More Rain, More Flooding, More Snow

Another cold, blustery Pacific storm slammed into California on Thursday, triggering renewed flooding in the northern part and threatening to unleash more destructive landslides in the Los Angeles area.

The rains was intensifying Thursday night in California’s coastal valleys, and there was heavy snowfall in the mountains.

Snow fell in the High Sierra throughout Thursday, and officials said the snow level was expected to dip as low as 3,500 feet in the Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains of Southern California. Chains were required on most major routes through the Sierra--including Interstate 80 through the Donner Pass--by midday Thursday.

Forecasters said that as the brunt of the storm moves south, the snow probably would cause problems on Interstate 5 through the Tejon Pass near Gorman and Interstate 10 through the Cajon Pass north of San Bernardino, both of which peak at well above 4,000 feet.

Rain began hammering Northern California’s coastal valleys early Thursday. Two inches fell on the already soggy city of Petaluma by midafternoon, and the Petaluma River overflowed, flooding streets and forcing the evacuation of 190 homes.

In the Sonoma County town of Rio Nido, 140 homes remained empty, threatened by a mudslide. In nearby Guerneville, officials predicted that the Russian River would crest near the flood stage by sometime today. The level of Clear Lake, north of Santa Rosa, was expected to top the flood level by more than two feet by this afternoon.

Traffic accidents soared--to almost 400--in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area between daybreak and noon Thursday as windblown rain turned the morning commute into a nightmare. Traffic across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was backed up for miles.

In San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, emergency crews labored throughout the day in the community of La Honda to divert runoff from nine homes threatened by a mudslide. Three houses were tagged as uninhabitable, and officials said more would probably join the list.

The main body of the storm did not reach Southern California until nightfall Thursday, sparing the Southland’s evening commuters the sort of tie-ups that had plagued San Francisco’s morning rush hour.

In Hollywood Thursday night, firefighters evacuated a 16-unit apartment building in the 5900 block of Carlton Way after a wall of the structure began to buckle from rain damage. No injuries were reported.

Meteorologist John Sherwinsaid as much as an inch of rain could fall at the Los Angeles Civic Center by dawn today, with about twice that much in some of the outlying communities.

“The ground is pretty well saturated by now,” said Sherwin, who works for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “It can still soak up about the first quarter-inch of rainfall, but after that, there’ll be a lot of runoff. There could be some more mudslides, especially in areas like the San Fernando Valley, where there already have been problems.”

Sherwin said skies over Los Angeles will begin to clear by this afternoon, with some sunny skies likely Saturday morning. But the clouds will roll back in Saturday night, he said, as yet another storm--the fourth, and maybe the last, in a series--approaches Southern California.

“The rain will start again Sunday morning,” Sherwin said. “It’ll last through Sunday evening. There could even be a few showers on Monday morning.”

After that, he said, the storm track that has been funneling wet, windy weather into the Southland for more than a week could shift a bit, with Pacific storms moving farther to the north, even bypassing much of Northern California.

“It looks a lot better, at least through Wednesday,” Sherwin said. “Southern California may see some dry weather for a while.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.