Flash-Flood Watch Has Residents Eyeing Hillsides

Like many residents of San Bernardino’s foothill neighborhoods, Al Arce spent Monday afternoon looking nervously at the leaden sky, waiting for the first drops of the year’s first major rainstorm.

At 3 p.m., before the skies opened, he was in a neighborhood park near his Del Rosa-area home, shoveling county-provided sand into 15 sandbags.

“I’m tired already,” said Arce, 78. “And I have four more to do.”

San Bernardino County officials issued a 24-hour flash-flood watch for residents living below the 32-mile stretch of mountainside and canyons left barren by last autumn’s wildfires.

The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch and a winter storm warning for a swath of Southern California, from Ventura County to the San Bernardino Mountains, with a possibility of thunderstorms and hail. Residents living near hills scorched by the October wildfires were warned that their areas were the most at risk.

By 11 p.m., about an inch of rain had fallen in Lytle Creek and Devore in San Bernardino County, with about a third to a half of an inch elsewhere in the region.

Snow was falling in the mountains and blowing through the Cajon Pass, although Interstate 15 through the pass remained open. Interstate 58 was closed from Bakersfield to Mojave because of snow.

In Rancho Cucamonga, a tour bus and big rig collided in the rain on the southbound 215 Freeway just before 10 p.m., injuring 12 people, the California Highway Patrol said. The extent of their injuries wasn’t immediately known.

The snow level was expected to drop to about 4,000 feet before dawn today, low enough to snarl traffic on Interstate 15 and Interstate 5 near Gorman. Motorists planning to use local roads above 4,000 feet in the Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains were advised to bring tire chains.

Forecasters said up to three inches of rain could fall on some fire-denuded slopes by this afternoon, with about an inch to an inch and a half expected in most foothill areas.

David Wert, a San Bernardino County spokesman, said the Waterman Canyon and Devore areas, where 15 people were killed in two separate Christmas Day flash floods, were under close watch.

But he stressed that the unpredictable nature of mountain storms meant that other areas, including communities below the San Gabriel Mountains west of Interstate 15, were equally at risk.

Sheriff’s deputies said they were prepared to evacuate residents, but would not issue the order until they knew where the heaviest rains were falling.

“We’re looking at the sky like anyone else,” said Chip Patterson, a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

In the tiny Lytle Creek community of Tally’s, Marion Kamberg and a small group of residents decided to organize their own early warning system and take turns watching the creek water rise.

“We’re all just nervously waiting to see what happens next,” said Kamberg, 67, who stacked a line of sandbags between the creek and her modest wood-frame home Monday afternoon.

Like her neighbors, she said, Kamberg also stockpiled firewood, groceries and an 18-pound sack of cat food for her six cats.

“I can see everyone coming up the canyon with extra wood,” she said.

In Devore, an eight-man crew from the San Bernardino County Jail packed almost a ton of sand into bags outside the fire station Monday afternoon.

Capt. Jon McLinn, who was supervising the crew, said the men packed about 12,000 bags after the December floods, and they have all been carried away.

“So it looks like people in the area have been preparing,” he said.

Fire Capt. David Herrera said he expected an evening rush on the pile of sandbags stacked behind the station as residents returned home from work and the rain began to fall.

“They’ve told people to prepare for the worst,” he said, peering at the clouds.

“Hopefully this time they’ll listen.”

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this report.