It’s That Time of Year: Season’s 1st Storm Hits

It was a potentially catastrophic combination: rain, kids and a parade.

Santa Claus, accompanied by U.S. Marines and others participating in the Toys for Tots event, eventually triumphed over Mother Nature--at least long enough to complete the caravan through the Irvine Spectrum after a 90-minute delay.

But sponsors of the event, part of a program to provide a Christmas for up to 200,000 Orange County kids, were forced to postpone the program’s formal kickoff till next week. The event will be next Sunday at Traveland USA’s 38-acre Irvine site.

“Our main thing is: Bring a toy. Bring a toy. Bring a toy,” said Debbie Farwell of Traveland, one of several sponsors of the program administered by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Likewise, people around Southern California were forced out of their yards and off their bike paths to points inside Saturday.

The source of all the consternation was the first major winter storm of the season, a Pacific drencher that sloshed through Southern California early Saturday and showered Orange County with up to a half-inch of rain.

The gloom will lift somewhat today, but clouds are expected to return Monday as another storm front heads toward Northern California, said meteorologist Guy Pearson of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times. That storm system could bring rain to Southern California by Tuesday.

Rainfall on Saturday ranged from 0.1 inches at El Toro to 0.48 inches at San Juan Capistrano. There was 0.24 inches through 6 p.m. at Newport Beach and about 0.31 inches at Santa Ana. Mt. Wilson in Los Angeles County had about 2 inches, the most in the region.

Hundreds of people took to the mountains to enjoy fresh snow. They made snowmen and threw snowballs along the Angeles Crest Highway in the Angeles National Forest. Some lowlanders filled truck beds full of snow to haul back down to the basin.

“It’s just beautiful up here,” said Hayle Holland, general manager of Newcomb’s Ranch restaurant near Mt. Waterman, where about 3 inches of snow had fallen by nightfall Saturday.

On the beaches, cold temperatures and high winds kept all but the hardy--or foolish--well out of the water.

“The water’s stormy and bumpy and cold and choppy, but people are still out there,” said Huntington Beach Marine Safety Officer Mike Bartlett.

Conditions were not good, according to some surfers.

“The water’s brown and choppy and cold,” said Brad Keitzman, a ranger at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point. “There’s no real shape to the waves. It’s a good day to go home and put a log on the fire.”

Orange County Environmental Health Division officials issued a beach advisory because of potentially high levels of bacteria in ocean and bay waters.

Rain also caused the usual rash of fender benders on Orange County freeways.

“We’ve got accidents on the 5, the 91, the 55, the 57--basically, every freeway,” said a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol. “But they’re mostly all minor, luckily.”

In Brea, a traffic fatality was reported on Friday night, but it did not appear to be weather-related. Mike D. Lesbirel, 36, of Yorba Linda died after his car traveled erratically along Imperial Highway and Valencia Avenue in Brea, went off the road, spun sideways and hit a fire hydrant.

Police said Lesbirel appeared to be ill and went into an apparent seizure following the mishap. He was taken to the Placentia Linda Community Hospital, where he died. The cause of death and the accident were still being investigated Saturday.

In Los Angeles County, one person died early Saturday in a single-car accident on Interstate 5, and another was killed in a two-car accident Saturday afternoon in Santa Clarita.