbor then pointed down the street and asked if that was my car down there.”

Rick Judson said he awoke to the alarm clock in his apartment and stepped into ankle-deep water. “I first thought a toilet overflowed,” he said. “But no toilet overflows that much.”

He said water outside his unit was waist-high. He handed his daughter to a neighbor and went inside to stack furniture. But the water level rose to about 1 1/2 feet, he said, and he listed his losses: sofa, favorite overstuffed chair, television and stereo speakers.

Up the streets, luckier neighbors talked of how they avoided calamity by a matter of inches, with mud and water inundating their yards and garages but stopping at the front doors.

Joe and Lee Alson shoveled mud three inches deep out of the garage of a home they had recently sold. “Hope we can get through escrow,” Lee Alson said.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Pauline is lurking off the southwest coast of Mexico, with winds of up to 130 mph.

Forecasters said Pauline would probably make landfall near Acapulco and rapidly dissipate in the mountains of southern Mexico.