Rain-Weakened Bridge Disrupts Train Service

Sunshine returned to Southern California on Monday, suspending a barrage of destructive winter storms, but the soggy aftermath gave the beach palaces of Malibu another punch and washed out commuter rail service from the Santa Clarita Valley.

About 3,000 Metrolink passengers were forced to take slow buses to catch trains at the rail station in Sylmar, about 10 miles to the south, to ride into the city. Rail service was halted because rainwater rampaging down Placerita Creek weakened a wooden railroad bridge in Newhall, the worst damage anywhere in the system’s six-county area since the series of storms began last month.

Gathering on the train platform in Santa Clarita, some commuters patiently bided their time.

But not Eric Freed of Lancaster, whose trip had begun in the Antelope Valley.

“I’ve got a client coming to see me about a $100,000 deal!” he shouted.

Usually, Freed said, his train and bus trip goes smoothly.

“Of course not today, the most important day of my career,” he said.

Service was to be restored today over a temporarily repaired wooden bridge, a Metrolink spokesman said. Rail traffic will be suspended again Saturday while a new, permanent concrete and steel bridge is installed at a cost of $350,000.

Amtrak service between Los Angeles and San Francisco was also halted, by rail-bed damage in Ventura County.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles city and county building authorities could not say whether any permits had been issued to build an earthen bridge over a 60-foot ravine in Chatsworth. The rain-saturated bridge on the secluded mountain property in Santa Susana Pass gave way early Sunday morning, plunging a car into the stream at the bottom of the ravine and killing the property owner, Frank Retz, 84.

Officials said the search for records was difficult because the property is located in an area that was unincorporated county land until it was annexed by the city in 1987.

In Malibu, storm-driven surf gnawed at the underpinnings of several luxury beachfront homes in the Broad Beach area, leaving two severely battered and leaning precariously toward the sea.

Earthmoving crews labored throughout the day to save the homes, erecting sandbag walls and placing boulders after the pounding surf swept away a 20-foot section of sea wall.

A daring good Samaritan risked his life to turn off the utilities in one of the partially collapsed homes.

The first floor had already tumbled into the ocean when Randy Nauert scrabbled up a broken tile floor to turn off the electricity. Nauert said that less than a minute after he got out of the house, the second story came crashing down, spilling furniture into the ocean.

“I was like the beef in the sandwich,” he joked later.

For the rest of the region, Monday was a day to clean up, take stock, enjoy the sunshine and look forward to the promise of a few rainless days--at least until Friday.

Forecasters said there appears to be a significant shift in weather patterns that should preclude--at least for a while--the sort of destructive downpours that since Feb. 1 have dropped 5.84 inches of rain at the Civic Center, 7.53 in Pasadena, 8.54 in Westwood, 11.52 in Agoura Hills, 13.18 in Woodland Hills and a staggering 21.59 inches on the San Marcos Pass above Santa Barbara.

Jeff House, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times, said the winter storm track was swinging to the north Monday.

Two new storm systems were headed this way--one poised off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and Northern California; the second several thousand miles to the west, north of Hawaii. House said neither system appears to pack the punch of the storms that hit the West Coast over the weekend.

Because of the shift in the storm track, the first storm probably will bypass Southern California entirely, House said. No rain is expected in the Los Angeles area until the arrival of the second storm toward the end of the week, and what will happen then remains a question.

If the storm track stays north, the rain expected Friday in the Los Angeles area will be light. But House said that if the track swings south again--and there are signs it might--the precipitation could be substantial, although not as strong as last weekend.

Northern California is another story.

Warm temperatures and sunshine brought relief to much of the soggy region Monday, but House said heavy rain from the next storm could fall north of the Bay Area today.

“There will be a break up there on Wednesday,” he said. “But more rain will come on Thursday from the second storm. It’ll get there before it reaches Southern California.”

Richard Andrews, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said damage in California from the recent storms currently is estimated at $275 million to $300 million, and that includes only 22 of the 27 counties affected.

“We expect this figure to rise as we take stock,” Andrews said.

President Clinton has designated all 27 counties as disaster areas, making them eligible for a variety of emergency-relief benefits.

Yesterday morning, the first commuter train from Santa Clarita left the station southbound at 5:30 and made it across Placerita Creek without incident, said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo. But its crew noticed that the surging creek water had affected the bridge’s stability.

After a hasty inspection, railroad inspectors closed the bridge, which lies just a few yards east of an isolated stretch of San Fernando Road dotted with used-car dealerships and warehouses.

“There were some disgruntled riders,” Hidalgo said. “What this meant to the poor commuter is that they were significantly delayed. But their safety comes first.”

Kristine Gubatan, 18, worried about missing classes at nearby Mission College.

“Nobody was saying anything,” she said of the scene in Santa Clarita, where she usually boards the train. “People just kept showing up and then figuring out they had to take the bus.”

By the time commuters headed home in the evening, “We had some people who got a little upset--well, a lot upset,” said Phil Nerkowski, a Metrolink manager, as he directed passengers at the Santa Clarita station.

“It was a beautiful day and I thought, ‘Great, no more rain.’ And now this,” said Cat Galassi of Canyon Country, as she sat aboard a northbound train that had already been delayed half an hour at the Santa Clarita station.

In the death of Frank Retz, a businessman and World War II German Army captain, it could not be determined who built the makeshift bridge that collapsed, or how old it was.

Retz had been cited in the past for dumping dirt illegally on his property as well as dynamiting a boulder unnecessarily, said Dave Keim of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.

Keim said inspectors had chalked up Retz’s strange behavior to his age, calling him “an elderly man just looking for something to do.”

The car in which Retz was a passenger belonged to Helen and Andrew Gattuso, who suffered minor injuries. A friend of the Gattusos who answered the door of their Northridge home Monday said the couple declined to comment about the accident.

The Gattusos had spent Saturday evening with Retz at the Bavarian Haus, a German social club in North Hollywood.

Retz was remembered by friends and neighbors as both a recluse and a colorful character. According to a neighbor, Retz boasted that he was the stuntman for Zorro in the 1950s television series of that name.

However, Roy Clark, a longtime member of the Stuntman’s Assn., said he had never heard of Retz and that Buddy Van Horn, a stuntman and later director, had done that work.

“I think this guy was a bit of a Walter Mitty,” Van Horn said. “He told his friends he did this stuff. Well, he didn’t. I did.”

Times staff writer Carl Ingram in Sacramento and correspondents Julia Scheeres and Allison Cohen contributed to this story.

* TIJUANA FLOODING: Survivors recall the horror of the deadly storm. A18