Anaheim Hills Bears the Brunt of Storm’s Wrath

One in a series of winter storms drenched Orange County on Monday, spawning strong winds that felled trees and damaged 25 homes and at least two vehicles in Anaheim Hills, officials and witnesses said.

The wind, which some residents described as a tornado, blew over a pickup truck on the Riverside Freeway and a van parked on a nearby residential street. It also drove a large tree into the living room of a house on Manti Drive, said Bret Colson, Anaheim city spokesman.

Colson said it was unclear whether the wind was a tornado. The gusts came as a thunderstorm cut through the heart of Orange County, part of a broad band of storm clouds that raked the area with heavy rains and winds exceeding 40 mph.

“We know that it was very strong winds, but we can’t say for sure that it was a funnel cloud,” Colson said. “It was strong enough to do a fair amount of damage.”

Amy Talmadge, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides weather analysis to The Times, said radar images of the area did not indicate the swirling winds associated with a tornado. A highly localized funnel cloud--too small to register--was possible, she said. “It could have just been straight-line winds that the local topography allowed to curve.”

To the south, Orange County fire officials evacuated about 20 residents of the Villa San Juan Mobile Homes in San Juan Capistrano about 1 p.m. over fears that an earthen berm lining an adjacent construction site might collapse.

Vivian Darwin, who has lived in the park for about 20 years, said mud began flowing from the construction site in the early afternoon during a heavy downpour.

“The mud came down my driveway just like a river and covered the street from one side to the other,” Darwin said. “They’re evacuating us for fear that that wall behind us will give way. The majority of people here are seniors, and there are a lot of single women here so it’s frightening.”

Elsewhere, Huntington Beach police closed Pacific Coast Highway from Golden West Street to Warner Avenue on Monday morning after water covered the road. But feared coastal flooding from a combination of high tide and storm surge didn’t materialize.

Health officials recommend that people stay out of the coastal waters for at least three days after a heavy rain, especially in areas where storm drains, creeks and rivers meet the sea. Runoff at those points may contain high levels of bacteria.

The rains and winds knocked out power for several hundred Southern California Edison customers in Huntington Beach and Santa Ana, and contributed to scores of road accidents. But usual rain-related traffic tie-ups were minimized by the Presidents Day holiday, which kept traffic lighter than usual, a California High Patrol dispatcher said.

Today’s weather is expected to be comparatively mild, Talmadge said, with a reduced chance of showers until a second frontal system from the Gulf of Alaska moves through Wednesday or Thursday.

Monday’s rain and scattered thunderstorms, accompanied by temperatures in the low 50s, emanated from unstable air in a low-pressure system that swept over Southern California, Talmadge said. That trough was moving to the east and being replaced by a weak high-pressure ridge that wouldn’t be strong enough to keep the next wave of storms to the north, she said. “On Wednesday it looks like periods of rain again, and another chance on Thursday and Friday,” she said.

Rain fell Monday at a rate of half an inch an hour in some places, the National Weather Service said. Twenty-four hour totals as of 3 p.m. ranged from 0.57 inch in Anaheim to 1.5 inches in Santa Ana.

In Anaheim Hills, though, it was the wind more than the rain that cause trouble.

Resident Frank Gehr said he spotted a funnel cloud and scrambled to get his twin 5-year-old daughters out of harm’s way. “I was worried about getting the two girls into the bathroom, the center of the house,” Gehr said.

The family was unharmed, but a tree crashed through the roof and landed in the living room.

Juli Adams, an administrator with State Farm Insurance, was talking on the phone with a customer when she was startled by a clap of thunder as the skies darkened. Adams jumped up and struggled to keep the door from blowing open as winds swirled through the courtyard outside the Lakeview Avenue office, sending plastic chairs and tables bouncing off the office windows.

“It all just happened so fast,” said Adams, 30, of Paramount. “The wind whipped around. There are tree branches everywhere . . . I’m a born-and-raised Californian so this is like a major deal for me. It’s pretty exciting. Thank goodness nobody was injured.”

Richard Johnstone, 78, who lives in a small residential neighborhood behind the State Farm office, was drawn to his front window by the sound of the sudden winds.

“Some pretty good-sized limbs were walking down the street in front of my house,” said Johnstone, a retired contractor. “There are a lot of eucalyptus trees and some of those limbs are in my backyard now. I’ve got some dwarf citrus trees and they’ve got some big eucalyptus branches on them now. I hope they aren’t completely demolished.”

Times correspondent Tami Min contributed to this report.

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Wet and Wild

Strong winds overturned a vehicle on the Riverside Freeway and damaged structures in an Anaheim neighborhood Monday afternoon.

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Rainfall Inches Santa Ana, as of 3 p.m. Monday 1.50 Season total (since July 1) 4.76 Last season (July 1 to date) 4.87 Season normal (July 1 to date) 8.60

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Sources: WeatherData Inc, Times reports