Storm Leaves Death, Debris

Up to 7 inches of rain lashed the valleys and fire-denuded hillsides of Southern California, triggering scores of mudslides, knocking out power and apparently causing the death of a motorist whose body was found in a runoff channel, before the most powerful storm of the winter moved east Thursday.

Runoff flooded dozens of intersections in low-lying areas and rock slides blocked scores of roads, most of them below hillsides stripped bare in last fall’s wildfires. The ceiling of a commercial building in Pomona collapsed, and a roof leak at Eagle Rock Junior-Senior High School left 2 inches of water standing in a classroom.

About 80,000 customers in Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties lost electrical power temporarily because of equipment failures related to the storm, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison Co. said. In most cases, service was restored by midday Thursday.

The California Highway Patrol said it fielded more than 500 traffic accident calls during the night, more than three times the normal number.

The motorist who died, Matthew Christopher Dodge, 25, of Signal Hill, apparently was killed when his car skidded out of control on a San Diego Freeway onramp during a downpour and plunged into a rain-swollen flood control channel in Irvine about 5:30 a.m., the California Highway Patrol said.

The car ended up about a quarter mile downstream, lodged against a concrete pillar. Dodge’s body was recovered half a mile farther downstream when the floodwaters began to recede about three hours later, officials said.

Flooding closed about a dozen roads in Orange County, including a stretch of Laguna Canyon Road between the San Joaquin Hills Toll Road and the San Diego Freeway. All had reopened by afternoon. Wind gusts toppled several trees.

In the Lytle Creek Canyon area of San Bernardino County, ravaged by wildfires in the fall and mudslides in December, sheets of mud and rivers of rock flowed across sections of the twisting, two-lane mountain road before dawn, washing out numerous stretches. An occasional boulder toppled from a steep cliff face and planted itself in the middle of a lane.

Debra King, 49, moved to Lytle Creek from Harrisburg, Pa., with her husband, Charles, and their two dogs last February, and “it’s been nothing but trouble since,” she said. “Fires, mudslides, we’ve seen it all. I want to go back to Pennsylvania.”

On Thursday morning, her small Toyota made it down six miles of rocky road before the muffler fell off and she gave up trying to get to work at a computer company. The road was expected to remain closed to through traffic through this afternoon, according to county spokesman David Wert.

Residents had been advised to evacuate Wednesday afternoon, but for the most part they stayed put, figuring that if they’d made it that far, they’d last another round.

“We’ve lasted through the fire, and we’ve lasted through the floods, so unless we have an earthquake, I think we’re going to make it,” said Debra Hughes, owner of the Bonita Ranch Campground.

In the tiny nearby community of Scotland, half a dozen residents shoveled a foot of mud from the middle of the road, using it to fill and tamp down a waist-deep sinkhole that opened up overnight.

In Ventura County, mudslides blocked at least a dozen roads near Ojai and below the burn areas that rim the Santa Clara River valley, but most of the mess was cleaned up by midday. Intersection flooding was generally minor, and no major damage was reported.

“In a global sense, we did pretty good,” said Jayne Laber, the county’s senior hydrologist. “The Piru burn area had some runoff and we got a little bit of runoff in the non-burned areas, but it was not real significant.”

The storm swept through the northern half of the state before reaching Southern California, generating waves up to 35 feet high along the coast between the Bay Area and Point Conception. Heavy surf washed into the streets of several seaside towns, but there were no reports of major damage.

Winds downed power poles at more than 600 locations in Northern and Central California, and almost 500,000 customers lost power between the Oregon border and Bakersfield. Service was restored, except in some rural communities, by nightfall Thursday.

Street crews spent the day cleaning up in Sacramento, where winds downed more than 150 trees. An 85-foot elm crashed through the roof of a Victorian home, briefly trapping a 66-year-old woman. She escaped serious injury, officials said.

Heavy snow fell in the Sierra, and drivers were required to use chains on the trans-Sierra highways that remained open. As much as 4 1/2 feet was added to the Sierra snowpack, which provides much of the state’s water supply.

In Southern California, 7.23 inches of rain fell at the Thompson Creek Dam in the San Gabriel Mountains during the storm. Other top readings included 6.1 inches at Matilija Dam in rural Ventura County; 5.91 at the top of the San Marcos Pass in Santa Barbara County; 5.07 in Pasadena; 3.64 in Altadena; and 2.91 in Glendora.

The storm total in downtown Los Angeles was 2.85 inches, raising the total for the rainy season, which runs from July 1 through June 30, to 8.02 inches. The normal total for the date is 10.54 inches.

The National Weather Service said skies should be mostly cloudy across Southern California today, with a slight chance of rain in the coastal valleys and a good chance of snow flurries in the mountains above 4,000 feet. No rain or snow was expected Saturday, but showers could return Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday, forecasters said.

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Wilson reported from San Bernardino County, Tran from Orange County and Malnic from Los Angeles County. Times staff writer Lynne Barnes in Ventura County and Associated Press in San Francisco contributed to this story.