‘Through the Worst of It’

Waterlogged Orange County residents took advantage of Tuesday’s intermission to clean up and prepare for another in a series of winter storms forecast to bring heavy rain to the area.

Flash-flood watches, a heavy surf advisory and a winter-storm warning were in effect for much of the Southland as the second of three cold, blustery Pacific storms bore down on the region. Forecasters late Tuesday were predicting anywhere from a half inch to two inches of rain scattered across the region today, with as much as a foot of snow expected in the mountains, before the storm tapers off Thursday.

Still more storms are on the way through the weekend, but a meteorologist said the heaviest rainfall may be over.

“You’re through the worst of it,” said Amy Talmadge, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides weather analysis to The Times. “The intensity of the next two storms will be less and less, and things will start tapering off. But it’s not going to taper off into sunshine. You’ve got a while to go before that.”

Even as Orange County residents cleaned up after the holiday weekend drenching, many expressed surprise at the sheer force of wind and rain that flooded streets, toppled trees and spilled raw sewage just hours earlier.

“I’m telling you, it was incredible,” said Jacob Freeman, an Anaheim Hills resident who insists a small tornado ripped a wooden love seat off his front porch Monday. “The rain was not falling down, it was shooting sideways right at you. Sideways. Like a saw of water.”

Even in the Santa Ana Canyon areas, where gusty winds are more or less a way of life, Freeman and others said they were impressed--and a little scared--by Monday’s storm, which dumped more than two inches of rain on some parts of the county. The wind snapped trees in two and blew over a pickup truck on the Riverside Freeway and a van parked on a nearby residential street.

At one point Monday afternoon, a dark, whipping funnel cloud touched down near Nohl Ranch Road in Anaheim Hills. Meteorologists say it was not big enough to register as a tornado on radar images.

But to Pamela Frohreich, who watched the funnel speed along the pass between her cul-de-sac home on Sleepy Meadow Lane and the Riverside Freeway, “It sure looked like one. I mean, this thing really moved. And then it petered out when it ran into the hillside.”

Hardest hit by Monday’s storm was Anaheim--where damage and cleanup costs for city property were estimated at $31,000--and San Juan Capistrano, where three inches of rain fell and 20 residents of a mobile home park were evacuated over mudslide fears. Park residents returned Tuesday.

In other areas, downed power lines and tree limbs posed the most work for cleanup crews Tuesday. Parts of Pacific Coast Highway were closed because of flooding.

Five county parks were closed until officials can assess the flooding along unpaved trails and paths.

Also Tuesday, a half-mile of shoreline was closed in Seal Beach because of a suspected sewage spill, which officials believe was caused by the large volume of rainwater that entered the storm drainage system.

Between 1,000 to 10,000 gallons of raw sewage may have been forced out of a manhole cover near Beach Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue along the border of La Mirada and Buena Park, said Michelle Tuchman, spokeswoman for the Orange County Sanitation District.

The untreated release entered Coyote Creek, flowed into the San Gabriel River and emptied into the Pacific at Seal Beach. A half-mile downstream of the river mouth will be closed for at least three days, said Monica Mazur, spokeswoman for the county’s Health Care Agency.

During any heavy rainfall, Tuchman added, residents are urged to avoid stressing the sewer systems by not doing laundry, which uses an average of 26 gallons per load, and by shortening showers.

Health officials also warned residents that ocean bacteria levels near river mouths and storm drains are especially high, a result of sediment accumulated in creek beds and storm channels that was washed away in Monday’s hard rain.

“Because of all the bacteria coming out, everyone should wait at least three days before going into the water,” said Garry Brown, of the Orange County CoastKeeper. The warning was ignored Tuesday by dozens of surfers in Huntington and Newport beaches, where 6-foot waves proved irresistible. No rescues were reported, lifeguard officials said.

Despite the mess, however, officials called the storm mild compared to the relentless pummeling of El Nino two years ago.

“While [Monday] was wet, everything worked,” said Richard Barnard, a Huntington Beach city spokesman. “It’s not like years past. We don’t have mudslides, things are not overrunning. . . . In 1998, it rained so hard that the pumps in mobile home parks broke. This is nothing like that.”

Echoing that sentiment was Orange County Fire Authority officials, who said the rain prompted them to focus their “ready teams” to prepare for swift-water rescues in rivers and flood channels. Sandbags also are available for those residents who feel they need some extra security, although spokesman Capt. Paul Hunter said the demand so far has been low.

“This weather is a piece of cake compared to El Nino,” Hunter said. “How quickly we forget what we all went through back then.”

Still, residents in the canyon areas of Anaheim said they were taking no chances. Several families near Nohl Ranch Road, where the funnel cloud was spotted, moved patio furniture inside and cleaned out dirty rain gutters to prepare for today’s rainfall. The wet wind is a far cry from the parched Santa Ana winds that funnel through the canyon in late summer and fall, gusts that go hand-in-hand with canyon living.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Frohreich, noting the latest storm managed to bend her neighborhood’s eucalyptus and fig trees like straws. “It was quite a sight.”

Talmadge, the meteorologist, said it was unlikely residents would see another funnel cloud during the last half of this storm system, though. While canyon areas are prone to straight-line winds, twisters or tornadoes can touch down “wherever and whenever the conditions seem right.”

“I doubt these next storms will have enough muscle to worry about that anyway,” Talmadge said.

Anaheim spokesman Bret Colson said the city received moderate damage overall, and that sanitation officials are prepared to hand out sandbags should flooding become a problem today or Thursday. Residents in hilly areas are being reminded to check for potential slope damage, while those in lower areas should look out for swiftly rising water.

“But most residents have already been through bad weather like this before, so everybody pretty much knows what to do,” Colson said. Overall, the city “remained unscathed, which, for a city of 50 square miles, is pretty good.”

Elsewhere, flood advisories for today were broadcast for mountain slopes in Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, with special warnings to residents below hillsides in Arcadia and Ventura County that have been denuded by brush fires, and now saturated from rains.

The weather service said there is a possibility of some local urban and small-stream flooding, and the San Diego River could approach the flood stage in Mission Valley.

The heavy snow and winds gusting as high as 40 mph prompted a winter-storm warning for all of Southern California’s mountains above 5,000 feet.

The approaching storm churned up heavy surf from San Luis Obispo County south to Zuma Beach on Monday and Tuesday. Breakers 15 feet high were reported at Morro Bay, with breakers close to and nearly 10 feet at Point Conception, Zuma and Venice.

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Times staff writer Seema Mehta and correspondents Louise Roug and Young Chang contributed to this report.

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Sifting Through the Debris

Downbursts are often mistaken for tornadoes because of the twister-like damage left in their wake. Both wind formations are associated with thunderstorms, but tornadoes draw air upward while downbursts blast air downward. Meteorologists study the debris paths to determine what type of storm caused the destruction.

Downburst: Cool air drags winds downward

Tornado: Rotating storm draws warm air upward

Source: National Weather Service, USA Today Weather Book

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times