13 Dead in Mexico as Storms Roll South

A series of harsh winter storms gave most state residents a brief break Sunday after hitting Baja California with a vengeance, killing at least 13 people in widespread flash flooding throughout the border area.

The overnight storm hit the cities of Tijuana and Rosarito hardest, forcing the evacuation of 220 people in Tijuana alone. An estimated 500 others were trapped in their homes by flood waters, which had destroyed or damaged at least 300 residences, officials said.

Tijuana Medical Examiner Amado Gallardo said it was uncertain how many of the dead had drowned or died in massive mudslides. “Some of the victims . . . died inside their cars when the vehicles were caught in fast-moving water,” he said.

Meanwhile, wet and weary Southern Californians are expected to get a much-needed reprieve this week as the rains briefly subsided Sunday after causing a new spate of local flooding, power outages and at least two deaths.

The weekend downpour hit hardest in the San Fernando Valley, where one man was killed early Sunday when the car he was in plummeted 60 feet into the rain-swollen waters of a Chatsworth ravine. Two other people survived after scaling the water-soaked side of the ravine.

In Malibu, an ocean-eroded cliff buckled Sunday afternoon, causing one house to collapse and leaving two others dangling precariously, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said. The homes, along Broad Beach Road, were most likely undermined by high tides throughout the weekend until their pilings began to give way about 2 p.m., said Sheriff’s Lt. Greg Sabalone. No one was hurt in the collapse.

The sun made an appearance Sunday, but it was short-lived. By late afternoon, light showers returned to Southern California. Although an additional half-inch of rain was expected Sunday night, forecasters predicted no further showers for Los Angeles at least through Thursday.

“Looks like we’ve seen the worst of it,” said John Sherwin, a meteorologist for Weather Data, a forecasting firm used by The Times. “We’ll have a few days to dry out.”

Before subsiding, the third storm system to wallop California in a week damaged or destroyed 1,430 homes and other structures statewide. Most of the havoc hit Northern California, where six homes skidded down a soggy hillside along the Russian River and others continued to cling to unstable soil, authorities said.

Around Clear Lake, 150 miles north of San Francisco, officials notified 1,000 residents they might be evacuated after waters rose dangerously high and a sewer system overflowed. And for waterlogged Northern California, the worst wasn’t over yet: more rain is expected, starting this afternoon and continuing Tuesday.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Sunday asked for federal assistance and added five counties to a growing list of disaster areas.

Officials estimated that the storms had caused between $275 million and $300 million in damages, a figure they expect to climb.

Though fierce, the storms are typical February fare and are not the result of the much-discussed El Nino effect, said forecaster Sherwin.

“It may be a nightmare,” he said, “but we’re not calling this a El Nino storm. They’re all just part of the wet weather that hits every year around this time.”

Three Girls Swept Away

Nonetheless, the storm had deadly results.

In Tijuana, two sisters and a cousin were among the dead, said Marco Antonio Sanchez Navarro, spokesman for the Tijuana Civil Defense Authority.

Maira Villafuerte Ramirez, 15, and Veronica Villafuerte Ramirez, 13, and their cousin Teresa Solis Ramirez, 13, were in a car driven by the sisters’ father when the vehicle stalled in a flooded section of a highway.

“They were returning to their home in Tecate,” Sanchez said. “The father got out of the car to get some help and when he returned the car had disappeared. A wall of water had pushed the car away and the three young girls drowned. Their bodies were later recovered.”

The father, Paulino Francisco Villafuerte, 32, ran alongside the raging river calling for his children, Sanchez said. The incident happened in the northwest section of the city in an area known as La Presa.

Another victim, Marta Lopez Escobar, 18, was swept away when she stepped outside the front door of her home in the Los Pinos area and drowned, Sanchez said. He said the woman’s home was built near the bank of a gully that is dry most of the year.

“But this time it was a fast-moving river,” he said.

Civil defense officials said 294 people from 20 neighborhoods throughout Tijuana were evacuated to five shelters.

Tijuana Fire Capt. Marco Antonio Hernandez said cars were tossed around “like toys” in the swift-moving water.

Tijuana is especially vulnerable to flash flooding and mudslides. Over the years, many of the city’s newer residents have built homes on denuded hillsides and around canyons, which become raging torrents during heavy rainstorms.

Most of the newly built homes are nothing more than cardboard and tar-paper shacks, home to thousands of families drawn to the border city by employment in the maquiladora industry.

Car Plunges Into Ravine

In Chatsworth, 84-year-old Frank Retz died when the car he was in fell to the bottom of a 60-foot ravine near his secluded home.

Authorities were still investigating whether rain waters washed away a bridge that led to Retz’s home or whether the car’s weight caused the bridge to collapse.

The vehicle, which belonged to Andy and Helen Gattuso, plunged to the bottom of the ravine about 1:30 a.m., authorities said. The Gattusos, both in their 60s, managed to crawl out of the overturned vehicle and climb up the the embankment.

But when the couple reached Retz’s home, the power was out and the telephone was dead, said Capt. Michael McMaster of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Authorities were called six hours later when a man who was on the way to church saw the couple waving their arms for help. “I looked over and saw them standing there, and they definitely looked like they needed help,” said Dan Oran.

Retz was remembered as a colorful character by his neighbors, who said he boasted of being the stuntman atop the horse in the TV series, “Zorro.” He also told neighbors he once physically assaulted Charles Manson, whom he caught trespassing on his property.

In Santa Barbara, the body of a 51-year-old hiker was found Sunday morning, authorities said. He had been hiking in the hills above the city when he apparently slipped and fell into Rattlesnake Creek.

“He was hiking and slipped into what would normally be a non-creek and is now a major river,” said Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Robert Deal.

The storm dropped more than an inch of rain in the Los Angeles area overnight. San Francisco received nearly an inch of rain in the same period, according to the National Weather Service.

The rain caused widespread power outages and contributed to hundreds of traffic accidents, officials said.

In a dramatic helicopter rescue early Sunday, two men were plucked from the top of a pickup truck bobbing in rising water near the Antelope Valley.

The men were on California 138 at 1 a.m. when the truck began to float away in rising water. The L.A. County Fire Department’s Swift Water Rescue Team dispatched a helicopter, which hoisted the two men off the roof of the pickup.

Heavy snows associated with the storm also hampered the search for a 14-year-old snowboarder missing since Saturday in Wrightwood.

The search for Jeff Thornton of Brawley was scaled back Sunday afternoon due to bad weather and was scheduled to be resumed this morning. Thornton was last seen at the Mountain High West ski resort about noon, snowboarding with his 30-year-old uncle.

More Trouble for Mobile Home Park

In Orange County, rain-fed mud slides inundated basements, forced the evacuation of a motel and washed cars down roadways.

The county was struck by an especially heavy late-night deluge that dumped close to 2 inches of rain in nearly two hours, said Orange County Fire Capt. Scott Brown. Particularly hard hit was the Capistrano Shores Mobile Home Park, where surf crested over six seaward homes during the Sunday morning high tide about 7 a.m.

In Huntington Beach, it was deja vu for the residents of the Del Mar Mobile Home Estates Park--who were flooded out in December. Though none of the residents were forced to leave this time, the water levels came dangerously close.

More than a dozen residents took shelter at the park’s clubhouse.

“I waded in water almost to my knees to get out to the clubhouse because I thought we were going to get flooded out,” said resident Lenore Tribble, who suffered $20,000 worth of damage to her trailer two months ago. “It was like a raging river. Trying to walk against that current . . . almost washed me off my feet.”

Along the Los Angeles County coast, high waves forced the closure of the Venice Pier.

As onlookers marveled at the sight of enormous breakers pounding the structure, rangers and lifeguards cruised the beach in their trucks, flashing their lights to warn beachgoers.

Lt. Jim Makuta, a lifeguard with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, called the waves some of the biggest he has seen in 28 years.

In Encino, the storm felled a 1,000-year-old oak tree considered the community’s symbol. To some it was like the death of an old friend, and on Sunday scores of mourners came to Ventura Boulevard for a glimpse of the seven-story high Lang Oak.

At Clear Lake, officials said water at the state’s largest natural lake rose sharply Sunday afternoon and a sewage system serving 500 homes overflowed. Twelve residents were evacuated.

“We’re taking advantage of a break in the weather to relocate people,” said Wilda Shock, an official of Lake County.

Despite the widespread devastation, officials said the state’s infrastructure has held up surprisingly well under its most recent pounding.

“Luckily, we’ve gotten some respite between storms that has given us time to assess weakest links,” said Carl DeWing, a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services. “We got the sandbags and what-not to the roads and other areas that needed it most. Keep your fingers crossed, we’ve been fortunate so far.”

Wilson wrote President Clinton asking that 27 California counties be designated as federal disaster areas.

The list covers much of Northern California, with only three counties--San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura--in the south. The five additions to the list Sunday were the counties of Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Sutter and San Luis Obispo.

Wilson praised emergency workers for sticking their finger in the storm dike and preventing further damage.

“In a way, this is a vindication,” Wilson said as he toured a Sacramento levee. “The state has been preparing for months. . . . The coordination of these government facilities, I think, has demonstrated a system that works.”

In all, officials reported nearly 8,000 state personnel involved in the storm response, most from Caltrans. The number includes about 325 National Guard troops activated by the governor.

Wilson estimated in his letter to Clinton that the American Red Cross has opened 51 shelters statewide with an estimated population of 1,600 evacuees.

Richard Andrews, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said the greatest fear is about what is yet to come.

Even if there are only moderate levels of continued rain--as is forecast--Andrews said officials are concerned that rivers will run high for weeks, slowly eroding vital levees.

“The real danger is in the long term,” he said. “This is a scenario like 1982 and ’83. One of the problems we are concerned about is sustained flows on the rivers for a long period of time.”

In Los Angeles, when the rains paused briefly Sunday, some local denizens went to the beach.

With the sun peeking through scattered silver clouds and the temperature at a balmy 65 degrees, families and weekend volleyball warriors gathered at Manhattan Beach and welcomed some respite from the rain.

“We wanted to get out of the house,” said John Pujol, with wife and children, enjoying lunch on the pier, which just the night before had been closed due to the weather.

“We were praying for some sunshine,” Pujol said.

Times staff writers Scott Glover, Robert Lopez, Lorenza Munoz, Peter Warren, Daniel Yi and Evelyn Larrubia contributed to this story.

* MIGHTY OAK FELLED: A 1,000-year-old Encino tree couldn’t stand up to storm. B1