Holiday Weekend Has a Happy Ending

Orange County travelers who plucked up the courage to confront traffic on the final day of the long Thanksgiving weekend encountered a welcome surprise Sunday: a smooth ride home.

Despite predictions of horrific jams and delayed flights, traffic on the region’s freeways and at local airports was unusually light for most of the day, picking up only in the evening as the holiday weekend came to a close.

Border Patrol officers at the San Clemente checkpoint halted stops in the afternoon, giving motorists a clear run home on the San Diego Freeway.

Commuter distress calls to Orange County’s California Highway Patrol dispatch center were down about a quarter. And police officers ready for fender-bender calls to pour in had little to do.

“It’s been a shock,” Tustin Police Lt. Christine George said. “We’ve been waiting here expecting the big one, but it just hasn’t happened. Instead, we’re dealing with kids making 911 calls and shoplifters. Go figure.”

The uneventful finale to the holiday weekend capped an otherwise busy five days for traffic officials. On Sunday, many of the commuters who helped make Wednesday a record day for John Wayne Airport flew home, leaving a crush of travelers in the airport’s baggage handling area.

“It’s been pretty hectic,” airport spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen said.

But the thousands of turkey-weary travelers experienced few flight delays, Nguyen said, and an additional 2,000 parking spaces helped ease the stress of this year’s holiday commute. Figures will be released today indicating whether the number of passengers increased this year. .

On the roads, the CHP called in every available officer for patrol duty during the holiday, fearing enormous bottlenecks and holiday collisions. Although drivers filled the freeways Thursday, traffic was surprisingly light Sunday.

“It’s actually slow for the end of a holiday weekend,” CHP dispatcher David Dean said, adding that his colleagues had received only 600 calls for assistance by 6:30 p.m., down from last year’s tally of 800 by about the same time.

Those who took to the roads after drinking alcohol encountered hundreds of CHP cruisers scouring the freeways. Drunk driving arrests across the state climbed from 1,256 in 1998 to 1,354 this year, according to the CHP.

One suspected drunk driver was arrested on Sunday in Rosewood in unincorporated Los Angeles County after allegedly crashing into a CHP officer who had made an unrelated traffic stop, sending the officer to hospital with minor injuries, officials said.

Another alleged drunk driver caused a second injury accident in Brea early Sunday. Brea police said Martin Joseph Olveda Jr. of La Habra drove his car the wrong way down Carbon Canyon Road about 1:40 a.m. and struck another vehicle head on.

Elizabeth Mirina Humphries, 18, was rushed to UCI Medical Center, where she was reported to be in fair condition. Olveda was arrested at the scene on suspicion of felony drunken driving, Brea Police Sgt. Jeff Keyworth said.

Olveda and a passenger, Steve Wayne Nemec, 26, of San Clemente, were taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where they were reported in stable condition.

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Times correspondent Ana Cholo-Tipton contributed to this report.