As Storms Go, It Was a Dud, but Drizzle Will Continue

Five days of rain caused a fair share of mischief on San Fernando Valley roads and sparked short-lived power outages but none of the mudslides, flooding or fatal accidents authorities had feared.

Instead, the first real storm of the year was more like “Seattle in Los Angeles,” Gary Ryan, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said of the almost steady drizzle and gloomy skies.

After the initial, surprisingly strong, storm hit Wednesday night, forecasters had predicted that as much as 4 inches of rain would fall on the Southland. But by Sunday afternoon, only 1.37 inches had fallen in Los Angeles and 1.13 inches in the Valley.

“The storm’s coming from the west, so most of the rain coming in gets caught up in the Malibu hills,” Ryan said.

In a hilly area of Malibu Creek State Park, the drizzle caused a hiker to slip off a trail and tumble about 25 feet before he grabbed a tree branch to stop his fall, said Sgt. Phil Morris of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Malibu/Lost Hills station.

Fritz Yaklish, 55, of Crested Butte, Colo., is an experienced hiker, but he lost his traction because of the heavy rain, Morris said.

Yaklish hung onto the branch for more than three hours until a passerby saw him and called 911, using a cellular phone, Morris said. Members of the sheriff’s Malibu Mountain Rescue Team rappelled about 150 feet, harnessed Yaklish with straps and hoisted him to safety by midafternoon. He was uninjured.

Ryan said the rest of the week will be cloudy and drizzly, with no heavy storms expected.

“The ground is wet but not saturated, so we’re not expecting any flooding,” Ryan said.

Although the California Highway Patrol has reported more than 500 injury accidents on freeways since Wednesday, none were fatal and only one--in Newhall--was listed as major.

CHP Officer Rosa Ray said it was the same old story: people driving too fast on wet roads.

“We expect all these accidents to happen, because people don’t listen to us. But actually, it’s business as usual,” Ray said. “After it’s rained a few days, people get better at driving in the rain. But it takes awhile.”

Mudslides will be a concern if rain continues to drench the parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties that have been scorched by brush fires, Ryan said.

Public works employees were on alert over the weekend in Arcadia, Glendale and La Canada Flintridge, where several homes on hillsides were at risk.

Fire stations near affected areas of Los Angeles have been giving up to 25 sandbags to people who request them, said Los Angeles Fire Department officials.

Because the weather hasn’t been too cold, neither furnace fires nor carbon monoxide poisoning--from trying to barbecue indoors--have been reported, Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said.

But the Valley still experienced a number of weather-related snafus.

Two power failures left about 2,600 homes without electricity Saturday, said Winifred Yancy, a Department of Water and Power spokeswoman. Soaked cables in an underground vault area knocked out electricity for about 2,500 customers in Van Nuys. In the West Hills area, winds blew a tree into power lines, affecting about 100 customers, Yancy said.

On Southland beaches, lifeguards warned people to stay out of the water near storm drains because of the health dangers posed by bacteria-laden storm runoff, but even runoff was less than predicted, authorities said.

From San Pedro to Zuma, lifeguards said most people stayed off the beaches and out of the water.

In Hermosa Beach on Sunday morning, about 500 people ran through the rain in the annual Sand and Strand run, but more than 200 other expected runners stayed home, Lifeguard Shannon Davey said.

The rain is much needed by the region, which has received a mere 3.09 inches of rainfall since July, but forecasters say a week of wet weather will not go very far toward bringing up the season’s totals. The area is about 6 inches below normal.

“You’re not going to catch up,” said Wes Etheredge of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

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Times staff writer Caitlin Liu and correspondent Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.