New Storms Lash Orange County--More Rain on Way

A much-dreaded series of winter storms continued to slam the Southland on Friday as fast but furious blasts of rain swamped freeways, ripped open a giant sinkhole in Pacific Palisades, washed millions of gallons of raw sewage onto beaches and tossed waves against hundreds of homes in Ventura County.

In Los Angeles, mud crashed into the first floor of an apartment building in the Westlake area after the storm toppled a 15-foot retaining wall. Inspectors declared the entire building unsafe and evacuated more than 100 residents.

“The mud just came tumbling down,” said Red Cross worker Brad Jerzykowski, who was helping with the relief efforts.

Other disasters, large and small, hit every corner of the Southland:

Untreated sewage coursed down streets in Marina del Ray. In rural areas, fields of celery, broccoli and cauliflower morphed into ugly brown lakes. Power flickered--and fizzled--in tens of thousands of homes.

Traffic stalled for miles on key arteries as water swept across Pacific Coast Highway and the Ventura, Harbor and Santa Ana freeways. And the freeways that remained open were not much better: Five separate accidents involved a total of more than 50 cars on the Ventura Freeway in the San Fernando Valley during the evening rush hour, creating a jam that one California Highway Patrol officer described simply as “horrendous.”

Warning of “conditions of extreme peril,” Gov. Pete Wilson declared a state of emergency in 12 more counties, including Santa Barbara. All told, emergency conditions have been declared in 22 counties during this week’s storms, which have damaged or destroyed 1,111 residences and 150 other buildings, state officials said.

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In Orange County, torrential rains and powerful winds inundated extensive sections in the central region, knocked out electrical power to about 7,000 customers and caused a mudslide that crushed two cars in Newport Beach. Heaviest hit was Irvine, where nearly 3 inches rain fell in an hour, forcing the closure of three major intersections on Culver Drive and flooding sections of Turtle Rock.

Rising waters throughout Newport Beach slowed traffic and closed low-lying intersections, and police and fire units were darting across the soaked city to dozens of crashes, downed trees and signs and other rain-related chaos.

The Huntington Beach police station suffered minor flooding.

“We got 2 inches in the jail and training areas,” said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Luis Ochoa. “We first had to clear the drains, and then used Fire Department vacuums to slowly siphon the water out of the station’s lower level. Now we’re sandbagging the building.”

Although no injuries were reported, an Orange County Fire Authority helicopter did pluck a resident trapped at her Bommer Canyon home when the road washed out and flood waters kept rising. And the county Harbor Patrol rescued another person from the Upper Newport Bay.

Balboa and Aliso piers were closed but expected to reopen today.

Dozens of flooded roadways were closed, including MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach, Laguna Canyon Road from the San Diego Freeway into Laguna Beach, Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach and all lanes from the San Diego Freeway to El Toro Road. Backbay Drive in Newport will remain closed indefinitely.

State officials also blame the fierce weather for at least four deaths this week.

A fifth possible storm-related death occurred Friday night when a woman suspected of stealing a car apparently tried to elude police by jumping into the Los Angeles River from an overpass near Paramount, authorities said. A body thought to be that of the unidentified woman was later pulled from the river seven miles downstream. A male companion who also tried to escape in the river was rescued before the raging current could carry him away and was in police custody.

Elsewhere, there were several close calls: In San Bernardino County, a 26-year-old man who jumped into a flood control channel to save his dog was rescued by firefighters--but only after the roiling water swept him seven miles downstream. The rescue team also had to save a firefighter who landed in the channel while trying to help the dog owner stay afloat.

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Rescue crews also sped to action in Ventura County when a car slid off a freeway, careened down a rain-slicked slope and tipped over the edge of the Arroyo Simi flood control channel, anchored only by its back wheels, which snagged on the channel’s edge. Highway Patrol officers and sheriff’s deputies pulled both the car and the uninjured driver to safety.

Although skies in most regions had cleared by late afternoon, the worst is not necessarily over.

Meteorologists predict more rain in Southern California on Sunday, including intense bursts similar to those that bedeviled the region Friday. Fresh snows in the mountains near Los Angeles prompted the National Forest Service to issue avalanche warnings for two hillsides near Mt. Baldy. The slopes, near Manker Flats about three miles north of Mt. Baldy, are popular with sledders.

The weekend looks even worse in Northern California, which came through Friday’s wet weather relatively unscathed but which is due for a pounding when the next storm system hits land.

And soggy Californians can’t even blame El Nino: This was “a typical winter storm, the kind that we have almost every year,” said meteorologist John Sherwin of WeatherData Inc. “And there are two more on the way.”

Before they could focus on the next round of storms, however, Southland residents had to clean up the mess left by Friday’s deluge.

Health officials shut down beaches in Pacific Palisades and Marina del Rey as sewage poured out of manholes unable to handle the torrents of rain.

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A sinkhole the size of a football field developed along Pacific Palisades Drive; authorities said the asphalt crumbled because the overtaxed storm drain system simply couldn’t handle so much rain in such a short time, and water backed up in the street. The rush of water was so strong that it swept more than a dozen parked cars half a mile down the street.

The pavement also buckled along a main road in Thousand Oaks, ripping open a 20-foot sinkhole near Thousand Oaks High School.

In all, Caltrans estimated that the storms have required more than $2.3 million in road repairs this week in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

And there are other frantic repair jobs going on around the state.

One of the Southland’s most urgent was in Thousand Oaks, where crews struggled to repair a burst pipe at a waste water treatment plant. At 5 a.m. Friday, they thought they had it fixed--but 90 minutes later, rain washed it out again, spilling more raw sewage into the Arroyo Canal and ultimately into the ocean.

With prospects for repair uncertain, officials said that human waste could continue to gush toward the ocean at the rate of 6 million gallons a day through the middle of next week.

“It’s basically time to pray and ask God to let up a bit,” City Councilwoman Judy Lazar said after hearing the grim prognosis.

Perhaps the most dramatic scenes of the day played out in Camarillo, a bedroom community checkered with farmland at the foot of the Conejo Grade.

There, at least 3 inches of water filled most of the Civic Center. An elderly couple had to be rescued by boat from their trailer park. And in a condominium complex half a mile from City Hall, 38-year-old Tom Farrell woke up to an unusual noise: the crash of waves against his building.

“It just happened real fast,” Farrell said. “I looked out my window and saw a wall of water coming down my back drive.”

Mud and muck were everywhere in Southern California

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A shopping mall in Goleta, in Santa Barbara County, was inundated when a nearby creek overflowed. More than 50 farm workers had to be evacuated from their homes in the same town when a nearby lake topped its dam.

Rainfall totals for the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Friday included 3 inches at Thousand Oaks, 2.27 inches at Westwood, 2.20 at Pasadena, 2.01 at Chatsworth, 1.96 at Van Nuys, 1.73 at Montebello, 1.71 at the Los Angeles Civic Center and 1.14 in Redondo Beach.

The storm cut electric power to more than 108,000 customers from Stockton to Laguna Beach, keeping repair crews from three power companies busy.

The outages lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to several hours--with thousands still left without electricity late Friday, said officials from PG & E, Southern California Edison and DWP.

As rain swamped low-lying fields on the Oxnard Plain, the Ventura County agricultural commissioner pegged the local damage toll at about $5.5 million.

Around the state, vegetable and strawberry crops suffered damage totaling about $15 million, according to the California Farm Bureau.

While those figures sound alarming--and represent serious losses to some growers--they are small change compared with the toll from last year’s flooding, which was estimated at $297 million statewide.

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About 1,600 people remained in shelters in Northern California on Friday night, most of them in Watsonville, where the Pajaro River spilled its banks and threatened to lap toward homes. As of late Friday, about 3,500 people had been evacuated from their homes.

And more evacuations seemed likely.

In Daly City, for example, just south of San Francisco, seven homes clung precariously to the rain-soaked landfill they were built on in the 1960s.

Earlier this week, wind and rain ate away 30 feet of the cliff, threatening the homes above Avalon Canyon. “The condition of the canyon is extremely unstable and extremely unsafe,” Assistant City Manager Pat Martel said. “If these rains continue, it is anyone’s guess what is going to happen.”

In Guerneville, the Russian River turned out to be much tamer than predicted. It is expected to crest about 4 feet above flood stage, but that’s nothing to residents who were expecting their town to be all but underwater by this morning.

But one in Guerneville was ready to declare victory over the storms.

“We lucked out--pure luck--this week and this season,” antiques store owner Wayne Skala said. “But it’s still raining,” he acknowledged as the drops slid down his yellow slicker. Until it stops, he added, expressing a view that Californians everywhere are beginning to agree with, “all bets are off.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Maria L. La Ganga, Geoff Boucher, Davan Maharaj, Janet Wilson, Scott Martelle, Mary Curtius, Miguel Bustillo, Kate Folmar, Eric Malnic, Carl Ingram, Tom Gorman, Mark Arax, Wendy Miller, Ralph Frammolino, Bettina Boxall, Scott Hadly, Chris Chi, Tracy Wilson, Ken Ellingwood and Douglas P. Shuit and correspondents Lisa Addison, Claire Vitucci, Michael Krikorian, Julia Scheeres, Nick Green, Coll Metcalfe, Dawn Hobbs and Deborah Belgum.

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